Apple How-Tos « Apple :: Gadget Hacks

How To: Open Any App Instantly from Your iPhone's Lock Screen

Widgets can display essential information from an app right on your iPhone's Lock Screen, but there's an even bigger reason you should be using them: fast access to your most-used apps.

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.

How To: Your iPhone Has an Important New Feature for Maintaining Privacy and Security — And You Should Definitely Be Using It

You're probably sharing a ton of information on your iPhone with other people, apps, and services without really realizing it. Now there's a new tool to show you just how much, and it can be an eye-opener as well as a fast way to manage sharing permissions and review your account security.

How To: Change This One Thing on Your iPhone to Make Your Passcode Nearly Impossible to Hack

There's only one thing keeping hackers, thieves, law enforcement agencies, and maybe even the people you thought you could trust from breaking into your iPhone should they ever get possession of the device. Their odds of bypassing that thing are pretty good, but there's an easy way to make it an almost impossible feat.

How To: 18 Siri Commands Every iPhone Owner Should Know

Siri can perform many actions for you on your iPhone, such as sending messages, providing information, getting directions, looking up a contact, and playing music. Still, there are even more important Siri voice commands that every iPhone owner should know — even the ones who hate Siri.

How To: The Little-Known iPad Feature You'll Never Stop Using Once You Know About It

Your iPad has a superpower that iPhone models don't and probably never will have (even though they could) — one that will make you want to take your iPad with you everywhere you go from now on.

How To: Can't Access Any iCloud Data from a Web Browser? This Is How You Fix It

If you can't access your iCloud data such as emails, contacts, calendars, photos, notes, reminders, files, and other documents via a web browser on untrusted devices, like one at a library or friend's house, there's an easy way to regain access.

How To: Siri Has 15 New Skills for iPhone That Even Siri Haters Will Love

Unlike most of Apple's other apps and services, it's not always obvious when Siri gets new features. Even if you're an avid Siri user, there's no way you can catch them all, especially when half of them aren't even mentioned by Apple anywhere. But that's what we're here for, and this is everything you need to know about Siri in the latest group of features.

How To: Your iPhone's Phone App Has a Hidden Call Feature That's Useful AF

There are a surprising number of hidden features in your iPhone's Phone app, from secret dialer codes that provide info or perform actions to special characters that make dialing extensions automatically. However, there's one little-known trick every iPhone owner should know when using the Phone app for calls — and it's the simplest and most useful of them all.

How To: Uninstall Specific Software Updates on Your iPhone When You Experience Performance Issues

While most iOS updates will only improve the experience on your iPhone, some can cause more havoc than good. If an update unexpectedly breaks or degrades certain functions on your iPhone, you may be able to roll it back to the previous software.

How To: The Low-Key, Most Important Photos Feature You Need to Implement Right Now on Your iPhone

Your iPhone has a powerful feature that can keep your secrets hidden from other people, and you'll never have to worry about sharing or showing someone something embarrassing or incriminating ever again.

How To: 14 New iOS 16.3 Features for iPhone You Need to Know About

The latest software update for iPhone has a few new features you should know about, including an enhanced security feature to protect your Apple ID account from phishing and other attacks. Keep reading to see everything new that's included with iOS 16.3 for iPhone.

How To: Your iPhone Has Hidden Tools to Help You Understand Emoji Better

Is the emoji you're using really the one you think it is? While you can use any emoji that looks like it fits what you have to say, it may have been created for a different purpose. On an iPhone, it's easy to find that purpose by retrieving the actual name of the emoji in Apple's operating system.

How To: The Hidden iPhone Settings That Give You Power User Control Over All Your Apps

It's not an easy task when it comes to customizing apps on your iPhone. Sure, you can build automations in Shortcuts to add color-related filters, enable Live Captions, or play a background sound specific to each app, but it can be too much work. If you don't mind that, go ahead, but there are also some easier per-app settings hiding on your iPhone that are much easier to assign.

How To: Seamlessly Transfer a FaceTime Call to Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac Without Disconnecting It

One advantage to using Apple's ecosystem is Continuity, which allows you to move files, media, and tasks seamlessly between all your Apple devices. It even lets you use one device to help with actions on another, like unlocking your Mac with your Apple Watch or using your iPad as a second display. Now, things are even better with Continuity with Handoff's new FaceTime functionality.

How To: Your iPhone's Contacts App Is More Powerful Than Ever with These Killer New Features

In the past, Apple never really put much work into its Contacts app for iPhone, making the tool much less useful than its Mac and iCloud counterparts. But now the Contacts app for iOS is a force to be reckoned with. Packed with new features (some hidden), it's finally good enough to beat all of the third-party contacts apps that previously reigned supreme.

How To: Customize the Always-On Display on Your iPhone 14 Pro or 14 Pro Max

Apple's Always-On display feature for the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max can show important information on the screen even when the device is sleeping. While the dimmed Lock Screen may seem like a WYSIWYG component, there are actually a few ways you can customize it to fit your needs better.

How To: 20 Surprisingly Practical Uses for Apple AirTags

Apple AirTags are super helpful for keeping track of your keys, backpack, and other frequently misplaced items, but there are some pretty clever things you can do with them beyond finding your stuff.

How To: 15 Hidden iMessage Features for iPhone You Probably Didn't Know About

There are many things Apple doesn't tell you about its products, and that's definitely the case when it comes to its Messages app. Hidden features lurk in your SMS and iMessage conversations just waiting to be found, and we've unearthed some of the most secret ones.

How To: Explore Freeform, Apple's New Digital Whiteboard for Brainstorming, Collaboration, and More

When you need to take notes, sketch out projects, brainstorm with others, create mood boards, or map out ideas without constraints, look no further than Freeform, Apple's new collaboration-friendly digital whiteboard.

How To: Your iPhone Has 25 New Accessibility Tools You Shouldn't Ignore

While it's not usually the first thing everyone looks at after installing a new iOS software update, I'd give the new accessibility features on your iPhone priority attention because there are some highly valuable tools that even users without disabilities can enjoy.

How To: The Trick to Using Your iPhone's Portrait Mode in Other Photo and Video Apps

Your iPhone's Camera app isn't the only place you can use Portrait mode for selfies. An easy-to-miss feature built right into iOS lets app developers leverage Apple's powerful Portrait mode effect in their own apps, so you can add a shallow focus effect to photos and videos when using the front-facing camera in FaceTime and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Zoom.

How To: 11 Ways to Customize Your iPhone's Status Bar Without Jailbreaking

You see the status bar nearly everywhere on your iPhone, and it almost always looks the same. But there are a few tricks you can use to spice things up a bit — without having to jailbreak your iPhone.

How To: 20 Hidden Calculator Tricks for Your iPhone

The Calculator app is probably one of Apple's most-used iPhone apps, yet I always meet people who don't know all the little tricks there are to using it more efficiently. You may know most of them, but there's a chance you don't or at least forget about some of them.

How To: Give Your iPhone Mac-Like Shutdown and Startup Chimes So You Know When It Powers Off and On

Have you ever heard a sound when you shut down, boot up, or restart your iPhone? Probably not, but it doesn't have to stay that way.

How To: Download and Install iOS 16.4 on Your iPhone to Try New Features First

Apple's iOS 16 update was released on Sept. 12 with over 350 new features, like viewing all your Wi-Fi passwords, cutting the background out of your photos, and the all-new lock screen experience. Then came iOS 16.1 on Oct. 24 with essential updates like Live Activities and scroll to text fragments, and iOS 16.2 on Dec. 13 with Apple Music Sing and Freeform. But it doesn't stop there.

How To: Download and Install iPadOS 16.4 on Your iPad Right Now

New features will be coming to the iPad with iPadOS 16.4, and you'll be able to try them all out before everyone else as long as you're OK with running beta software on your device.

How To: Use Apple Music's New Sing Mode for Karaoke on Your iPhone Anywhere You Go

Apple just delivered an early Christmas present to Apple Music subscribers and karaoke fans in the form of Apple Music Sing, a singalong mode that lets you take over as lead vocalist for your favorite tracks.

How To: iOS 16.2 Has 39 Huge Changes You Need to Know About Before Updating Your iPhone

Apple's latest big software update includes an entirely new Apple app, a controversial change in the TV app, better Siri control, an improved Shortcuts app, interesting Safari upgrades, Apple Music Sing, and more. Keep reading to see what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone.

How To: Take Full Control Over Siri's Audible Responses on Your iPhone for Silent or Spoken Replies When You Need Them

Apple's iOS 16 update changes the way Siri speaks responses, defaulting to a more "automatic" solution that lets your iPhone decide when it should or shouldn't talk out loud. That may sound like a good thing, but it makes it harder to keep Siri quiet when you only want muted responses. Thankfully, a new iOS update gives you back some control.

How To: Apple Books Has 10 New Shortcut Actions on iOS 16.2 That Finally Let You Automate E-Book and Audiobook Tasks

When iOS 16.0 was still in early beta testing, Apple teased us with a slew of new Books actions in the Shortcuts app, but none of them materialized in iOS 16.0 or 16.1. That changes with Apple's latest software update for iPhone.

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

Night Shift, Dark Mode, Reduce White Point, and Zoom's Low Light Filter all help reduce the harmful effects on your body's clock that bright iPhone and iPad screens have at night. But there's another option on iOS and iPadOS that turns your entire display red, and it's useful for so much more than just late-night browsing in bed.

How To: The 16 Biggest Health Features You Should Know About on iOS 16

You've probably already been using iOS 16 on your iPhone for months, but there's a good chance you haven't found or explored everything the new software has to offer. Health-related features are usually the first to be ignored or go unnoticed, but they're essential to know about even if you don't plan on using them right away.

How To: Customize Colors for All the Apps on Your iPhone to Match How You Use Them Most (Or Just for Fun)

There aren't many iPhone apps that let you change their color theme beyond light and dark appearances. They really don't need to either because iOS has a few hidden tricks up its sleeves to help you customize any app's colors either during a specific session or every time you use the app.

How To: This Hidden Trick Lets You Bold Text in Your iPhone's Status Bar for a Heavier Look System-Wide

There's not much you can customize on your iPhone's status bar beyond showing or hiding the battery percentage icon. You can't choose different icons or pick a vibrant color, but there's a secret trick that lets you bold all the text.

How To: The Apple Health Feature Every iPhone Owner Should Be Using (Even if They Don't Like the Health App)

Your iPhone's Health app has a new medications hub that can be a one-stop destination for all the medicine, vitamins, and supplements you're taking. Adding new entries is easy and well worth the effort to get reminders to take your meds, learn about drug interactions, easily share your routine, and track your history to see what is and isn't working for you.