iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2

At Apple’s September 2023 announcement event, the tech giant revealed the capabilities of its new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. The yearly update to both devices improves the processor to a new S9 chip, which will include AI processing cores for the first time on an Apple Watch. These cores enhance the function of every task that relies on artificial intelligence, from processing photos, to interpreting voice commands, to more accurate typing with autocorrect. Those cores will allow Siri to process some commands on the Apple Watch, without needing to communicate with an iPhone or the cloud. The new chip also enables a whole new gesture the user performs on their watch-arm, without touching the screen. Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s latest generation of Apple Watches.

How to Add a Parent to Approve Purchases in Family Sharing

Can you have two organizers in an Apple Family Sharing group? No, but the family organizer of each group can change the role of a second parent or guardian to control kids' Apple purchases. Here's how to set up Family Sharing to allow another adult Family Group member to block or approve Ask to Buy requests in Family Sharing on an iPhone or iPad. 


The Apple Watch is set to remind you to stand every waking hour for at least a minute. If you're at a desk for multiple hours at a time, this can be beneficial and add to your over-all health. However, the Apple Watch's stand sensor is not always the most accurate; many users report getting stand reminders right when they have stood up multiple times throughout the hour. Fortunately, it couldn't be easier to get that pesky reminder to shush. And whether Stand Reminders are enabled or not, your Apple Watch will continue to track how often you move. 

How to Share Voice Memos on iPhone

One of the best apps on the iPhone is the Voice Memos app. As a writer, it's an invaluable productivity app that allows me to record my ideas immediately when they come. If I'm working on a project with a friend, sending a voice memo can be a great way to share ideas. Sharing a voice memo is slightly different than sending a voice message in the Messages app. We'll cover how to share a voice memo from the Voice Memos app below!

You may have had the experience of working on a draft of an email but then needing to look at a different email in your inbox. But the draft obscured the screen and couldn't be quickly pushed aside and then returned to. Fortunately, you can easily swipe away a draft, access your other email, and then quickly bring it back into view to continue working on it. This is typically referred to as "minimizing" the email draft.

Most of us are familiar with using the one-finger swipe and the two-finger pinch on our iPhones and iPads; but if you have an iPad, you may want to consider also using these four- and five-finger multi-touch gestures. We'll walk you through how to use these iPad-only gestures that make navigating between apps more seamless than ever before. These iPad gestures make it easy to see which apps are active, swipe between them, and quickly return to the Home Screen.

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.

Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, I will take you, the non-programmer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure, and you will experience how much fun turning your ideas into reality can be! This is Part 22 of the series. If you are just getting started, check out the beginning of the series here. (This post has been updated to Swift 1.2, Xcode 6.4, and iOS 8).

In the last few posts in this series, you have learned a lot about retrieving entities from a database using Core Data, and displaying the results in a table view. Now that we have we have all the other functionality working in the Write Review scene of iAppsReview, it's time to learn how to save a ReviewEntity using Core Data!

As September quickly approaches, iPhone 6s rumors swirl and grow ever-more grandiose. After WWDC in June, with its focus on the new iOS 9 and watchOS 2 software, chatter quickly moved to talk of what to expect from the upcoming iPhones. This is an 's' year, which usually brings mainly internal changes, such as the addition of an A9 chip and Force Touch, but we may also see some cosmetic changes, such as the addition of rose gold as a color option. So, which rumors are likely to be most accurate?

If you have an assortment of smart devices that need to be charged daily, you probably have USB chargers in every outlet in the house. Skiva has a smart alternative and it's on sale for half price. The StandCharger 7-Port USB Charging Station ($59.99) is normally $119.99 and even that would be worth it. The well-built charger accommodates up to seven devices, including iPads and other tablets.

Sometimes, you need to record a thought quickly. Using the Voice Memos voice recorder app on an iPhone or iPad to record that thought out loud is the fastest way to capture an idea before it flies away forever. The Voice Memos app is the little-known gem of the iPhone and iPad. Ease of use and clarity of sound makes the native Voice Memos app ideal for recording interviews, notes, and vocals, with the ability to record for hours at a time. If you're the type of person whose brain moves faster than your typing hands can keep up with, then Voice Memos is the ideal app for you. 


With iOS 9, Apple introduces the iPad to split-screen multitasking. Also called Slide Over, this new function is supported by the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, and iPad mini 3 and later. Located on the right edge of the screen and designed to run multiple apps, Slide Over allows you view another app without leaving the one you're in; however, the two applications won't run together side by side unless you have an iPad Air 2 or later. 

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