iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Romanticize Your Life with OHOM Self Heating Tea Set

Any warm beverage lover knows the importance of drinking your steaming cuppa in the temperature sweet spot: after the scalding steam has eased and before the lukewarm disappointment sets in. Finishing your morning beverage before it goes lukewarm is a challenge though! That’s why the promise to keep my beverages hot while simplifying my desk layout piqued my interest. First stop: the OHOM Ui Plus Self Heating Mug Set (starting at $88) and OHOM Leiph Self Heating Teapot Set ($49).

How to Use New Interactive Widgets with iOS 17

One fun new feature that debuted with iOS 17 is the highly requested interactive widgets. In previous iterations of iOS, the widgets displayed bits of info or data. Now, with iOS 17, you can actually use the widgets as if they are mini versions of the app! This includes things like checking off reminders on your to-do list, turning your lights on and off via the Home widget, or pressing play or pause on your Apple Music. Here's how it works!

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, I almost skipped past the Sandman Clocks booth. After all, how high tech can a clock be and what does a clock have to do with iPhones? A lot, as it turns out. The 4-Port USB Charging Clock ($29) from Sandman Clocks is first and foremost a clock. That is apparent from the bright and large red LED numerals that are easy to see, day and night. They take up almost the full size of the clock, which is great, especially if you keep it far away from your nightstand. But what really sets the Sandman Clock apart is that it has four USB ports, including a high powered port for charging tablets, which allows it to act as a multi-device charging station. I have my iPhone, iPad mini, Apple TV Siri remote, and Apple Watch on my nightstand. This could charge all of those and not take up any more wall outlets. The Sandman Clock would be ideal for hotels that want to accommodate their guests' many USB devices, without making them unplug a lamp as I've had to do too often.

Many apps provide extra content or enhancements for a fee, but in-app purchases are a good way to accidentally rack up a high App Store bill. Those 99 cent extras add up quickly and before you know it, you (or your kids!) have gone way over your monthly phone bill budget. No worries though; there’s an easy way to prevent this in your Settings app. Here’s how to restrict in-app purchases.

Steve Jobs would be 61 today, and it’s been another fantastic year for Apple. Tim Cook as Steve Jobs’ successor has been the best of CEO transitions you could hope for. And amidst the privacy war between Apple and the FBI, I think Steve Jobs would be even more proud of how his company is handling itself not only in finances and innovation, but as a progressive company leading the charge for privacy rights. This last year we also saw the release of the semi-biopic Steve Jobs movie which looks at the man behind the work; however, the best way to understand someone who’s no longer with us is to hear what they had to say when they were.

By now, we’re all aware of the US court order for Apple to create a tool (which would essentially work as a Master Key) that allows the FBI to access information on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c. Apple has refused, and the company plans to make a formal appeal with top free speech lawyers in the next couple days. With the company’s refusal has come loads of support from other major tech companies, rights groups, and iPhone users while garnering criticism from Donald Trump. Meanwhile, cybersecurity legend John McAfee has said he and his team will hack the shooter’s iPhone for free, and it will only take them three weeks to do it.

When I graduated from high school, I was presented with a set of 10K gold Cross pens by my parents. This replaced a chrome set I had received in junior high school. For many, Cross was a symbol for writers. Over the years, I have collected many pens, but my Cross pens remain front-and-center, flanked by their cousins from Mont Blanc and Cartier. Today, I write on my iPad Air 2 more often than on paper. The closest pen, versus the best pen, usually suffices for the occasional check endorsement or tax note on a receipt. Like regular pens, I have collected dozens of styluses, from the passive type that drove the interfaces of the Sharp Zaurus and the Pocket PC, to the active type used to scrawl across the likes of the Microsoft Surface. 

How to Cancel Siri Commands

By Conner Carey

Apple’s AI, Siri, is constantly improving. You can use Siri to do more now than ever, including including playing albums, asking about sport scores, and turning on and off certain settings such as Low Power Mode or Bluetooth. However, sometimes you ask Siri to do something and change your mind or need to ask another question. For instance, if you ask Siri to set a reminder but realize you don’t need the reminder, it’s easy to cancel the command. Here’s how to cancel Siri commands.

Set Reminders on iPhone & iPad

I don't know about you, but if I don't write down my appointments and activities, I'm sure to lose them in a deep, dark corner of my mind. To say I'm merely forgetful is an understatement. The Reminders app allows me to set reminders on my iPhone based on the time, day, or location. Let's go over how to set a reminder on iPhone and iPad!

There are certainly days where none of us like Facebook. Perhaps you’re not a fan a Twitter either, but you still want to stay in touch with friends or discover and connect with amazing people around the world. Well, as it turns out, there are a lot of alternative social networks you can try instead. If you’re sick of Facebook and planning not to go back, here’s five other social network alternatives.

Touch ID has seen some major improvements since the release of the iPhone 6s. It’s more accurate and works much more often than it used to. But now, I find Touch ID unlocks my iPhone before I have a chance to check the notification that has popped up. Or, if I’m driving and I just want to change the song from the Lock screen, sometimes Touch ID works too quickly and I end up unlocking my iPhone and having to take the extra step of opening the Music app. Well, here’s our trick to get around that.

Yesterday, I reported on the Letter to Customers Apple CEO, Tim Cook released following a US Federal Judge’s order for the company to help the FBI break into the San Bernardino Shooter’s iPhone. A fellow writer here at iPhone Life wrote an opinion piece detailing how Apple could do this for a single iPhone, but the issue extends beyond a single instance. Today multiple major Rights Groups have released statements in solidarity with Apple’s refusal. Ultimately this issue is important, because it creates a precedent for privacy moving forward.

If you have a Bluetooth car stereo, a Bluetooth speaker, a Bluetooth keyboard, or any other Bluetooth-enabled device that you don’t want your iPhone to connect to anymore, it's easy to make your device forget about it. Follow these easy steps and your iPhone won’t remember your Bluetooth device. If you change your mind, no worries, you can pair the device as though it were new.

Even if you're fairly tech-savvy, you may not know how much 64 GB of iPhone storage actually is, or the way to explain what the differences are in memory vs. storage. Honestly, many people don't know how much storage they need on their iPhone, iPad, or other devices, and most of us have run into issues when we've ended up with too little storage. How much storage should you get on your iPhone? You're right to wonder, especially now that the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max are here with 128, 256, or 512 GB of storage, and the iPhone 12  and 12 mini have arrived with 64, 128, or 256 GB options to choose from. Let's look at memory vs. storage on iPhone, iPad, and other devices, and how much memory and storage capacity you actually need on your phone.

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