iOS 13

If you're on a cellular plan with a low data allotment, being thrifty with your data can help you avoid a higher bill. But even if you have an affordable unlimited plan from wireless carriers such as T-Mobile or Verizon, going over a certain amount of data may throttle your connection, leaving you with slow web speeds. One way to prevent hitting these thresholds is to keep certain apps in check.

We hardly need to "buy" anything these days since games, music, books, news, movies, and TV are all available on the iPhone with various monthly subscriptions. Just set it and forget it so that your wallet does all the work for you. But if you're on a free trial or two and don't want to commit, you might get an unexpected charge if you forgot or don't know where to cancel. Here's how to avoid that.

You might be using Zoom on your iMac, playing a Steam game on your MacBook, or completing a work assignment on your iPad, when suddenly you get a phone call on your iPhone. If the same Apple ID is used on all of your Apple devices, the call won't ring on your iPhone only — it'll ring on every damned device.

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.

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.

If you're in an active Messages chat, writing a large email, or have a lot of notes to jot down, you might be acutely aware of just how loud your iPhone's keyboard can sound — especially with AirPods or other headphones on. "Click, click, click, click, click, click." If the fake keyboard sounds are driving your crazy as you type, there's something you can do about it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sharing your iPhone's real-time location can be very useful when you want family and friends to know where you're at or your estimated time of arrival. By doing so, they can track you when you can't or don't want to update them manually. Depending on how you shared your location, however, they might still be able to track your exact coordinates after the initial share.

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.

Starting in iOS 13, Apple introduced a robust suite of video-editing tools to its Photos app. The majority of editing tools were only available for images in iOS 12 and older, but iOS 13 leveled the playing field to allow even a novice to tweak videos like a pro before sharing.

The camera on models in the iPhone 11 series includes an ultra-wide lens to take wider images, Night mode for taking better-looking photos in low-light environments, and a 16:9 frame for shooting. With these new features comes a slightly redesigned interface in the Camera app, one that even the second-generation iPhone SE received despite only having one of those three features.

Apple just released iOS 13.6, and while there aren't a ton of new features here, there are some pretty amazing ones to be on the lookout for.

Apple just released the third public beta for iOS 13.6 today, Tuesday, June 30. This update comes three hours after the release of iOS 13.6 dev beta 3, which is the version of the beta made specifically for developers. Both betas come eight days after Apple released the first developer beta for iOS 14.

The Wallet app on your iPhone can be used to store and access event tickets, loyalty cards, boarding passes, gym memberships, airline miles, gift cards, coupons, and more — all in one centralized place. Before doing so, though, you must add your passes to Wallet, and there is more than one way to do it. However, not every pass can be added using all of the available methods.

No, you didn't miss a beta. Apple just released the second public beta for iOS 13.6 today, Tuesday, June 9, three hours after the release of 13.6 dev beta 2. This update might come as a surprise to you, considering your iPhone might currently be running iOS 13.5.5 public beta 1. Indeed, this update is that version's successor, just with a major name change.

Over the last few years, Apple has significantly improved and scaled up your iPhone's ability to edit photos. Using the Markup feature, which was introduced back in iOS 10, you can add doodles, highlights, important text, your signature, and arrows and other objects onto pictures and screenshots. One of the lesser-known tools in Markup lets you zoom into essential details without cropping.