I’ve been an iPhone user for the past 14 years. So here are my top 25 iOS tips,
from the simples to my most advanced:
25. Home-Bar Navigation
25 – if you find yourself constantly going back and forward between apps,
a quicker way to do it is to just swipe left and right on the home-bar.
24. Quick Home-Page Navigation
24 – If you typically have a number of homepages and you want to quickly navigate between them,
you can just slide your finger on these 3 dots right here.
23. Delete in Calculator
23 – In the calculator app, you can actually swipe left, to delete the last digit.
22. Silence Unknown Callers
22 – You all probably know that enabling Do Not Distrub will automatically silence all callers.
You can set it to only silences unknown callers,
but the problem is that Do Not Distrub, will also silence your notifications.
However, if you go to Settings, then Phone and enable Silence Unknown Callers,
calls will be silenced even when you’re not in do not disturb mode.
21. Zoom with One Finger
21 – You can zoom in and out, with just 1 finger,
in maps. Simply double tap and hold. And then you can slide your finger up and down,
to zoom in and out. Perfect for when you’re trying to navigate, but your other hand is full.
20. AppleTV Remote
20 – If you’ve lost your AppleTV remote, you can actually use your iPhone instead.
Just go to Settings, then Control Center and simply add the AppleTV remote to your controls.
Then tap the icon, to get the full AppleTV remote controls, directly on your iPhone.
19. Document Scanning
19 – if you want to quickly scan a document and turn it into a PDF,
go to the notes app, press the camera button and then tap scan documents.
This will automatically scan, crop and covert the document into a PDF,
which you’ll then be able to share.
18. Reading at Night
18 – if you use your iPhone at night, and you always thought that it was way too bright
even on the lowest level, you can actually drop the brightness to a much lower level.
Just go to settings, accessibility,
display & text size and enable Reduce White point. Your eyes will thank you later.
17. Hide Home-Screen Pages
17 – If you have a home-screen with more sensitive
information and you want to hide it, you actually can.
Simply enter jiggle mode and then tap on these dots here.
Then you can check and uncheck home-screen pages, to hide them.
16. Move Multiple Apps
16 – If you’ve been used to moving apps one by 1, there’s a much better way to do it.
Simply enter jiggle mode, hold on an app and then slightly move it around.
Then you can tap on more apps with your other hand,
to move them together. Perfect for populating a home-screen or a new folder.
15. Type to Siri
15 – If you like using Siri but you often find yourself unable to talk to her in public,
you can actually type to her.
Just go to settings, then accessibility, then Siri and enable tap to Siri.
You can still use the “Hey Siri” command to invoke her by voice, but when you hold the side button,
this text box will show up and you’ll be able to chat with her by text too.
Sponsor integration!
14. Haptic Type
14 –I always found typing on an iPhone to be quite difficult, because of the lack of haptic feedback.
Well, there’s actually a way to enable it.
You simply download the Google’s Gboard app, which will replace your default
keyboard with Google’s own version, which does support haptic feedback.
And trust me – it will make typing on an iPhone, a million times better.
13. Multi-Lingual Type
13 – If you’re like me and you often type in multiple languages,
Google’s keyboard is once again the best choice here.
As it will automatically detect the language and even switch mid sentence.
12. AirPods as Hearing Aids
12 – this is a pretty big one.
If you have someone elderly in your family, who needs a hearing aid,
one of the best ones is a pair of AirPods.
Then go to Settings and Control Center and simply add the Hearing control.
The AirPods will now play real time audio, from the iPhone’s microphone. Which means that you can
talk in your iPhone and then adjust the volume of the airpods until your grandpa can hear you.
11. 2-factor Authentication
11 – Most apps today require 2 factor authentication. But
no need to download a separate app anymore, as we now have one that’s built into iOS.
Simply go to Settings, Passwords,
select an account and then you can set up a verification code, straight from there.
10. Advanced Copy & Paste
10 – there is actually an easier way to copy and paste items.
Let’s say that you’re writing a message and you want to send an image from an article.
You can simply hold on the image in the article,
then swipe on the home-bar to go back to messages, and drag it there.
9. Copy Text from Real Life
9 – Let’s say that you have a magazine in front of you and you want to send a quote to your friend.
You could just send them the entire photo, but there’s a better way to do it.
Just open the camera app and tap on this button right here. This will analyse all
text in the image, allowing you to copy it and then paste it to another app. Super useful!
8. LED Notification Light
8 – You know how some older android phones used to have this LED light for notifications?
Well, you can enable this on the iPhone too. Kinda…
If you go to Settings, Accessibility,
Audio/Visual, you can enable the LED Flash for alerts.
So whenever you get some notifications, the Flash would…flash.
It’s more noticeable when your iPhone is on your desk face down,
but it also works when it is face up, especially if you’re in a dimly lit room.
7. Focus Noise
7 – in that same Audio Visual tab, you can enable background sounds.
Once enabled, your iPhone would play some calming sounds to help you focus better.
And you can select between a couple of them, from Rain and Ocean, to even White noise.
6. Secret Menu
6 – Accessing background sounds takes a lot of steps. But there’s actually a secret menu
where you can add some custom controls to.
To activate it, go to accessibility and from Accessibility shortcuts, you can select a number
of useful controls, like Background Sounds and the Reduce White point that I mentioned before.
And once you triple tap the power button, these will show up.
5. Kids Mode
5 – have you ever handed your iPhone to a kid, to play a game and you were always worried about him
exiting that game and messing up some other stuff inside your iPhone.
Well, there’s actually a hidden kids mode.
Simply go to Settings, Accessibility and tap on Guided Access.
Once you’re in an app or game and you triple tap the home button,
you’ll get the option to lock the user into that specific app, using a custom passcode.
4. Double Tap for Camera
4 – Apple still doesn’t let you quickly launch the camera app,
which is something that android phones let you, by usually double tapping on the power button.
Well, there is a way to enable that. Kinda…
In accessibility settings, in Touch, you can enable a back tap.
And you can have different actions, which will activate by you double or triple tapping.
I’ve set mine to double tap to activate the camera and triple tap to activate the tourch.
3. Apple Shortcuts
At number 3 – Apple’s most advanced app is something that most people don’t even know about.
It’s called Shortcuts and you can download it from the App Store if you don’t already have it.
And it lets you create pretty much any type of automation that you can think of.
For example, you can set an automation so that when your iPhone detects that it’s home,
it automatically plays music for you,
dims the lights and automatically messages your friends, to start a gaming session.
2. Custom Icons
At number 2 – did you know that you can have custom icons on the iPhone?
This is done fully through the shortcuts app. All you have to do is
create a new shortcut, to open up an app.
Give it a name, a custom icon which you can select from your photos
and then add it to your homescreen.
1. Personal & Work Pages
And 1 – this is actually my favourite. You can have dedicated home-pages for Work and
for Personal use, that automatically switch based on where you are.
To do this, you first need to create your 2 Personal and Work pages.
Then go to Settings, Focus, select Personal, Home-Screen,
Custom Pages and select which page you want your Personal one to be.
Then go back and tap add schedule or automation. Select location and select your home.
Whenever you get home, you’ll only get shown the Personal page,
with those personal apps that you’ve chosen. You can even mute work app notifications if you want.
And then simply repeat the same process for the Work Page, to have 2 completely separate
home-pages, that automatically activate, when you get home, or to the office.
Oh – and we’ve also launched our Shorts channel,
if you want to see more iOS tips, and more fun videos, in a shorter format.
ZONEofTECH signing out!