By Conner Carey
Siri can do all kinds of things these days on the iPhone. From telling you the latest sports scores to letting you know what song is playing on the radio. Another awesome thing you can ask Siri is what your schedule looks like for the day. Here’s how to check your schedule with Siri.
By Tommy Ly
Since its inception, Siri has become more and more useful. It’s obvious that Apple has put a lot of thought into Siri’s place in today’s world, resulting in Siri's ability to do everything from calculations to searching the web and making restaurant reservations. With Hey Siri, Apple’s personal assistant makes things even more convenient.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Need iPad and iPhone help? Sign up for iPhone Life Insider and I’ll help you with all of your iPhone troubleshooting and iOS-related issues. Here’s a question from an Insider who wanted to know how to share his photo library with his wife:
By Becca Ludlum
Apple Music offers lots of radio options by genre or curator. But you can also create your own radio stations by starting with a song you enjoy. Apple Music will then offer songs it feels matches the mood, tempo, and genre of what you chose to play. If you really like the radio station you create, you can take it step further and share it with your friends. Here’s how to share a station you created in Apple Music.
By Mark Struczewski
iCloud is a great service...but it doesn't always behave.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you update your iOS Calendar app on your iPhone that the change doesn't happen quickly (or at all) on your iPad? I have.
But no worries; there is a quick and simple solution.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Apple Maps has improved a lot since its disastrous debut. But many people still prefer to use Google Maps as their go-to navigation app. The problem is, when you ask Siri for directions, it'll automatically use Apple Maps as the default app for turn-by-turn directions. If you want to use Google Maps or some other navigation app with Siri instead, try this handy trick:
By Conner Carey
Finally, in iOS 9, there is an option to delete all of your mail via the Mail app. This only works with individual mailboxes, such as Yahoo, not the All Inboxes mailbox. If you're using Gmail, you'll need to select Delete All instead of Archive All in Gmail Settings. If you're worried about losing emails you want to keep, there's a setting you can enable to prevent accidentally deleting emails.
By Conner Carey
Voicemail storage is limited and, usually, most people discard the old ones. However, now and again there’s an awesome or hilarious message that you want to keep or share with friends and family. Now, in iOS 9, you can do that.
By Conner Carey
Apple's free Find My Friends app allows you to track the location of friends and family members who have given you permission. The feature probably works best for keeping track of teenagers running around town, and Siri is happy to help you locate them.
By Conner Carey
Currently, Live Photos can only be viewed from an Apple device running on iOS 9 or later and Macs running OS X El Capitan. Others will see only the still version of the Live Photos. However, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users are eager for those Live Photos to be shareable beyond that limited circle of Apple users. Here’s how to create a GIF from a Live Photo so you can share it with anyone.
By Conner Carey
With iOS 8 came iCloud Drive; and now, there's an app for that. iCloud Drive is, simply put, Apple's Dropbox. When you're logged into iCloud, you can easily save files to the drive, which are then accessible across all iOS devices and work in conjunction with OS X and Windows. With iOS 9, Apple has added an iCloud Drive app that makes it easy to view, edit, and manage the documents saved to your drive. The app is automatically included in the new update; however, the option to display the iCloud Drive app is hidden in your Settings.
By Conner Carey
So you bought an Apple TV; now what? There are countless streaming network subscriptions, but what if you want to play a movie or song from your iTunes library? Welcome to Home Sharing. Using Wi-Fi and your Apple ID to connect your devices, Home Sharing makes it easy to watch the videos you own (or made) right on your TV screen.
By Jim Karpen
You may have had the experience of working on a draft of an email but then needing to look at a different email in your inbox. But the draft obscured the screen and couldn't be quickly pushed aside and then returned to. Fortunately, you can easily swipe away a draft, access your other email, and then quickly bring it back into view to continue working on it. This is typically referred to as "minimizing" the email draft.
Siri is an awesome time saver. Want to view your most recent calls, text someone, get directions, or post to Facebook? Just ask Siri. You can even do all this from your lock screen. The problem is, so can anyone else. If your settings allow for it, anyone can access your call history, send a tweet, or get directions to a contact's home from your lock screen just by bringing up Siri and asking.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Panoramic photos are great for capturing an expanded view of a beautiful landscape. Typically, this is done by moving your iPhone from left to right or right to left as you take the photo in Pano mode. But what about when you want to capture a shot of something really tall, like a tree, for example, or even the Eiffel Tower? Well, you'll be excited to hear that you can take vertically oriented panoramic photos with your iPhone too!
By Sarah Kingsbury
Use timers a lot? Here's a fun way to use music on your iPhone to time showers and other activities like workouts or your kids' chores. If you like to fall asleep listening to music or podcasts and want playback to stop after a set time, this tip will work for that too.
By Conner Carey
iBooks allows you to browse, buy, and read books on your Apple devices. You can even download samples of a book to read before you buy it. The Featured section has the latest titles, and you can find just about anything else by searching. It does what Kindle won’t with in-app purchasing that makes the process from buying to reading instantaneous.
By Conner Carey
With the introduction of larger iPhone screens, Apple also created the feature Reachability. You may have activated this by accident in the past; it’s when your interface temporarily moves to the bottom of the screen, providing access to icons or links that were out of reach while holding the phone with one hand. To activate Reachability, you simply tap the Home button twice. Don’t click the Home button, or the App Switcher will pop up. However, if you don’t care for this feature, here’s how to turn off Reachability.
Your music library holds everything...right? Well it doesn’t have to. You have the option to add a song to a playlist without that song automatically ending up in your Apple Music library too. For example, if you’re creating a Christmas playlist, you probably don’t want to hear those same songs play on shuffle in May. Luckily, it’s easy to change this feature in Settings. Here’s how to add a song to an Apple Music playlist but not your library.
By Jim Karpen
When you’re playing music from your iPhone, you’ll notice the Lock screen will provide information on the song playing as well as some added controls. It doesn’t matter if you’re listening to playlist, your music library, or streaming Beats radio — the Lock screen will look roughly the same. Here’s how to control Apple Music from Lock screen.
