It's 2023, and I've spent well over six months using an iPhone.
I'm going to take you through my top six iPhone tricks that you should be using.
Number six: Grayscale
If you've ever found yourself on your phone later than you should be, grayscale can help. It makes
your iPhone much less enticing to look at. To turn it on, go into Settings, search for Color Filters,
select the result, tap Color Filters, then turn them on and select Grayscale.
To make it easier to turn on and off grayscale, go into Settings,
Control Center, and tap the plus button next to Accessibility Shortcuts. You'll
now be able to turn grayscale on and off in Control Center.
Next up at number five: Back tap
You can simply double-tap or triple-tap the back of your iPhone to cause it to
do certain things. Yes, this feature does work with cases.
To set this up, go into Settings, search for AssistiveTouch (one word),
scroll down to Back Tap, and tap it. You have two options: double tap and triple tap.
When you select either one, you can do a lot with this feature,
like opening the Notification Center, turning on the flashlight, opening the camera,
or opening the app switcher. A specific app, and yes, even triggering shortcuts.
Trick number four is the App Library
This feature replaces the pages of apps that iPhone used to force you to scroll through and
makes navigating your phone and finding apps much easier. But I've noticed that a lot of people's
iPhones still have just those pages of app icons. And yes dad, I'm looking at you for this one.
So, here's how to make your iPhone easier to use with App Library:
First, let's get rid of all the apps on your home screen. To do this, go into your home screen and
tap and hold on your wallpaper. Then, tap the dots towards the bottom of the home screen.
Here, you'll see all of your home screen pages. Go ahead and uncheck
all of your home screen pages with just app icons. Once you do that,
you'll have the option to delete these home screen pages by selecting the minus button
at the top left corner of each page. This will just delete those pages, not your apps.
I'd recommend doing that, but in case you ever want to go back to having these pages,
you can just leave them unchecked. I'd recommend keeping only one or two Max home
screen pages that way you only have to swipe one or two times to get to the App Library.
Your iPhone will automatically categorize and surface your most used apps in the
App Library folders. But to quickly get to any app, you can alternatively swipe
down from any home screen or the App Library itself and search for the name of your app.
Now that you've cleaned up your home screen, what exactly are you supposed to put on it if
not apps? That brings us to my number three trick: widgets. Widgets surface
glanceable information from apps as well as your iPhone's operating system. To see
all of the widgets you have available to add on your home screen, just tap and hold anywhere on
the home screen to edit it and then tap the plus button at the top left corner.
You can scroll through all the widgets you can choose from,
like music and podcast player widgets, Maps, calendar, weather, battery status, Find My,
and so many more. And with iOS 17, widgets are now dynamic, allowing you to do things like
check off your grocery list or play and pause media without ever having to open up an app.
Now, here's where the trick really comes in with widgets. You can actually stack them into
what are called Smart Stacks. Your iPhone will try and surface the correct stack at the right
time based on your usage patterns, but they're also really easy to just swipe through as well.
Another widget that's quite useful is Siri Suggestions. You'll notice at the bottom
of my home screen I have eight apps, but these are actually from the Siri Suggestions widget,
which will display eight apps dynamically based on your usage patterns. Overall,
I've found the picks to actually be pretty good here.
Alright, coming in at my number two trick that you should be using on an iPhone: Focus modes.
Focus modes help you reduce distractions from your iPhone by temporarily silencing all notifications
or allowing only specific ones to come through. By default, Apple gives you a few Focus modes to
start with, but you can also create your own custom ones for just about anything.
When you set up a Focus mode, you can choose the people in your contacts you want notifications
from. You can also do the inverse as well by silencing specific contacts, like friends,
while you're in your Work Focus mode. The same thing goes for notifications from specific apps,
so you can mute your Discord server while at work.
You can also link a customized lock screen and home screen for each of your Focus modes. So,
for your Work Focus, you might want a work chat or email widget on your home screen,
while in your Fitness Focus, you might want to
prioritize fitness workout and media apps on your home screen.
The last thing you can set up within a Focus is a Focus filter. These allow you to filter
out certain things from apps on a specific device when a Focus mode is enabled. You can also choose
system filters as well, like turning on and off Low Power Mode during your Fitness Focus.
Now, once you have your Focus mode set up, there are a couple of ways you can
then trigger them. Some pre-built ones, like Fitness and Driving, can automatically turn
on when you start a workout or you're driving. Others, like Sleep, will turn on based on the
sleep schedule that you set up in the Health app. And for other Focus modes, you can just
open the Control Center, tap Focus, and then select what mode you want to manually enable.
And the last great thing about Focus modes is that they're universal. So,
when you turn on Do Not Disturb on your iPhone,
it'll also turn on Do Not Disturb on your other Apple devices like your Mac and Apple Watch.
Alright, and the number one trick that you should be using
on an iPhone in 2023 is the Shortcuts app. Shortcuts is a powerful app built
by Apple that helps you automate different things on your iPhone.
The Shortcuts app has three sections: Shortcuts,
Automations, and Gallery. Automations are a type of shortcut that is activated by
an event rather than by a manual action, which is what shortcuts are triggered by.
One of the more recent things I've used Shortcuts for is programming the new Action
Button found on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. But you can also use Shortcuts
with that back tap and triple-tap gesture that I talked about earlier.
For my Action Button shortcut, I created a shortcut that gets the current Focus status
and Wi-Fi network name. And then, I added some logic to the shortcut to turn on and
off Do Not Disturb when it knows I'm on my home Wi-Fi, and then open up the
camera app to take a photo when the phone is not connected to my home Wi-Fi network.
Another thing I've used Shortcuts for is solving issues. For example, when I put my Sony earbuds in
and connect my iPhone, they always seem to set the iPhone's media volume to 50%, which is too loud.
With Shortcuts, I could just easily get around the issue. I created a very simple automation for when
my iPhone 15 Pro Max is connected to my WF-1000XM5 earbuds, the media volume is set to 25%.
There are so many things you can do with Shortcuts, and way more advanced stuff than
what I just showed you. You can generate a music quiz from your Apple Music library, create memes,
QR codes, and gifts, automatically share your ETA with loved ones, remove a background from
a portrait photo, shorten a URL, and so much more. You can get some inspiration
and download shortcuts others have made from the Gallery section in the Shortcuts app.
So, those are my top six tricks for the iPhone this year. Let me know if you think I got it
right or if you think I got my list wrong, and what else should have been on my list in the
comments below. And consider giving this video a thumbs up if you liked it and found it helpful,
and subscribe to the channel and our free monthly newsletter for more content on Apple and iPhone,
like our upcoming guide on Series Shortcuts. And to see more of our videos on Apple and
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For six months later, I'm Josh Teder. Thanks for watching.