iOS 11 Tips & News « iOS & iPhone

How To: Change Your FaceTime Caller ID to an Email Address or Phone Number

Whenever you make FaceTime audio or video calls from your iPhone, Apple automatically uses your phone number or Apple ID email address as the caller identification. So when someone that you're calling sees the incoming call, they'll see it's from your phone number or email address. But what if you'd rather it be a different identifier?

How To: Record Your iPhone's Screen Without the Annoying Red Bar or Bubble

Native screen recording, one of the hottest features that Apple included in iOS 11 and later, is easily started from the optional Control Center toggle on your iPhone. From there, you can stop recording from the same place or from the red status bar or bubble. It's a very convenient addition to iOS, but there's one obvious downside — that red indicator, which can appear in your recordings.

How To: Record Your iPhone's Screen with Audio — No Jailbreak or Computer Needed

The only official way to record your iPhone's screen before iOS 11 was to hook it up to a Mac and use QuickTime Player to do the recording for you. If you wanted to record your iPhone's screen without an external device, there were unofficial apps you could use, like AirShou, but they required complicated installations. Now, in iOS 11, iOS 12, and iOS 13, Apple has an official, native screen recording tool.

How To: Add Email Accounts to Mail in iOS 11 on Your iPhone

Using the Mail app to log in and sync to email services such as Gmail and Outlook is incredibly easy to accomplish on the iPhone thanks to the intuitive nature of its operating system. This is still evident with iOS 11, and though the process differs slightly from its predecessors, it can still be accomplished with relative ease.

How To: Two Settings You Should Double-Check to Make Sure Your iPhone's Alarm Goes Off

It happens to almost everyone. You wake up one morning, check your phone, and realize your alarm never went off. Now you're late to start the day, and you spend every night onward paranoid it'll happen again. But if you have an iPhone, there are two things you can check to make sure the alarm always goes off on schedule.

How To: Open the Control Center on an iPhone Without a Home Button

Gestures are a big deal on an iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR, 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max. Without a Home button on Apple's super-premium smartphones, several actions had to be mapped to gestures instead, which impacts other areas of the system such as the Control Center.

How To: Use the File Manager on Your iPhone

Apple has finally given us a decent file manager in iOS 11. The new "Files" app replaces the not-very-old iCloud Drive app that appeared in iOS 9, but you can still access your iCloud Drive files in the new Files app, as well as files from third-party cloud services. A nice improvement, right?

How To: Automatically Answer Phone Calls on Your iPhone in iOS 11

If you've ever missed an important phone call because you're hands were too dirty to touch the screen, you won't have to worry much longer about it happening again. Apple is remedying this age-old problem on the iPhone with a hidden feature in iOS 11 that ensures you'll never miss another call again.

How To: Keep Your Night Vision Sharp with the iPhone's Hidden Red Screen

When it comes to using your iPhone at night, you have a few options. You can enable Night Shift to keep iOS easy on the eyes or try dark mode to cut down on the bright light. The last option, Color Tint, allows you to turn your entire display red, which is surprisingly effective for late-night browsing.

How To: Unlock Apple's 'Dark Mode' in iOS 11, 12 & 13 for iPhone

Apple gave us the ability to invert colors on the screen a very long time ago. Then they gave us grayscale mode in iOS 8, Night Shift in iOS 9, and the red screen filter in iOS 10. While the long-awaited "Dark Mode" finally appeared in iOS 13, iOS 11 and iOS 12 both have a decent placeholder for it you can use on your iPhone.

How To: The Not-So-Obvious Way to Bold & Italicize Text on Your iPhone

On a computer, you have keyboard shortcuts like cmd+b and ctrl+i to bold, italicize, or underline text. But how exactly do you this on your iPhone?

How To: Add Additional Emails to FaceTime & Messages in iOS 11

Using either iMessages or FaceTime on the iPhone is a great alternative for coworkers to stay in touch in the event that messaging services like Slack go down. They're also a handy means of communicating between buyers and sellers, as it provides a more intimate way of either checking out or showcasing a product. But you're not always going to want to give out your real number to everyone.

How To: Stop a Show from Continuously Autoplaying Episodes in Apple Podcasts

Introduced to Apple Podcasts back in iOS 11.2, whenever one episode of a show ends on your iPhone the next one begins right away for an uninterrupted experience. While the continuous playback feature for each show or station is incredibly useful for lengthy commutes, long drives, or to catch up on what you've missed, it may not be ideal for other situations.

How To: Turn Your iPhone's Auto-Brightness Off in iOS 12

If you're not a fan of your iPhone's ability to adjust screen brightness by itself, you've probably turned off auto-brightness on multiple occasions in the past. All you would do is go to your "Display & Brightness" settings and toggle it off, but that's no longer the case in iOS 11 and iOS 12 — whether you have an iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR or any older supported iPhone.

How To: Completely Close Out Running Applications on Your iPhone

If you're anything like me, you'd like the ability to fully exit your iPhone apps to help free up memory, improve battery life, stop background processes, and fix unresponsive apps. The thing is, you can, with the help of the app switcher. Force-closing apps also helps keep your app switch clean and organized.

Apple Music 101: How to Make Your Account Public or Private on Your iPhone

Apple Music, Apple's answer to Spotify, has many interesting features packed in to make that $9.99/month price tag as attractive as possible. One of those features is geared towards social listeners — those who want to follow other Apple Music users and who want to be followed back. But here's the thing: how do you know if your account is public or private?

How To: Really Protect Your Encrypted iPhone Backups in iOS 11 from Thieves & Hackers

When it comes to security, Apple is usually at the top of the pack when it comes to your personal data, minus a few embarrassing flaws here and there. However, a new iOS security concern has been discovered that protects your data less than it did before — and Apple designed it like that.

How To: Open & Edit Word Docs in Apple Pages on Your iPhone

There's no doubt that Microsoft Word is the go-to for businesses worldwide. As such, you might receive Word documents to open on your iPhone, whether or not you actually have Word for iOS installed. If you prefer editing text documents with Pages, Apple's own word processor, you can import and export Word docs easily.

How To: The Simple Trick to Stop Your iPhone from Automatically Going to Sleep

You're halfway through reading an article on your iPhone, when the display just turns off. Frustrated, you open the article again, only for the display to go black again. You shouldn't have to keeping touching the screen to keep your iPhone from going to sleep. Luckily, you can delay or even stop your iPhone from doing so with just a few taps.

How To: Disable Message Effects from Auto-Playing on Your iPhone

Message effects in iMessage lets you add a touch of flair to otherwise bland communications. With the feature, you can complement a birthday wish with a stream of balloons, send a congratulatory text along with a shower of confetti, or make the chat bubble slam itself in the thread. If you're on the receiving end, however, they may be distracting and even jarring.