How-To

YouTube is the new TV. And children everywhere are watching a lot of it. But the regular YouTube app isn't designed with parental controls in mind, which is why YouTube Kids is a great app for parents and grandparents to download. If you’ve ever hung out with a child, you know sometimes they just need a little distraction to settle down. But you also want to make sure they’re not accidentally (or not so accidentally) wandering into adult territory and watching something they shouldn't be. We’ll cover more on what the YouTube Kids app does and why we love it below.

With iOS 11 on iPhone or iPad, you can quickly and easily track the flight your friends and family are on in Safari. All you need is the airline and flight number and Safari will provide details. You can then tap on the details card to see the flight’s trajectory and where it’s currently located. Here’s how to track flights in Safari with iOS 11 on iPhone.

I’m sure we’ve all opened up Safari to search for the definition of a word. But with iOS 11, you don’t even need to search. Once you begin your query, Safari will automatically provide a details card at the top with the definition of the word. And as you’re typing it, Safari will even guess what word you’re looking up. Here’s how to define words in Safari with iOS 11 on iPhone.

Facebook is a great way to keep up on news and videos that your family and friends share. The problem is time. There’s never enough time to read everything you’d like to, and honestly, it’s not easy to find those articles again. I’ve seen people share articles they want to read later, but that can clutter your timeline and annoy your friends. Fortunately, Facebook has a save feature that makes it easy to save those and go back to them later. Here’s how to save an article (or video) to view later on Facebook.

Unless you have extensive experience with various wines, it’s not easy to know where to begin to what food to pair that wine with. Most of us have likely tried the popular wines like Merlot or Moscato, but feel lost when trying to branch out. I don’t know about you, but when I’m choosing a fancy wine for a special occasion, I end up choosing the wine with a label I think is creative or interesting, instead of knowing anything about what I’m going to drink or if it will go with the meal. Luckily, there is an app for this. Pocket Wine allows you to browse the various styles of wine, the grapes used to make it, keep track of the wines you’ve tried, and see what wine pairs best with what food. We’ll go over more on what the apps does and why we love it below.

Investing in stocks is something that can feel intimidating to learn how to do and difficult to jump into. Stockpile (free) makes it easy to everyone to start trading stocks, even kids. When you buy and sell, Stockpile charges you just $1 for the transaction, the rest is yours. I’ve tried other stock investing apps in the past, but always got hung up on how much it would cost to buy stocks or the process of setting up my back account with the app. But Stockpile takes a different approach by walking you through the process of buying stock immediately. In the last ten minutes, I was able to buy ten dollars in Apple stock, create an account, and begin the process for connecting my bank account. You heard me right—I bought ten dollars in Apple stock. But how is that possible when a single Apple stock costs way more than that? Learn more on this app, what it does, and why we love it below.

The app store looks very different in iOS 11. Not only are many of the tabs at the bottom different, but also Apple has added new features to the App Store that weren’t there before. The App Store has full articles on how to play certain games, interviews with the developers of a popular app, a featured App of the Day, and more. In a lot of ways, it’s much easier to find and discover apps in the new App Store. But it may take some getting used to. Here’s a quick tour of the new App Store with iOS 11 on iPhone.

This is one iPhone Life journey I’m very much going on with you all. It’s that time of year: new devices in means old devices got to go. But how? Should you sell your iPhone or trade-in your iPhone? How do you get the best deal? I’m facing these same questions. Sure, selling my iPhone would mean more money toward that shiny new iPhone X, but how much trouble do I want to go through? There are a lot of iPhone trade-in offers out there, including those from carriers like Verizon, third-party resellers like Gazelle, and even from Apple itself. We can’t make the decision for you, but we can lay out all of your options and the money (or credit) you can expect to get from each. Here’s how to sell or trade-in your iPhone so you can get that new one.

Everyone has a hard time getting to sleep at some point or another. And none of us appreciate alarms that startle us awake and out of the sweet, sweet joy of slumber. Plus, I don’t know about you, but any app that helps me focus is welcome in my life. Which is why, this week, I’m featuring my new favorite app: White Noise ($0.99). With over 40 sounds (and more available for download) that you can mix and record as you please, White Noise allows you to create various sound playlists that you can return to and share as you please. We’ll go into more on what White Noise does and why we love it below.