Tips

This is a favorite tip of mine for the iPhone. You can shoot video and take a still photo while you’re recording. There have been many times when I was shooting video and wanted to take a quick snapshot. Luckily, doing so on an iPhone is super easy. Here’s how to take a still photo while shooting video on your iPhone.

Before iOS 11, the only way to lock a note in the Notes app was to tap the Share icon and select Lock Note. Now you can quickly and easily lock any note in the Notes app by swiping on it. This shortcut means you don’t even need to open a note to lock it, and it makes the whole process a lot smoother. Here’s how to quickly lock a note on your iPhone.

We’ve all been there: we get swipe happy while checking our email and accidentally delete an email we needed to read. Shake to undo on the iPhone is helpful in this situation, but if you’re chronically deleting emails you needed to read, consider turning on a feature that asks you if you’re sure you want to delete an email before it’s deleted. You can turn this feature on in Settings on the iPhone; here’s how to avoid accidentally deleting mail starting with iOS 12 on your iPhone's Mail app.

The Apple Watch Series 4 and later has a feature that will contact emergency services when you fall if you either confirm that you need help or you remain immobile for thirty seconds. Fall Detection on the Apple Watch can be enabled in your watch's Emergency SOS settings, which can be found in the Watch app on your iPhone. It's important to keep in mind that while the Apple Watch has an intuitive accelerometer and gyroscope, it won't register all falls. Also, if you participate in high-impact activities such as sports, those activities may register as falls. If you've previously entered your age in the Health app or while setting up your Apple Watch as 65 or older, Fall Detection will be on by default

If you want to get a better handle on file organization on your iPhone, the Files app can really help. Here's how to make a folder in the Files app. You'll have to have iOS 11 or later, and have set up and enabled iCloud Drive on your iPhone. You'll only be able to create a folder within the iCloud Drive category in the Files app. The On My iPhone category only stores files from apps that are downloaded to your device and can't be manually changed. 

When searching the web on your iPhone, you can use the search suggestions that appear below the search bar in Safari or Chrome instead of typing out your whole query. Usually when you tap a search suggestion, it immediately searches with those terms. With iOS 12.2 or later, when you tap the blue arrow next to a search suggestion, the phrase is added to the search bar and you'll be able to continue typing or tapping to add additional search suggestions 

Saving items like notes, documents, and photos to the Files app on your iPhone can help you view and manage several things from one app. Here's how to save items to the Files app, which will help you stay organized. If you use Finder on your Mac, you'll notice that the Files app works in a similar way for your iPhone. By saving items to the Files app, you can use Files as a hub to view or share multiple things from this single app. With the Files app, you'll be able to save items to your iCloud Drive (after you've set up iCloud Drive) or a folder under On This iPhone.

The Do Not Disturb function on iPhone allows you to silence all incoming calls, texts, and notifications. Here's how to bypass Do Not Disturb for individual contacts using a feature called Emergency Bypass. This allows the people designated to reach you on your iPhone even if your Do Not Disturb settings are set to silence calls and texts from everyone. Here's how you can tweak the a contact's settings to override Do Not Disturb when it’s turned on so that you’ll still hear their incoming call or text or both. 

Portrait Mode is a feature on the iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus, X, XR, XS, and XS Max that gives photos a professional look by blurring the background (known as the bokeh effect). While Portrait Mode on the iPhone is a software version of what DSLR camera lenses can do, it works pretty well most of the time. But perhaps you took a photo in Portrait Mode that didn’t turn out so well. You can turn off Portrait Mode after taking the photo since it is just a software feature. Here’s how to turn off Portrait Mode after taking a photo on the iPhone.

The new gestures on iPhone X or later have some people confused while others are thinking up ways Apple could have done it better; but either way, they're probably here to stay. In this tip we'll cover how to open Control Center on the iPhone X, XR, and XS, as well as how to customize Control Center. Luckily, once you learn how to open Control Center and get used to the new movement, it’s really not that big of a challenge. Plus, we'll include a bonus tip for those who want to open Control Center a bit more easily on the iPhone X or later. 

The iPhone Calendar app has a hidden list view that allows you to see your daily events while in the calendar month view. Here’s how to switch to calendar list view on iPhone. When you open the Calendar app on iPhone, it appears you can only view today, month, or year view. You can actually view the overall daily events for any day within a selected month. We’ll show you how to find the hidden list view with a single tap.