iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Saved by the Apple Watch: Stories from Our Readers

I frequently call my Apple devices lifesavers. I would miss 99 percent of my appointments without the help of my iPhone alarms, but it may be a bit of an exaggeration to say I would die without my HomePod. There was no hyperbole needed for many of you who wrote in with stories of when your Apple devices saved the day! Once again, you came through with some amazing tales of your iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirTags coming to your rescue. I will reproduce several of them here, edited for space and clarity.

Apple introduced the Live Photo feature with the iPhone 6S, and it's still a fun and popular feature of the native iPhone Camera app. Unless you've unselected Live Photo settings in the Camera Settings, the Live Photo function is on by default when you open the Camera app, so you need to turn off Live Photo if you want a traditional still shot. Sometimes, though, we all forget to turn off Live Photo; now what? No worries, you can delete the Live Photo version of your picture and keep the still photo. 

How to Sort Notifications

By Conner Carey

With iOS 9, you have the option to sort pull-down notifications. This allows you to group or ungroup apps and view notifications sorted manually or by most recent. When you group apps, they’re sorted into blocks under notifications with the most recent app appearing at the top. When apps are ungrouped, notifications will sort intermixed by most recent unless sorted manually.

Proactive Assistant was one of the new features introduced with iOS 9. Since then, I’ve noticed a lot of misunderstanding as to just what Proactive Assistant does, how to utilize it, and how to turn it off. Proactive Assistant pays attention to what you do and where you use your phone. Proactive Assistant works with Siri to give you Spotlight Suggestions but the habit learning program has it’s own set of suggestions to help you out.

"Nailed it!" That's what I imagine it sounds like to work at Twelve South. The folks there seem to repeatedly and reliably come up with accessory after accessory that makes the Apple experience better. I use a MacBook stand from the company, and used to have an iPad BookBook case for my original iPad and a BookBook case for my new iPhone 6s. In fact, the BookBook is probably Twelve South's most notable product. It is an iPad or iPhone case disguised as a leather-bound book, and the iPhone versions have slots for credit cards and ID. You get the best of both worlds: handmade, old-world-book style and modern e-books and apps!  It's very charming and functional, and could protect your iOS devices from unwitting thieves.

In 2011, Steve Jobs envisioned a second Apple Campus like that of a “spaceship landed.” Jobs imagined the structure as circular with a courtyard at its center and constucted without a “single piece of straight glass.” In Cupertino, California the envisioned structure is currently under construction with plans to be completed by end of next year.

Easily installed to existing windows, AXIS Gear allows you to control or automate your window shades with your iPhone. The Indiegogo project is looking to fundraise the manufacturing of its product. You can set scheduling to open the morning blinds and lower them at sunset. Control your curtains with or without iPhone via the AXIS gear motor; it's also fully compatible with other smart home systems.

I was at New York City Comic Con a while ago, and the kind folks from Yogibo had a variety of their comfortable "un-beanbag" chairs available for weary convention goers to try. They are extremely comfortable, in part due to their "zero friction" modules which are less restrictive than traditional beanbag chairs. But I noticed they had smaller, pillow-sized items.

Pages