How-To

Apple recently released a new app for iOS 10.3 users and beyond. The new Clips app can be downloaded on iPhone or iPad. In short, the Clips app is a video creation app that allows you to add captions, effects, filters, and music, and then share it with your friends. I was skeptical of the app at first, thinking it would be gimmicky. But after writing a full-length how-to on using the app, I’m impressed with its features, particularly the ability to record and have the app automatically turn your voice into captions. The Clips app removes the social part of social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram in favor of focusing on the awesome shareable videos you can create. Here’s how to download Apple’s new Clips app on your iPhone or iPad.

If you're like me, you spend a lot of time each day dealing with email. The swiping gestures available for marking and flagging email messages on iPhone can save you some of that time. You can use swiping gestures to mark emails as read or unread or flag them for follow-up, as well as every other function, such as forwarding or moving to another folder. Here’s how to use swiping gestures in Mail on iPhone.

Is Apple’s new Clips app a replacement video editing app for iMovie? Not quite. The Clips app taps into the Instagram/Snapchat generation, offering an extremely easy platform in which users can create video stories and share them with friends. While Clips is a pretty awesome free video editing app, it’s not going to fulfill the same purposes as iMovie. For the video editing professional, Clips isn’t going to cut it for complex projects. But for the everyday person, it’s a fun new way to create professional-looking videos that are easily shareable with friends and via social media. I’ll go through everything you need to know to start creating and editing videos with the Clips app. This is the latest Apple app, and it seems that its main purpose is, simply, fun.

If you’re ditching your iPhone, whether permanently or temporarily, you’re going to need to deactivate iMessage. This is due to an issue Apple had to solve a while ago, wherein users who switched to an Android, or other non-iPhone smartphone, were missing texts from friends who were sending iMessages. If you still have the iPhone that you need to disable iMessage on, the process is super quick and easy. Likewise, there’s a simple solution even if you’ve already sold or given your old iPhone away. If you switched from an iPhone to another iPhone, this shouldn’t be an issue for you. But if you’re switching (or planning to switch) to an Android device, use this tip to deregister your iPhone from iMessage before or after you’ve gotten your new smartphone. Here’s how to deactivate and deregister iMessage on iPhone.

If you think tipping is optional then you need to revisit your basic being-a-decent-human-being skills. And when in doubt, leave at least 20 percent. I’d love to tell you I can do the math in my head every single time, but why when Siri can do it for me. Oh technology, thank you. Here’s how to calculate your tip with Siri.

You’ve always been able to send sketches and drawings to other Apple Watch users with Apple Watch. Now those same text message drawing options come to iPhone and iPad with Digital Touch on iOS 10. You can send sketches, fireballs, and even your heartbeat in iMessages to other iPhone users. You can also choose a photo and write your Digital Touch message over it before sending your iPhone text drawings to a friend. We’ll go over all the different things you can do with Digital Touch on iPhone or iPad. Here’s how to send Digital Touch drawings in Messages with iOS 10 on iPhone.

Do you have friends who use Facebook to play games like Candy Crush? Do those friends send you constant game invites, never getting the hint that you don’t want to play? If your answer is no, consider yourself lucky. Most of us have logged on to see that all of our notifications were merely invitations to games we’ve never, ever been interested in playing. Luckily, Facebook allows you to turn off notifications for game invites and apps completely. Here’s how to never get a game invite on Facebook again. 

I love using my Calendar app to keep track of my family's schedule. It can only be so helpful, though, when I'm the only one using it. Having a shareable family calendar means that we can all be on the same page—all the time. The family calendar just might be my favorite feature of Family Sharing! Here’s how to add an event to your family calendar on iPhone.

Unfollowing friends on Facebook is an easy way to stay friends with someone without seeing their posts. But maybe you want to reconnect with them now. You can easily choose to start following them on Facebook again, which will simply allow Facebook to show you their posts in your News feed. Here’s how to reconnect with people you unfollowed on Facebook.