iOS & iPhone: Page 14

Your iPhone's almost out of battery power, there's no wired or wireless charger in sight, and you left your portable power bank at home. You don't want your battery to die, but you still need to use your iPhone. This is when Low Power Mode comes in handy, but you could be wasting valuable time and power if you're activating it the wrong way.

At first, it may look like it's mostly a behind-the-scenes update, but iOS 14 public beta 6 is more than just that. The biggest addition to iOS 14 for iPhone in this version is the beginning of Spatial Audio, an AirPods Pro feature. Other notable changes in beta 6 appear in Maps, Mail, App Library, Photos, the home screen, and widgets, as well as in apps where you choose times.

At first, Apple's six developer beta for iOS 14 isn't much to look at, but there wouldn't have been an update if there weren't some important issues to address. Most of the serious updates in build number 18A5357e revolve around SwiftUI, which even has a few new features, and there's a fix to Shortcuts automation that will likely please you if you use those.

Enter a password into a password field, and it's a sure bet that black dots or asterisks will obscure the characters. Nearly every website you visit in Safari on your iPhone will do it, but sometimes it helps to see what you're typing or what was auto-filled with iCloud Keychain, LastPass, or a different password manager.

Battery management is a never-ending struggle. To be on the safe side, you likely won't want to leave your home with less than 100% battery, but continually checking your charging iPhone is a hassle. Instead of continuously monitoring your battery's power level, have your iPhone tell you when it's reached a full charge.

Since iOS 6, "Respond with Text" has allowed us to quickly respond to a call we can't (or don't want to) answer. But Apple only gives you three options to choose from, and if you don't have time to type out your own response, those three might not cut it. Luckily, you can customize these three replies to whatever you want.

You can easily remove audio from videos in the Photos app on your iPhone, but the same cannot be said about removing video and just keeping the audio track. However, another stock Apple app can help extract the sound clip, and it barely takes any work to set it up.

Introduced in the Messages app back in iOS 8, audio messages are a fun way to spice up an iMessage thread when you're bored with text, emoji, and GIFs. However, it can be frustrating to lose an important, funny, or otherwise-interesting sound clip because iOS auto-deletes it two minutes after you send or listen to it. Thankfully, there is a way to stop this from happening.

Using your iPhone for a smart home remote just keeps getting better and better. Apple has consistently improved its HomeKit platform since the Home app came out, adding new features, tweaks, and refinements to the system with each update. And iOS 14 continues this trend with a few changes to help make your home even smarter and easier to use.

If you're like me, no matter how hard you try, your iPhone's notifications are a mess. There's just too many of them. That's when it becomes helpful just to get rid of the whole bunch and start fresh. However, deleting alerts one at a time is as tedious as it is unnecessary since you can clear all of your notifications at once.

You should know the birthday for a parent, sibling, child, or significant other, but there are just too many people in your family and contacts to remember everybody's yearly birth anniversary. Still, everyone expects you to remember their birthday. To stop looking like a jerk, go a step further than putting birthdays in your calendar and make your iPhone help you send birthday wishes when their big day pops up.

The iOS 14 beta may be picking up steam, but the iOS 13 beta program isn't out for the count. With the release of the iOS 13.7 beta, build 17H33, Apple has included API changes for the COVID-19 Exposure Notifications setting. The update makes it possible for public health authorities to let iPhone users get coronavirus exposure alerts without installing their state's app.

Apple just released the fifth public beta for iOS 14 today, Wednesday, Aug. 19. This update comes one day after Apple released iOS 14 developer beta 5. It follows iOS 14 developer beta 4 by 15 days, and iOS 14 public beta 4 by 13 days.

Apple just released the fifth developer beta for iOS 14 today, Tuesday, Aug. 18. This update comes two weeks after Apple released iOS 14 developer beta 4, and 12 days after the release of iOS 14 public beta 4.

It's been a long time coming, but Apple Maps finally has cycling directions for your iPhone. Google Maps has had cycling support for ten years now, though, many of its more useful features had been incorporated within the last few years. Well, with iOS 14, Apple has caught up, and it's done a fantastic job.

Everyone knows that app updates on iOS are found in the App Store. What you might not have known, however, is that you don't need to manually open the App Store app to manage your updates and downloads. In fact, that work can be started or completed directly from the first place you interact with on your iPhone — the home screen.

If you have a limited mobile data plan on your iPhone, you know how tricky it can be to stay within your given allotment. Large app installs and updates, 4K resolution videos, and photo backups can waste precious data resources in no time. And apps like Apple News, Facebook, Mail, and Netflix eat data like it's candy. But you can nip the problem in the bud by restricting data hogs from your cellular network.

Your iPhone and Mac can speak to each other in many ways, allowing you to start work on one device and seamlessly switch to the other, share clipboards between the two, and pick up phone calls and answer text messages on both. The compatibility is incredible, but there's even more you can do by incorporating third-party software into the mix.

When you're in a new city or even your own neighborhood, you might not know where the best places to visit are. The number of parks, restaurants, shopping centers, and other attractions could be overwhelming, so how do you narrow down your choices? The new iOS 14 update has introduced curated city "Guides" in Apple Maps, created by trusted brands to help you find excellent places to explore.

You're out and about, and nothing on your iPhone will load. A glance at the settings shows a saved Wi-Fi network with full bars that your iPhone had connected to automatically, but you're not getting any internet. If you've experienced this, you're not alone, and there's something you can do about it. You'll even increase privacy and security on your iPhone in the process.

Apple just released the fourth developer beta for iOS 14 today, Tuesday, Aug. 4. This update comes 13 days after Apple seeded developers the third dev beta, and 12 days after public testers got their hands on public beta 3.

Apple might not have been the first to add a night camera mode to its suite of smartphones, but it's pretty impressive nonetheless. With "Night" mode, your iPhone can shoot photos with incredible detail in some horrendously dark lighting conditions. But when you open up your new iPhone to try it out, you might be wondering how you turn it on.

Why are you still waking up to an annoying alarm clock sound on your iPhone? It's 2020, not 2011. That's almost a decade since you were limited to a strict set of default tones. Yes, your iPhone has a ton of tones by now to choose from, but you could be waking up gently to your favorite slow song, or jolting awake by the harsh sounds of metal ringing in your ears to get pumped for the rest of the day.

Don't like how Apple's default Radar ringtone — or any other tone — wakes you up in the morning? Then don't use them as your alarm sound. Instead, use your favorite song to get you out of bed. Whether you enjoy an acoustic tune or a heavy, energetic jam, you can choose any Apple Music song you want, or any track in your personal Music library, to get you going each day.

Apple introduced third-party keyboards back in iOS 8, and swipe-input options like Gboard, SwiftKey, and Swype made typing on an iPhone one-handed much easier. Even better, apps like Word Flow moved the keyboard to the side of the iPhone, so there was less thumb-stretching. Well, ever since iOS 11, Apple has had its own option for better one-handed typing in the stock keyboard.

Apple just released iOS 13.6.1 for iPhone today, Wednesday, Aug. 12. The update is the latest public update for iPhones since iOS 13.6, which Apple released 28 days ago.

If you use iCloud Photos, Apple's iCloud link feature is meant to make sharing multiple photos and videos faster and easier, but it's not as great as you might think. Luckily, there's a way to stop your iPhone from creating them automatically, as long as you're running iOS 13 or later.

The way you share a group of photos and videos on your iPhone is pretty simple; just select a few items, then choose a service or platform to send them through. Simplicity isn't always the best option, though, and in this case, there's a better way than letting those files send or upload individually, one by one.

Your iPhone comes with a feature that allows you to share your name and photo with anyone you iMessage in Messages. It's a useful feature if you want people to see a customized name or fun image that you pick, but seeing all those "Share your name and photo" alerts in conversations can get real annoying quickly. There's a way to stop that from happening, thankfully.

Third-party apps on your iPhone must ask for your permission to access your library in the Music app. Some will even want to get access to your Apple Music account. If you no longer use the apps, you shouldn't be letting them have access anymore. It's easy to hunt them down, and doing so might even show some apps you can't even remember giving any permissions to.

In iOS 14, your iPhone can have home screen widgets, but you can also keep using widgets in the Today View if that's more comfortable for you. You could actually use both if you wanted. But when it comes to the Today View, the process for adding, removing, and editing widgets has changed.

In iOS 13.5 and later, developers can create and release contact tracing apps for iPhone, which could help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. With these apps comes COVID-19 exposure notifications, which you may or may not want to receive. If you don't want to get these alerts, you can disable them.

Many apps on your iPhone want to use your location, most of which are for valid reasons. But some apps can function perfectly fine without location permissions, while others have no business even requesting it. If you want to be more selective about which apps and services you give away your coordinates to, the best thing you could do is start from scratch.

Lossless quality isn't for everyone. If you can't distinguish between lossless audio and other formats, you probably but don't need it. But if you're a musician who's sharing ideas with bandmates or a journalist interviewing people for a video, you might want the best possible quality, which is what lossless offers. And you might not know it, but the Voice Memos app on your iPhone supports it.

With Unc0ver, Pwn20wnd was the first to jailbreak an iPhone and iPad running iOS 12 versions. While it initially couldn't work on all devices, it's an entirely different story now. Unc0ver currently works up to iOS 13.5 for most A7 to A13-powered devices. Plus, Chimera, another jailbreak tool, supports a similar range of models on iOS 12 to 12.3 and iOS 12.4.

Live Photos are a great way to relive moments beyond a simple still image since you get up to 1.5 seconds of video before and after the shot. Of course, your iPhone doesn't just capture motion during a Live Photo — it also records audio. And that audio portion may not be something you want to share.

Since iOS 8, it's been possible to use third-party tools such as Bing Translator and Microsoft Translator to translate foreign language webpages in Safari into your primary language. Now, in iOS 14, there's a better way to do it.

Apple's Dark Mode in iOS 13 and later offers a cool, comfortable viewing experience on your iPhone. You may prefer the dark theme all day long, but if you like to use it only at night, it's not very convenient to switch it on and off daily. But there's a setting that lets you set it and forget it, so you never have to do it manually again.

If you can't locate a specific entry in the Notes app on your iPhone, chances are that it's hiding in a different place than you thought, connected to a third-party email service such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook. When one of those notes gets lost or accidentally deleted, you're going to run into issues, but it's possible to recover it.

Apple just released public beta 2 for iOS 14 today, Thursday, July 9. The good news comes two days after Apple released the second iOS 14 developer beta, and 17 days after the release of the first developer beta. While this is the first public beta for iOS 14, it's called "public beta 2" to keep in line with developer beta numbering.