Hot iOS & iPhone Posts
![iOS 18 Tips, Tricks, How-Tos, News](https://img.gadgethacks.com/img/15/56/63854300537190/0/ios-18-secrets-revealed.600x696.jpg)
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How To: Group Texts Split into Separate Conversations on Your iPhone? Here's the Fix
Ah, the dreaded "green bubble" group chat. All it takes is one non-iPhone contact to turn an entire thread from iMessage paradise to SMS slog. Normally, it isn't that bad since the group chat still functions. However, sometimes, you end up getting messages individually instead of in a single group thread. Before you go blaming your Android friends, know that the issue is probably on your end.
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How To: The Trick to Disabling Link Previews for URLs in Your iPhone's Messages App
Apple automatically converts most URLs in the Messages app into rich link previews, but they aren't always pretty, and sometimes you just want to see the full URL instead. While there is no setting on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS that disables rich link previews in the Messages app, there is an easy way to show the URL complete with the scheme, domain name, and path.
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How To: The Notes Widget Sucks — So Here Are 4 Better Ones for More Useful Sticky Notes on Your Home Screen
I won't mince words: the Notes widget in iOS 14 is bad. But you're not stuck with it if you want sticky notes on your home screen.
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How To: Unlock the Secret Emoticon Keyboard on Your iPhone
Emoji have taken over the world, so there's a good chance you regularly use (or overuse) emoji on your iPhone's keyboard just like everyone else. But before emoji were popular, there were emoticons, short for "emotion icons" — and iOS has a secret emoticon keyboard just waiting for you to unlock.
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How To: Apple's iOS 17.5 Gives Your iPhone 32 New Features and Changes — Here's Everything You Need to Know About
Apple's latest iPhone software update — iOS 17.5 — is finally ready for prime time. Released on May 13, it includes at least 32 new features and changes you need to know about, from a new game and offline news access to new wallpapers and anti-stalking capabilities.
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How To: 7 Hidden iPhone Apps You Didn't Know Existed
Your iPhone has hidden apps that work behind the scenes to filter SMS messages, trust computers, deal with payments, test ads, and perform other actions. You won't find any of them in your App Library, but there are tricks you can employ to unlock and use some of these secret apps.
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How To: Make Your Home Screen's Photo Widget Show Only One Image or Specific Albums in iOS 14 Instead of Random Pics Every Hour
Your iPhone's new home screen widgets are awesome — until they're not. Photos, in particular, is a big disappointment. It gives you a taste of having your favorite photos appear alongside your apps but ruins it by changing the photo randomly every hour without your input. While nothing can be done with the Photos widget, there is a way to get the pictures you want to see on your home screen.
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How To: Set a GIF as a Live Wallpaper for Your iPhone's Lock Screen Background
In iOS, Apple provides a few live wallpapers that you can use for the background on your iPhone's lock screen, but these animated options are just wavy color shifts and ink-in-water effects. To really customize your lock screen, you can use a Live Photo for your wallpaper. If you can't find the right Live Photo, GIFs are the next best thing, and experimenting with them feels like a game almost.
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How To: Use Your iPhone to Hear the World Around You Better, Spy on Conversations, Listen to Your Heartbeat, and More
What started as an accessibility setting for hearing aids turned out to be a super helpful tool for anyone with a good set of Bluetooth headphones. The problem is that most iPhone and iPad users still don't know about it. If you're one of them, you need to see what this underrated gem in iOS and iPadOS can offer you.
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How To: Your iPhone Has a Secret Button That Can Run Hundreds, Even Thousands of Actions — But You Have to Unlock It First
An invaluable button on your iPhone can do hundreds, even thousands, of amazing things, but most iPhone users don't even know it exists. You can't push it. You can't click it. You can't press it. But it's the largest button on your iPhone, more powerful than the versatile Side button, and it's hiding in plain sight.
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How To: Always-Updated List of Apps That Let You Change Their Home Screen Icons on Your iPhone
Apple's Shortcuts app lets you make and use custom icons for any app on your iPhone, but it won't actually replace any icons. If your goal is to change the official icon for the app itself without any redirects, there's a growing list of third-party apps that'll let you do just that.
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How To: Automatically Turn on Speakerphone for Every iPhone Call
When you make or receive a call on your iPhone, you're forced to use the built-in ear receiver at the top of the phone to hear anything—unless you're already connected to a Bluetooth device. If you don't have Bluetooth in your car, or prefer to just use the speaker instead, having to manually switch to speaker mode can get annoying real fast.
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How To: Disable Security Lockouts from Too Many Failed Passcode Attempts on Your iPhone
The lockout feature in iOS 7, which securely locks your device after a few incorrect passcode entries, can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.
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How To: Apple Has a Killer New Word Game Puzzle Called Quartiles on iOS 17.5
Apple's newest software update, iOS 17.5 includes one killer new feature for people who like word games: another lexical challenge to complement the crossword puzzles that Apple News already has.
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How To: Set a Custom Contact Poster on Your iPhone Others Will See When You Call Them
A new feature in Apple's latest big iPhone software update lets you personalize how you appear on other people's incoming call screens and even customize individual contacts on your own incoming call screen if they don't have a preferred style to show you.
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How To: Edit iMessages So Nobody Can See the Edit History
Apple lets you edit iMessages in the Messages app on iOS 16 and later, but everyone in the chat can see all the edits between the final and original text. Thankfully, there's an easy workaround to stop that from happening when you only want them to see the last message and nothing else.
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How To: Get a 'Select All' Button for Webpages in Safari on Your iPhone
It should be simple to select and copy all text on a webpage in Safari, but it won't work as it does in other apps. Usually, you can press-and-hold down anywhere on a page and choose "Select All" from the edit menu, but that functionality is disabled in Safari and WebKit-based browsers by default — including in the latest iOS 14 version. Luckily, there is a workaround to getting a "Select All" button back.
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How To: The Easiest Way to Share Your iPhone's Live Photos with Android Users
Live Photos are a fun way to relive memories, but there's a problem: unless you're only friends with Apple users, sharing Live Photos isn't quite as fun. Without a third-party converter, you can't share your Live Photo in all its moving glory. That is, until iOS 13, where you can quickly turn your Live Photos into videos.
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How To: iOS 16 Has a Hidden Unit Converter for Temperatures, Time Zones, Distance, and Other Measurements
Fans of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" will remember the Babel fish, the universal translator you put in your ear so you can understand every language you hear. While Apple has its Translate app, there's another iPhone feature reminiscent of the Babel fish, but it lets you convert measurements, times, and other units without having to leave the app you're currently using.
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How To: Keep Your iPhone's Screen from Randomly Turning On
In addition to the standard "Raise to Wake" option that's been around since iOS 10, the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, and XR have a unique capability that lets you "Tap to Wake" the screen. But these features can get annoying real fast when your screen keeps turning on accidentally, which could even lead to some unnecessary battery drain.
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How To: Safari's Massive Upgrade Comes with Over 18 New Features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Safari's massive upgrade in Apple's latest iPhone software update includes new features you won't find in any other web browsers on iOS, from better ways to stay organized to enhanced security and further privacy protections.
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How To: Home Screen Customization Just Got Even Better for iPhone with 15 Important New Features
The home screen is the most important part of your iPhone when it comes to customization, and Apple just gave us even more options to personalize it.
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How To: Update Your iPhone Calculator's Look with These Easy Color Mods
If you're anything like me, you use the Calculator app on your iPhone like fifty times a day, and you're sick of the same user interface it's had since iOS 11 came out. While you can't mod the button shapes and sizes, there is a way to breathe new life into your calculations with some Calculator theming.
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How To: Apple's Making Your iPhone's Reminders App Even Better with 10 New Features
Apple's improving its productivity tools for iPhone, and not just for apps like Calculator and Notes. The Reminders app is also getting a huge update.
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How To: Every App You Can Use FaceTime's SharePlay Feature with Right Now
SharePlay is arguably one of the most significant features to hit FaceTime since group calls, and it's still hard to find apps that support shared experiences in FaceTime. Apple does list a few apps, but there is no official index of all the apps with SharePlay integration. That's where we come in.
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How To: Permanently Delete Text Messages on Your iPhone
Deleting text messages on your iPhone may seem like a pretty simple task, but it's those really simple tasks that usually end up causing headaches later on. Data can stick around, even if you asked it not to, so there's always a slight chance that embarrassing and incriminating texts you supposedly deleted may end up in the wrong hands one day.
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How To: Use This Trick to View Your Complete Clipboard History and Recopy Anything
Your iPhone's clipboard can only save one item at a time, so it may seem impossible to retrieve your entire history of copied text, images, and other content. Luckily, there is a workaround you can use to find and copy your past clipboard contents, but you have to implement it first.
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How To: Best External USB-C Storage Options for iPhone and iPad
If you bought an iPhone or iPad equipped with USB-C but didn't max out the local storage, there are some great external storage solutions beyond iCloud and other cloud storage services. And now that the iPhone lineup comes with USB-C ports, you have better-performing external drives available to you than anything you could ever get for a Lightning-based model.
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How To: Use This Trick to Quickly Select All Photos & Videos on Your iPhone to Bulk Delete or Share
With high-resolution photos and 4K videos being standard these days, it's no surprise that media hogs most of the storage space for many iPhone users. If that's you, there's always iCloud, but you only get 5 GB free, and a paid 50 GB or 200 GB plan can fill up fast. To save money and reclaim storage, you can just delete content from the Photos app, and there's a trick to doing it faster.
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How To: Your iPhone's Weather App Has a Crazy Number of Customization Options You Probably Didn't Know About
Apple's Weather app has been around forever, at least for iPhone, and it's gone through many design changes over the years. But we're at a point now where we can actually customize how the Weather app looks and feels in many different ways, some of which you probably haven't even considered.
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How To: Easily Lock Any App on Your iPhone or iPad Behind Passcode or Biometric Authentication
Some iOS and iPadOS apps give you an option to lock them behind Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode, but there aren't many.
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How To: 8 Ways to Take a Screenshot on Your iPhone 13, 13 Mini, 13 Pro, or 13 Pro Max
Using an iPhone isn't difficult, but it can be if you're using it for the first time, especially if you switched from an Android phone. That's primarily because of the massive difference in the user interface between the two operating systems. And when it comes to taking screenshots, you have more options than just using the hardware buttons.
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How To: Show Someone a Photo on Your iPhone Without Them Swiping Through All of Your Pics
You hand your iPhone to a friend to show them a picture. What happens? They swipe. Left, right, it doesn't matter. You don't remember what lies in either direction of the photo in question, and you don't want anything compromising exposed to the unassuming viewer. Luckily, Apple includes a safety net in iOS to prevent this scenario from ever happening, so long as you set it up ahead of time.
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How To: Can't Double Click to Install? Here's How to Download Apps & Use Apple Pay on the iPhone X
If you used Touch ID on an iPhone before, all you had to do to install apps and games from the App Store was rest your fingertip on the Home button. On the iPhone X, there's Face ID instead, and Apple has included on-screen instructions to help everyone adjust to the lack of Home button. Still, those instructions may not be working for you, but the solution is as simple as a misinterpretation.
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How To: How Thieves Unlock Passcodes on Stolen iPhones (And How to Protect Yourself Against It)
Back in 2010, iOS developer Daniel Amitay developed a camera security app for iPhones that used an unlock screen almost identical to that of the iPhone.
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How To: Sick of Yellow Links in Notes? Make Them Any Color You Want with These Hidden iPhone, iPad, and Mac Settings
If you're tired of the default yellow link colors in your Notes app, which I find hard to look at in light mode, there's a way to change them to another color on your iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac.
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How To: iOS 18 Upgrades Your iPhone's Buttons with Eye-Catching Visual Effects
There are a lot of great features coming to your iPhone with iOS 18, but one of the coolest features is also one of the simplest and most satisfying— one that you'll notice every day you use your iPhone. And for now, it's an iPhone exclusive, so you won't get the same gratifying experience on an iPad with iPadOS 18.
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How To: There Are 18 New Features Hiding in Your iPhone's Camera App on iOS 17
The Camera app on your iPhone includes new features with the iOS 17 update that will help you take better photos and more impressive videos, but there are a lot of cool new things available that you might not see right away.
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How To: Take Scrolling Screenshots of Entire Webpages, Text Documents, and More on Your iPhone or iPad
When you take a screenshot on your iPhone, it's automatically saved to your Photos app. You can ignore the screenshot thumbnail or swipe it away, but you shouldn't. If you open the screenshot editor instead, you'll gain access to your iPhone's most useful screen capture tool: full-page screenshots.
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How To: Can't Send Photo Messages on Google Fi? Fix This Setting on Your iPhone
There's a serious issue with Google Fi's service for iPhone that prevents sending any MMS pictures via the Messages app. The problem doesn't affect all iPhone users on Google Fi, but if you're like me and keep getting that frustrating "Not Delivered" alert, there's a fix.