Hot iOS & iPhone How-Tos
How To: You Can Shoot Better-Looking Videos on Your iPhone if You Change This One Setting
While most smartphones these days take great video, the iPhone is the camera to beat. Recent models like the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro shoot in 4K resolution from every camera, and even a budget device like the iPhone SE delivers an excellent 4K image from the rear shooter. That said, if you haven't touched your camera settings since taking it out of the box, you're likely missing out.
How To: Apps & Services May Have Access to Your Apple Music & Media Library — Here's How to Check & Revoke Their Permissions
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.
How To: Don't Want to Share the 'Live' Part of a Live Photo from Your iPhone? Do This
Have you ever taken a photo to share with a friend, only to realize it was actually a Live Photo? Maybe you said something embarrassing in the background, or perhaps you moved the camera out of frame onto a subject you don't want your friend to see. Luckily, making a Live Photo a regular still photo is a breeze.
How To: Your iPhone Can Switch to Dark & Light Modes Automatically When the Sun Sets & Rises
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.
How To: Auto-Hide New Apps You Install in iOS 14 for a Cleaner Home Screen
If you keep your iPhone's home screen obsessively tidy, new apps are the bane of your existence. Hyperbole aside, they automatically fill the first available space on your home screen, starting on the second page, which can wreak havoc on your carefully planned layouts. With iOS 14, however, you can auto-hide new apps so that you never see them until you want to.
How To: Back Up Your iPhone Using iTunes on macOS or Windows
It's easy to back up and restore your iOS devices using iCloud, but there are a few downsides to encrypted iCloud backups. For one, Apple holds the key to decrypt all the data. Plus, you're limited to only 5 GB of data for free before you have to upgrade your storage to 50 GB, 200 GB, or 2 TB.
How To: The Fastest Way to Scroll Through Your iPhone's Home Screen Pages & Folders
If you have a lot of apps, you likely have a lot of home screen pages unless you hid them. With many pages, swiping over to a particular one can feel very tedious, especially if you're doing so repetitively, over and over again. If this sounds like your iPhone experience, you should know you're swiping wrong. There's a much faster way to get around your home screen, thanks to iOS 14.
How To: Watch 4K YouTube Videos on Your iPhone in Ultra HD Resolution
How frustrating is it to watch YouTube in 4K on your computer, Roku, or Amazon Fire Stick, only to settle for measly 1080p on your brand-new iPhone? For years, those of us on iOS had no option for streaming YouTube videos in full resolution, but these days, things are finally different.
How To: Use This Trick to Unlock Hidden Software Update Options on Your iPhone
The automatic software update setting on your iPhone is nice, but you may not always want to install new iOS versions blindly. New updates could contain bugs and vulnerabilities, and your favorite features may even disappear. With the auto-update option turned off, you can manually download and install updates, but there are also hidden options to be more specific about how you want to do it.
How To: Unlock On/Off Icons for Toggle Switches on Your iPhone
Apple's iOS doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to customization, but with every new iOS version we get, there are more options to personalize. Your iPhone comes packed with plenty of tweaks and hacks to make the device feel truly yours, and one of those is a fun yet useful mod that adds on and off icons for toggle switches on your iPhone.
How To: View the Battery Percentage on Your iPhone SE to See Exactly How Much Power Is Left
There are two main ways to view how much battery is remaining on an iPhone: the battery level icon and battery percentage. Out of the box, the second-generation iPhone SE only shows the battery level icon in its status bar, which only gives you a rough idea of how much juice is left. But there are ways to view the exact percentage instead.
How To: Get Fast Charging on the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) Without Breaking the Bank
After many years of rumors, the second-generation iPhone SE is here. At $399, it is the most inexpensive iPhone Apple has sold since the original iPhone SE came out. And while the new SE comes with Apple's typical five-watt power adapter, the smartphone supports fast charging — you just need to get a fast charger separately.
How To: Play Classic Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation & Atari Games on Your iPhone
A modern iPhone is capable of running sophisticated, exquisitely-rendered games that rival titles on current-generation consoles. However, there is some value in classic video game titles, whether you grew up playing games on the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Sega Genesis or not.
How To: Install Sileo on iOS 13 After Jailbreaking with Checkra1n
Checkra1n is by far the best way to jailbreak A7- through A11-powered iPhones on iOS 13 and later, but it's not without its downsides. Besides the lack of Windows support, the tool limits your choices to Cydia alone. With a little elbow grease, however, you can easily replace the app with Sileo for a more streamlined jailbreak experience.
How To: Change Your iPhone's System & App Text Size on the Fly with This Hidden Setting
You might know that you can increase text size on your iPhone by digging around in Settings. But you also have the ability to text size with a quick toggle so you can use a larger font only when you need it.
How To: Jailbreak Your iPhone with an Android Phone or Tablet Using TWRP
In the iPhone modding scene, the Checkm8 bootrom exploit, by developer axi0mX, led to a powerful jailbreaking tool known as Checkra1n. With it, you can jailbreak a variety of iPhone models without worrying about it getting patched later on. But in the past, it required you to have a macOS computer — but not anymore.
How To: The 4 Best Password Managers for iPhone
Using a strong password is critical to the security of your online accounts. However, according to Dashlane, US users hold an average of 130 different accounts. Memorizing strong passwords for that many accounts is impractical. Fortunately, password managers solve the problem.
How To: Use Spotify Voice Commands to Play Artists, Playlists & More on Your Phone
Spotify launched an experimental feature in early-2018 called Spotify Voice, a voice assistant that lives right in the app. It lets you speak to quickly find and play your favorite songs, albums, artists, videos, and podcasts on the music streaming service. Although the feature was initially only available on iOS, it's been ported over to Android so that anyone can take advantage of it.
How To: Block Apps from Accessing Your iPhone's Camera to Prevent Privacy Invasions
The camera system on the iPhone has never been better. Apple's iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max sport some of the best shooters on the market. But no level of quality makes up for the fact that shady apps can access your cameras for nefarious reasons. You can take control of the situation, however, and block any app you want from using your rear and front-facing cameras.
How To: Use Apple Health to See if Your Headphones Are Too Loud When Connected to Your iPhone
Although the Health app mostly focuses on fitness, Apple has slowly added features to help with other aspects of well-being, including hearing. In iOS 13, there's now a headphones volume tracker in Health that monitors audio levels and lets you know when your music, podcast, movie, or whatever else is too loud.
How To: Back Up Your iPhone with Finder on MacOS
Apple said goodbye to iTunes with the release of macOS Catalina, breaking up music, videos, and podcasts into their own respective apps, Music, TV, and Podcasts. But without iTunes, what app's in charge of interfacing with your iPhone? That would be Finder, and you use it to sync your iPhone, as well as back it up and archive backups for emergency restores.
How To: Why Apple's HomeKit Secure Video Is a Big Deal for Privacy
In iOS 13, Apple added an important new feature to its HomeKit smart home ecosystem called HomeKit Secure Video. With it, you have a secure, private way to store and access recordings from your smart home IoT cameras.
How To: Enable HomeKit Secure Video on Your Logitech Circle 2 Cameras
In iOS 13, Apple introduced HomeKit Secure Video, which allows smart home devices with cameras to give iPhone users a private and secure way to store recorded videos. Plus, it has benefits such as object detection and activity notifications. Logitech is the first to add support for HomeKit Secure Video with its Circle 2 cameras, and all it takes is a quick firmware update to get started.
How To: Set Reminders to Alert You on a Particular Day & Time on iOS 13
The Reminders app has always lacked the oomf that would make a person switch from a powerful third-party task manager. But Reminders has received quite the makeover in iOS 13, including a revamped UI and several new features, such as timed reminder alerts, which make the app a worthy to-do list option for the iPhone.
How To: Remove Contacts from the Share Sheet on iOS 13
The share system on your iPhone serves as a hub for actions and share extensions, streamlining the process of saving files, sharing photos and videos, and other important tasks. On iOS 13 the Share Sheet has received a considerable upgrade, including the ability to more easily share content with your favorite contacts.
How To: The Easiest Way to Unlock Apple Maps' Hidden 3D View
By default, Apple's Maps features a 2D overhead viewing angle when you search for a place or get directions to a specific address. In the past, Apple Maps had a button in the top-right to view cities and landmarks in 3D, but that has now disappeared for the most part in iOS 13. However, the feature is still available to use — it's just sort of hidden this time around.
How To: Stop Videos & Live Photos from Auto-Playing in the Photos App on iOS 13
By default, videos in the Photos app auto-play in several instances on iOS 13, making it a great way to get a quick, extended glimpse when you're browsing. But this isn't always ideal — especially when you're flipping through private or embarrassing videos and other eyes are on your screen. Fortunately, Apple has an easy way to disable this feature.
How To: Organize Emails Better with Your iPhone's Hidden Flag Colors
The latest update to Apple's Mail app introduces a suite of new colors for flags, unique amongst even the best email apps on the App Store. The problem is they're hard to find — if you try to flag an email the old fashioned way, it'll use the default orange color, with seemingly no way to change it. Of course, there is a way, it's just a little out of the way.
How To: Force-Close Running Apps on Your iPhone 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max
As efficient as your iPhone is, it doesn't hurt to fully close running apps from time to time to free up memory and keep background processes to a minimum. Force-closing is also a great way to troubleshoot buggy apps, and can often resolve minor issues without having to restart your device.
How To: Download & Install Custom Fonts on Your iPhone in iOS 13
Apple added the option to install custom fonts and use them in different apps on iOS 13. The rollout has been a bit confusing, with Apple announcing partnerships with vendors such as Adobe, but also limiting the feature to work with only certain apps. Nonetheless, you can now download and install custom fonts on your iPhone.
How To: It's Easy to Stop Apps from Automatically Updating on Your iPhone
Since iOS 7, your iPhone automatically updates all of your apps, which is a wonderful thing ... until it's not. Not only does this feature drain the battery quicker when enabled, it can also bring changes to features, settings, and user interfaces in the apps that you already know and love. That's why you can easily disable the feature and stop apps from automatically updating.
How To: Can't Find Night Mode on Your iPhone? Here's Why
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.
How To: Keep Safari's Toolbars Hidden While Scrolling Webpages in iOS 13
Normally, when you scroll down a webpage in Safari on your iPhone, it automatically hides the bottom toolbar and minimizes the top Smart Search field. But as soon as you scroll back up, they both reappear, which can be pretty annoying if you don't need them. Apple's iOS 13 update brings many new features to Safari, one of which solves the toolbar issue so you can keep it hidden when reading.
How To: App Not Following iOS 13's Dark Mode? Check These Settings
There's no denying that native Dark Mode in iOS 13 is awesome. Stock apps that were blindingly white for over a decade can now be comfortably used in the middle of the night. You might find, however, that some of your third-party apps aren't taking the hint. Why won't YouTube switch to dark mode when iOS as a whole does? We put together a troubleshooting checklist to get your apps cooperating.
How To: Rotate Photos Without Any Cropping on the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max When Editing
So, you snapped a great picture, but it's just a little off-center. Usually, rotating a photo requires cropping it, which will lower the overall quality of the image. That's not the case on the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, however. Apple's new flagships allow you to rotate images without cropping them. The only issue? The feature isn't enabled by default.
How To: Type Curse Words with Apple's QuickPath Swipe-Typing Keyboard in iOS 13
The iPhone's autocorrect feature is wonderful and convenient, but it doesn't always work with informal language like profanity. If you've ever used the F-word, there's a good chance you've had your curse words "corrected" to other words that don't ducking make sense. And with the release of iOS 13, swearing in your messages and on social media could get a little harder.
How To: Password-Protect Your Pages Documents So Only You & Allowed Collaborators Can Access Them
Your writing is just that — yours — so the work you do in Apple Pages should remain private until you choose to share it. Apple seems to share this sentiment. As another symbol of its dedication to user privacy and security, the company includes a feature in its word-processing app for iOS that allows you to lock documents behind a password, as well as with Face ID or Touch ID.
How To: Make Siri Open Specific Apple Pages Documents on Your iPhone So You Don't Have to Hunt Them Down Yourself
Let's say you have an important report to submit, but you want to check it over for any last-minute edits or changes. Times running out, and you simply can't find this Pages document anywhere. Wouldn't it be great if you could just ask your iPhone to open the report for you, so you could stop wasting time searching and finish the paper? Well, thankfully, Siri can help you out with that.
How To: Make Siri Start a New Blank Apple Pages Document on Your iPhone
We're basically living in the future, so let's work like we are. For decades, we have, without question, opened a word processor like Pages, and clicked or tapped our way to starting a new document. What's wrong with that? It's unnecessary. We all have a digital assistant living in our iPhone, one that can start up a new Pages doc by verbal request.
How To: Customize Camera, Microphone & Location Permissions for Specific Websites in iOS 13's Safari
In iOS 13, Safari has become even more powerful, especially when it comes to privacy. The browser will warn you when you create a weak password for a new account. Your history and synced tabs in iCloud are end-to-end encrypted now. And there are per-site settings that let you choose which domains can and can't have permission to use particular device hardware or sensors.