How to make the most of your iPhone

Ever since the first iPhone was unveiled, back in 2007, by Steve Jobs, it changed the whole definition, purpose, and functionality of smartphones. It instantly became an integral part of our daily lives. As they evolved, they became more functional and more powerful.

We depend on our iPhones for a variety of crucial as well as trivial and fun tasks. They have become a necessary tool at this point. But most of us aren’t using them to get the most out of them or setting them up in a way that suits our individual preferences. Let’s look at a few of the many simple things you can do to get the most out of your iPhone.

Exploiting the ecosystem

If you have an iPhone, chances are you may have other Apple products too; like a MacBook, an iPad, or an Apple Watch. You can seamlessly pair your phone with them to receive and reply to texts, share images and documents, take phone calls and more. To enable the feature of taking phone calls or receiving messages on other Apple devices, just follow these simple steps.

1. Tap on the Settings app
2. Tap on iPhone (or Messages)
3. Tap Allow calls on other devices (or Text message forwarding)
4. Toggle which device you would like to receive and send phone calls or messages to

Streamline your notifications

Turning off almost all notifications except important ones like Google apps, Amazon Prime delivery, Uber Eats, etc can reduce the number of distractions you receive and make you less prone to picking up your iPhone for useless things. To do so follow these steps.

1. Open the Settings app
2. Go to Notification
3. Select individually the apps and turn them off according to your preference You can also turn off “badges” as well so you won’t have to see the number of notifications on the app and avoid the urge to open those apps.

Using Siri

Rather than using apps like Reminder to remember certain tasks and things, you can utilise Siri. It works well if you give it a try. It is certainly a faster and more efficient way to set up a reminder or do many other things with your phone.

You just have to activate Siri and talk to it. You can use Siri for tasks such as searches, calling, music controls and more as well. Siri is rapidly getting better and utilising it on a day-to-day basis will eventually make your interaction with your phone more streamlined and efficient.

Use Face ID with a Mask

Ever since the physical home button was taken away, it was met with not-so-favourable reactions from almost everyone. It became more apparent during the pandemic when we couldn’t unlock our iPhones while wearing a mask. Well, now you can unlock your iPhone with a mask on as well. To do so, follow these steps.

1. Go to the Settings app
2. Choose Face ID & Passcode
3. Select Face ID with a Mask
4. Turn the feature on

Privacy Report

Privacy is a major concern for every individual. We use so many apps and agree to their terms and conditions without even reading them. Now you can get an App Report that lets you see how often apps accessed permission-dependent data such as location, camera, microphone, etc.

1. Go to the Settings app
2. Select Privacy
3. Now look for the App Privacy Report
4. Turn that feature on

This will provide you with a holistic report about what your apps are accessing as well as how often they’re accessing that information.

Watch and listen with your friends & family

SharePlay is a feature that lets you call your group of friends over FaceTime and enjoy listening to music or watching movies together while in the comfort of your home. For this, you need iOS 15.1 or later.

1. Start a FaceTime call, either with a person or a group
2. Swipe back to your home screen
3. Open supported apps
4. Select a song or a movie
5. When prompted, tap on SharePlay to confirm that you want to share the content

Shift your keyboard

There are times when one of our hands is not free and we need to type from the only available hand. But the problem with it is that we can hardly reach the alphabet with our thumb. Well, there’s an easy hack to that.

1. Simply tap on the globe or emoji icon at the bottom of your keyboard.
2. On a pop-up, you will see options for the left and right keyboards
3. Select what you need and viola!

These are just some of the countless things you can do to make your phone behave according to your liking and use it to its maximum potential. As a general habit, one can frequent the Settings app to explore more and more features on their own. Happy Discovery!