iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Back to school shopping for my kids is pretty different than it was during my own academic career. In my day, we’d select notebooks, folders, pencils, and pens. These days? Kids have a lot more options, to say the least! Smart supplies and tools are available for every part of the school day, from waking up in the morning, to lunchtime, to practices, to field trips, to hitting the hay at the end of the day.

Do you wish you could get an iPad or iPhone calendar alert when it's time to leave for an event or appointment? Now you can! Here's how to turn on Time to Leave alerts in the Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad. 

For those adventurous enough to want to branch out onto new terrain but cautious enough to want a digital guide, I have good news for you: you can now create a custom route on Apple Maps. It's easy to create and easy to manage and will keep you from getting lost on your walk, hike, or run. Let's dive into how to create a route on Apple Maps.

Apple’s new artificial intelligence is on the horizon, with the first features due with the release of iOS 18 on September 16, and the rest expected to roll out incrementally over the following year. Apple’s AI-powered features are collectively called Apple Intelligence, and they promise to super-power Siri, generate images from text prompts, rewrite your emails in different tones, summarize web pages or emails, and much more. But these features rely on the neural engine hardware built into the phone, and only the very latest generations of iPhone will sport neural engines powerful enough to unlock Apple Intelligence. So, is it worth an upgrade?

During the "It's Glowtime" event on September 9, Apple announced a new generation of AirPods, as well as breakthrough hearing health upgrades to the AirPods Pro 2. This new lineup of AirPods will allow you to experience music and media in a whole new way while protecting your hearing. Read on to learn more about Apple’s latest upgrades to its unparalleled wireless earbuds.

Apple's much-anticipated fall event brought us updates to three device lines: the iPhone 16, the Apple Watch 10, and the AirPods 4. Each category brought us a few headlining features, but whether or not you should upgrade each device depends largely on what device you already have. The entire 16 line sports the A18 chip, specially designed for Apple Intelligence features, and a brand new Camera Control button. We also see some Pro features come to the base models, such as the Action Button. The Apple Watch 10 sports a slimmer profile and a larger screen option than before and an important health feature that detects sleep apnea. The AirPods 4 also sees many of the AirPods Pro 2 features join its ranks, while the AirPods Pro 2 are getting a software update that can make them function as hearing aids. Here are the top five takeaways from Apple's iPhone 16 event.

The all-new iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max were announced at Apple's "It's Glowtime" event on September 9. If you're a committed iPhone enthusiast or are looking to get the ultimate creative camera, audio, and video features for your iPhone, you're likely to be intrigued by the newly debuted Pro and Pro Max models. This latest generation adds a host of new Apple Intelligence features to help you more easily accomplish daily tasks with Siri as well as personal and professional projects (features only newer iPhones support, too). Below, we'll cover the new features and compare how they stack up to previous models.