iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

How to Organize Your Calendar in 2025

(Sponsored Post) By Amy Spitzfaden Both on Thu, 10/31/2024

Apple is pretty good about updating its products, but it seems to have forgotten about the Calendar app and its many downsides. The makers of Informant 5, on the other hand, do not forget to regularly improve their app based on user experience. The latest updates to this calendar and task-management app are a productivity game-changer.

It’s wonderful to be constantly connected to friends, family, and coworkers… until it’s not. An iPhone can make you more available and productive, so you can do things like pick up last-minute items at the grocery store or lend your expertise to a client halfway around the world, but it can also encroach on time set aside for family, rest, and relaxation. Fortunately, you can utilize Do Not Disturb to mute intrusive calls, texts, alerts, and notifications.

It’s not often that I feature a gaming app. For the most part, we understand that a fun game isn't a top priority for many on iPhone. But if you'd be so kind as to indulge me, I have a gaming app to feature that is, by far, my favorite iOS game ever. I have played a lot of iOS games. I succumbed to Candy Crush many years ago when it first was a huge hit; I played Super Mario Run and beat every possible metric to completion last year. I have enjoyed many games, but none of them have been able to hold my attention for as long as Battlejack. This game combines the simplicity of blackjack with the adventure of an RPG (role-playing game), creating an addictive mix of strategy, luck, and powerful creatures. Check out more on what this game does and why I can’t get enough of it below.

face id require attention

Face ID is designed to be secure first and fast second. By default, Face ID-enabled iPhones have a setting turned on that requires you to look directly at your screen before it will unlock. This is meant to make Face ID more secure by making it much more difficult for someone to unlock your phone with your face when you don't want them to. However, I've noticed that this does make Face ID feel slower. Here's how to how to turn off attention awareness to make Face ID a little bit faster.

What are haptics? Haptics are a tactile way for your iPhone to respond to touch, pressure, or both, in the form of a small vibration. For example, on the iPhone 7, there isn't a physically pressable Home button, so Apple added Haptic Feedback, which you feel when "pressing" the static Home button. If you're wondering, "how do I turn off System Haptics?", you can easily do so from within your iPhone Settings. Here’s how to turn off haptics from 3D or Haptic Touch on your iPhone.

The App Store got a huge upgrade with iOS 11. One of the new features is videos! Developers can create little videos that autoplay when you're browsing apps. When you're browsing with WiFi, this probably isn't a problem. But on cellular, you don't want to eat up data just to play a video about an app you're downloading. Of course, if you're not a fan of video autoplay under any circumstance, you can turn it off completely. Here's how to turn off video autoplay in the App Store on iPhone.

How to Redeem an Apple Gift Card & Use It for Family Sharing

If you're interested in learning how to add an Apple gift card to your Apple account or to a family member's account, you've come to the right place. We'll cover the Ask to Buy feature, how to use an Apple gift card with Family Sharing, and how to redeem Apple gift cards for different family members, including how to add an Apple gift card to a child account.

The beautiful edge-to-edge display of the iPhone X leaves no room for a Home button. But if you find yourself missing the old Home button, you can add an on-screen Home button to your iPhone X screen thanks to the accessibility features. This is actually something that anyone with an iPhone can do, and it comes in handy if you have an older iPhone with a broken Home button. For iPhone X users, however, it’s the only way to retrieve the lost Home button. It’s not for everyone, but it’s great for those who want it. Here’s how to add an on-screen Home button to your iPhone X.

Count me among the many who's feelings right now range from irritated to outraged as a result of Apple’s admission that it has been throttling my older model iPhone’s performance. This tactic, supposedly to help my iPhone perform better, has been carried out without my knowledge and without Apple making any public attempts to educate or inform me of its intent to do so. Had Apple been more transparent about the hows and why of its decision to throttle iPhone performance, and done a better job explaining why it felt this an important step to take, it likely would not have been met with the same level of public vitriol or the class-action lawsuits that it currently faces.

Whether you’ve got dozens or hundreds of unread, Spark by Readdle (Free) will help you easily go through them in minutes. The Smart Inbox sorts your emails, helping you keep personal emails and newsletters separate. It also has Smart Notifications, so you’ll only get notifications for the mail you care about. Keep reading to learn more on what Spark by Readdle does and why we love it.

Qi charging, wireless charging, inductive charging... whatever you call it, it's fast becoming a must-have feature in the smart phone world. Apple's latest three iPhone offerings, the 8, 8 Plus, and X, are all Qi enabled and can charge their batteries at the wireless charging stations that are popping up everywhere from airports to coffee shops. There's even a free app, Aircharge Qi, that lets iPhone users know where their nearest Qi charging station is! The versatility and convenience offered by electromagnetic charging isn't just for the latest iPhones, though. If you have an older iPhone and want to get on the wireless charging bandwagon, there's more than one way to Qi-enable your pre-iPhone 8 device. Choices include wireless charging cases, and a variety of wireless charging receiver cards, stickers, and patches; and remember, if you're going to buy a Qi-enabling accessory for your device, you'll also need a Qi charging pad. Let's get started going over your options to get wireless charging on your older iPhone.

We've heard that the iPhone X is Apple's fastest charging iPhone ever, but it's still a bit of a mystery how to achieve the quickest charge time. How long does it take to charge the iPhone X? What kind of accessories will improve your iPhone's charging time? Above all—how much will these add-ons cost? If you've already purchased Apple's iPhone X, or even the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, chances are you're interested in utilizing every feature of your cutting-edge device to its fullest potential, and that includes giving that iPhone battery a good workout. So let's discuss how long standard iPhone X charging time is, how quick charging your iPhone X works, and which USB adapters and Lightning cables you'll need to charge your iPhone X, 8, or 8 Plus better, faster, and more efficiently than ever before.

The Home button on iPhone served a lot of functions, which means Apple had to figure out a way to make those same functions work without a Home button. You can still easily access Apple Pay for both real-world and in-app purchases with your iPhone. And it’s not that different than before. Here’s how to use Apple Pay on the iPhone X.

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