iOS & iPhone How-Tos « iOS & iPhone

How To: The Fastest Way to Dim Your iPhone Screen Lower Than the Lowest Possible Brightness

In the dark, even the lowest brightness option on the iPhone can still feel a thousand burning suns. No matter whether you're in bed or at the movie theater, you don't want to create a distraction with your smartphone. That's why you might want a brightness that isn't readily available on your device — but luckily, there may be a way to go lower than the lowest brightness.

How To: Mute Any iPhone App's Notifications for One Hour or All Day with iOS 15

Notifications keep us connected to our apps and contacts, but sometimes, they just get out of hand. While you can make blanket adjustments to your notifications with iOS 15's new Focus modes, you don't have to go that extreme — if there's one app bugging you right now, you can temporarily disable its notifications.

How To: Improve Safari with a PDF Editor, URL Shortener, Bulk Image Saver & More Features on Your iPhone

Safari saw many new features and improvements with Apple's latest iOS update, including webpage translations, privacy reports, and picture-in-picture. While the updates were well-received, Apple's mobile browser is still lacking some very basic features. Thankfully, there are shortcuts to bridge the gap.

How To: Turn Transparency or Noise Cancellation Off Using the AirPods Pro Stem

Apple's AirPods Pro offer three different audio modes for your convenience: "Transparency," which pumps in sound around you,"Noise Cancellation," which actively blocks out surrounding sounds, and "Off," which uses neither mode. Off saves battery, and does a decent job at passively cancelling noise on its own, but you can't seem to be able to use it with the AirPods Pro stem. Here's how.

How To: The Fastest Way to Remove the Background from Your iPhone Photos

You might think your photo is amazing, but in the midst of editing it and getting ready to post it on social media, you notice something in the background. Maybe it's an unwelcome stranger or a wide-open dumpster, or it's the entire backdrop, but suddenly you realize that it's bad. Although you look good in it, the background just doesn't work — which is why you can always get rid of it.

How To: Remove Annoying Auto-Playing Videos, Banners, & Other Distractions from Any Website in Safari

Ads aren't the only annoying part of navigating websites in Safari. Colorful banners, autoplaying videos, embedded objects, and other distracting elements can make it harder to read or watch what you want. Although ad blockers are one answer, they only get rid of advertisements, so you'll need something else to remove other irritating elements from your favorite websites.

How To: Adjust Accessibility Settings on a Per-App Basis on iOS 15

Accessibility features — such as spoken content, reduced motion, and voice control — help those who might have hearing, vision, learning, or physical and motor disabilities better use their iPhone devices. These features are very welcome, but when enabled they work system-wide, which can be a problem if you need these settings enabled only in certain situations.

How To: Remove Items from iOS 15's New 'Shared with You' Menu

The new "Shared with You" feature on iOS 15 is meant to make your life easier. Articles, music, photos, videos, and links sent to you via Messages will now show up in other apps, such as Safari and Photos, for easy access. And while it's a great way to re-share content, you may not want everything you're sent to show up elsewhere on your iPhone.

How To: Mute Notifications for Everything but Your Favorite Contacts in iOS 15

Your iPhone is full of apps that are all vying for your attention. Notifications from Facebook, Instagram, and even Apple Messages can get out of hand fast. With iOS 15, Apple gives you the tools to choose exactly who can contact you and when. Keep reading to see how to take control of your iPhone's notifications so that you only receive the most important alerts.

How To: You Can Rate U.S. Businesses in iOS 15's Apple Maps to Remember What You Liked

One of the many great reasons to use Apple Maps is to find fun food options, chill cafes, enlightening museums, cute gift shops, and other interesting businesses that you might otherwise overlook, as well as must-see places of interest. But after a while, you might forget about some of these hidden gems. With iOS 15, it will no longer be an issue.

How To: Group Your Safari Tabs into Collections in iOS 15

Are your Safari tabs a tangled mess? I know mine are. Every time I try to find an open website on my iPhone, I end up facing dozens, sometimes hundreds of opens tabs. Yes, there's Search, but it's not perfect if you don't remember the right keyword to narrow the results. In iOS 15, Apple has another solution: custom tab groups.

How To: Add Any Apple Music Track You Want to Your Memory Videos in iOS 15

Having thousands of photos and videos in your Photos gallery can make it difficult to find the best ones, but your iPhone does make it a bit easier. Memories, which have been around since iOS 10, automatically group your photos and videos into mini-movies by location, date, or person. It's a fun feature that does the work for you, and it's getting better with the release of iOS 15.

How To: Enter Text from the Real World into Any Search Field in iOS 15

When you need to share large bodies of text from the real world to the digital one, the traditional method has been to take a picture. That's fine for viewing the text, but what about when you need it typed out? That usually means tapping out each letter of each word, which can get monotonous fast. But that's no longer the case, as you can enter text in any field on your iPhone with iOS 15.

How To: Set Unique Alert Tones for Different Types of Sounds with iOS 15's Sound Recognition

Your iPhone's Sound Recognition feature is a powerful tool to help keep you alert to the world around you. With it, iOS will inform you if it hears a fire alarm, a door bell, glass breaking, among many other kinds of sounds. In iOS 15, Apple is updating the feature, allowing you to choose the alert tone that plays when iOS recognizes a specific sound.

How To: Revert Spoofed Photos & Videos in iOS 15 to Their Original Locations & Dates

Apple introduces several new privacy settings with iOS 15, including the ability to better manage the metadata in your photos. With just a few taps, you can effectively spoof a photo's geolocation and change its creation date and time, providing a sort of disguise over your personal information. If you constantly take and share photos, it's a welcomed feature, but its results are not permanent and can be reversed.

How To: iOS 15 Makes It Really Easy to Change the Location & Date/Time for Any Photo or Video

Metadata might be a bigger concern than you might realize. In its continuous push to be a privacy-first company, Apple has released several new features with iOS 15 that allow you to adjust and permanently change the metadata stored within the photos and videos you take on your iPhone. But why would you want to do this?

How To: Sound Recognition on iPhone Gets 2 New Detectable Sounds in iOS 15

Sound Recognition was introduced with iOS 14, and the accessibility feature uses on-device intelligence to detect 13 different sounds and then notify you whenever it hears one. Apple increases that number to 15 with the addition of two more detectable sounds in iOS 15 that it should have included from the get-go.

How To: iOS 15's Safari Changes the Way You Access Tabs

When you first open Safari after updating your iPhone to iOS 15, you might be a bit surprised by the design change. Apple attempted to make browsing the web on its smartphones more natural and cohesive, but it may leave you wondering just how to actually navigate your tabs.

How To: The New Way to Start a FaceTime Audio Call from Messages in iOS 15

FaceTime audio calling is a great alternative to regular phone calls on your iPhone because it usually has better audio quality and fewer dropped calls than regular calls over cellular or Wi-Fi calling. Plus, it's easier to start group chats, and you have the choice to turn on your camera. If you frequently use the "audio" button in Messages to start FaceTime audio calls, know that things work differently in iOS 15.

How To: iOS 15 Lets You View All Actions for Shortcuts in One List

One thing you couldn't do in the Shortcuts app when building a shortcut was browsing the entire list of available actions for all of the apps and services on your iPhone. That all changes in iOS 15.

How To: Add Android, Linux & Windows Users to FaceTime Calls in iOS 15

Apple's exclusive chat services, iMessage and FaceTime, force many of us to stay locked into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to communicate with other Apple users, so chatting with Android-using friends means SMS texts, third-party messaging apps, and third-party video chat services. However, Apple is breaking boundaries with iOS 15 so that we can FaceTime with Android, Linux, and Windows users.

How To: Open a New Private Tab in iOS 15's Updated Safari App

When you open Safari for the first time after updating to iOS 15, you'll instantly notice its new look. The search bar is now at the bottom, and the View menu has moved with it, now situated next to the tabs button. For tabs, moving between them is as easy as swiping left and right or selecting one from the new grid view, but you may get confused whenever it's time to open a private window.

How To: iOS 15 Makes Searching Your iPhone from the Lock Screen Even Easier

Your iPhone's search bar has so many great uses. For example, you can quickly find apps on your device, browse different Safari results to find the site that's right for your question, and even search across different iOS apps like Messages, Mail, Notes, and Photos. With iOS 15, Apple has introduced the fastest way yet to start searching with Spotlight on iPhone.

How To: Stop Your iPhone from Making Irrelevant Suggestions

Siri Suggestions is one way Apple makes your iPhone work better for you. These recommendations offer helpful actions and shortcuts based on how you use iOS. Still, they can frequently get things wrong, suggesting irrelevant shortcuts to apps, contacts, and other items repeatedly. Here's how to stop them.

How To: See All the People Who Tapbacked on an iMessage

Apple's Tapback is a great way to react to iMessages you find funny, surprising, confusing, and anything in between. However, in group chats, keeping track of who reacted with which Tapback can be difficult; iOS often just shows you how many people reacted but excludes many of the names. Luckily, there is a way around this — it's just a bit hidden.

How To: This App Gives You Thousands of Free Custom Fonts for Your iPhone's Stock Keyboard

Since iOS 13, your iPhone's come equipped with a fonts manager that lets you install custom fonts for use in Apple apps and supported third-party apps. To add fonts, you need to use a font provider app that'll load them on your device and register them system-wide, and one of these apps shines above all else.

How To: 15 Features Low Power Mode Disables or Reduces on Your iPhone

When you enable Low Power Mode on your iPhone, it's not always clear what measures it's taking to reduce battery drain and conserve power. Energy-hungry features you use daily may be noticeable right away, but some things you use frequently may be disabled or reduced without any obvious indicators.

How To: Scroll Hands-Free Through Long Webpages on Your iPhone to Read Articles at the Perfect Pace

You can't always have your hands on your iPhone, which is why Apple developed Siri. When Siri can't do your hands-free bidding, there's Apple's newer Voice Control feature. But if you don't like barking commands at your iPhone, there's another option — at least, when it comes to scrolling through webpages in Safari.

How To: Watch Apple's WWDC 2021 Keynote Livestream for Sneak Peeks at iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12 & More

On June 7, Apple will reveal to developers what's in store for its upcoming operating systems, but anyone can watch the livestream to see all the new features coming this fall to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8.

How To: This Trick Lets You Quickly Enable or Disable the Always-on Apple Watch Display in One Tap

When you need to subtly glance at the time or check your workout metrics without raising your wrist, the always-on display (AOD) on your Apple Watch comes in handy. However, Apple makes it seem impossible to disable it temporarily. You either choose to leave it on or off, with no clear way to shut it down for a while. It might not be obvious, but there is a shortcut that can do just that.

How To: 5 Hidden Apps You Didn't Know Existed on Your iPhone

Every iPhone has a series of hidden Apple apps installed by default, most of which work behind the scenes to perform actions such as filtering SMS messages, trusting computers, and dealing with payments. However, there are a few secret apps you can access right here and now, but they take a little work to unlock.

How To: Auto-Play New Podcast Episodes on Your iPhone When Connecting Headphones, Starting a Trip, Tapping an NFC Tag & More

The Shortcuts app can help you play the next unlistened podcast from one of the shows, but getting the latest unplayed episodes from your whole queue of shows in the Podcasts app is a little trickier. There is an easy way to do it on your iPhone, though, and you can even automate it so that Podcasts plays your most recent untouched episode automatically.

How To: 7 Ways to Quickly Open the Hidden Magnifying Glass Feature on Your iPhone

The iPhone has included a real-world magnifying glass called "Magnifier" since iOS 10, but it remained relatively obscure until iOS 14 when it received significant upgrades such as a new interface, hideable controls, a customizable toolbar, improved filters management, multi-image shooting, and people detection. But one of the best things about the update is that it can simply be opened more easily.

How To: The Secret to Typing in All Caps on Apple Watch

There's no default keyboard on the Apple Watch, but watchOS has another way to let you type text out for emails, messages, music searches, and more on the small display, and that's Scribble. With it, you simply draw letters and other characters on the screen with your finger, then your watch converts that into plain text. However, it's not perfect, and getting the nuances of regular typing can be tough.

How To: Every Hidden Special Character on Your iPhone's Keyboard That You Can Unlock Right Now

Over 115 secret characters are hiding behind your iPhone's default keyboard, and I'm not talking about what you see after tapping the "123" or "#+=" keys. These special composite characters can include accents, dots, and other diacritics, and you'll even see some strange typographical characters like the section sign, inverted marks, and per mille symbol. Here's how you find them.

How To: Download Spotify Songs & Podcasts on Your Apple Watch for Offline Playback

The Apple Watch is rapidly becoming a standalone device that you can use without an iPhone or internet connection, and Deezer and Spotify have just helped make that even more true by adding support for offline playback on the watch.

How To: Finally See What's Under the Fridge with an Endoscope Camera

A good endoscope camera can be an incredible tool for a variety of jobs. Whether you have to look under something heavy before you move it, look down a pipe before you clean it, or just give yourself extendable, bendable vision, an endoscope camera can be a fantastic tool when it works.

How To: You Need a DAC to Enjoy Apple Music's Hi-Res Lossless Audio — Here Are the Best Options

On May 17, Apple announced that Lossless Audio playback for Apple Music was finally coming to subscribers in June. The long-awaited option will let users stream songs at a much higher quality than ever before. Still, in the fine print, Apple noted that you wouldn't be able to listen to the best sound quality — Hi-Resolution Lossless — on your iPhone without a DAC.

How To: Unlock Your iPhone After a Restart Using Just Your Voice

You know the drill: After booting up your iPhone, you need to swipe up or press the Home button, then punch in the passcode to unlock Face ID or Touch ID. It's the way things have always been — but it doesn't have to be. Instead, you can unlock your iPhone using just your voice, even after a restart.

How To: Remove the Annoying Photos Widget from Your iPhone's Today View to Stop Showing Potentially Embarrassing Pics

Apple's iOS 14 introduced a new world of iPhone customization thanks to its updated widgets that can live on both the home screen and Today View. While they're incredibly useful, they're not very interactive, they restrict what's shown, and you can't resize them afterward. However, those issues pale in comparison to the annoying Photos widget in Today View's auto-generated Smart Stack.