iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

I grew up in one of the most beautiful places on the entire planet. No kidding. People would come from all over the world to visit our exquisite crystal blue waters and our lush tropical islands. Now however, everything has changed. In a matter of hours the Virgin Islands (the British Virgin Islands in particular) were decimated by the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Now the people in the islands are dealing with the devastation and many residents have gone from living an idealistic island life to living like refugees.

Best & Worst Features of iOS 11

By Sarah Kingsbury

In the 67th episode of the iPhone Life Podcast, the team shares their most loved and hated features of iOS 11 (spoiler: Donna's a big fan of Drag and Drop and Sarah loves lane guidance in Apple Maps). They also address concerns about the privacy and security of the iPhone X's Face ID feature and teach you how to optimize your storage with iOS 11.

If you have an iPhone 6s or later, you can turn on Siri by saying, “Hey, Siri” even when your iPhone isn’t plugged in. However, you also have the option to press and hold your Home button to activate Siri. With iOS 11 on iPhone, you can now turn press and hold to activate Siri off and reply solely on activating Siri with your voice by saying, “Hey, Siri.” If you often accidentally activate Siri when pressing your Home button, this is a great way to stop that from happening. Here’s how to turn off Press Home for Siri and instead only activate with Hey, Siri on iPhone.

There's an Apple TV remote app available for download in the iTunes Store, but if your iPhone is running iOS 11 or later, you don't need it; your iPhone's Control Center automatically includes the Apple TV Remote app. The iPhone remote control feature is super convenient, especially if you've lost your Apple TV remote or want to use your iPhone keyboard to enter text in the search field on your Apple TV instead of slowly and painfully swiping through one letter at a time with your remote. Here’s how to set up the Apple TV Remote in your iPhone's Control Center to operate your Apple TV.

The games I play most often on my iPhone are those I can easily pick up for a few minutes and set back down without needing to get too heavily involved. I also very much enjoy a game that makes me think a bit by figuring out some elaborate puzzle. The puzzle adventure game Aurora for iPhone or iPad combines both of those in an adorable game that asks you look at things from all different perspectives. Here’s what this game is all about and why we love it.

Birthdays are a great thing to celebrate with those you care about. If you have someone's birthday saved with their contact information, the Calendar app will automatically create an all-day event for that date. However, with iOS 11, Facebook events seem to have dissapeared from Calendar along with Facebook birthdays. For some this will be welcome, since it means seeing generally less birthdays. But if you want to hide birthdays altogether, it's a a simple process. Here’s how to hide birthdays in the Calendar app on iPhone.

How to Stop All of Your Devices Ringing When You Get a Call

A handy feature called Continuity & Handoff makes it possible for you to answer phone calls from your Mac or iPad when they are all connected through iCloud. However, if you want to learn how to stop your iPad from ringing or how to turn off the ringer on your Mac, there is a quick way to easily disable your other devices from ringing. Here’s how to turn off phone calls on iPad and Mac.

How to Download & Install the New iOS Update (iOS 18)

It's time for iOS 18! The newest iOS update offers lots of exciting new things, like Home Screen icon customization, text message scheduling, and much more! While the initial release of iOS 18 will not include Apple Intelligence, Apple's innovative AI-powered tools will be coming in an update later this year. In any case, we'll show you how to download iOS 18 and take advantage of the cool new features that are available now. 

We’ve all anticipated wireless charging on the iPhone for many years. And to our surprise, Apple is using the standard Qi wireless charging system, which means any current wireless charging stations you own will work with the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. Next year, Apple will release its own wireless charging station for the iPhone, called the AirPower. But there are a lot of questions to answer. First of all, how does wireless charging work? Most importantly, which devices will be able to charge on the AirPower? And lastly, when does Apple’s wireless charging pad come out and how much is it going to cost. We’ve got all of the latest details below.

iPhone Life’s resident iPhoneographer and Managing Editor Rheanne Taylor has a favorite photo editing app that she uses constantly for her polishing her photos: Darkroom Photo Editor (free). But it’s not just her—avid photographers will tell you their all-time favorite filter from Darkroom at the drop of a hat, and a quick look at the app’s review will tell you much users love it. This app offers users a lot of control over their photos with a wide range of options. Access to the basic features of the app is free, but users say it’s well worth $3.99 to get all the premium tools or $5.99 for all the tools and filters. We’ll tell you more about the Darkroom app below, including what  it can do and why we love it.

Several years ago, I reviewed one of Sumo Lounge's largest bean bag chairs. My family and I still use that chair to this day even though it continues to take up a considerable amount of space in our entertainment room. After recently revisiting digital-lifestyle furniture, I decided to check up on Sumo Lounge to see what the company was up to and discovered to my pleasant surprise that Sumo has expanded its product line. One of the most recent additions to the family is the Omni Flex chair ($199). Does it maintain Sumo Lounge's comfort level while not taking up too much floor space? Read on to find out.

Under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple has maintained a deep sense of reverence for its late CEO Steve Jobs. Yet never has an Apple event paid as much tribute to Jobs as during this fall’s tenth-anniversary iPhone release, which took place a decade after Jobs revealed the original “one more thing.” The event took place in the Steve Jobs Theater located in the heart of Apple Park, the company’s new Cupertino, California-based campus whose design Jobs masterminded during the last years of his life. As Cook opened the fall keynote, he showed uncharacteristic emotion as he said, “Steve’s spirit and timeless philosophy on life will always be the DNA of Apple.”

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