Apple Apps

Do you find it totally creepy when an ad pops up on your iPhone for just exactly the sort of thing you’d like to purchase? Does it seem like your phone has just a little too much inside information about your preferences, and you’d like to establish some boundaries between yourself and the wide world of capitalism? If so, it’s time for you to learn how to limit ad tracking in Apple Apps on your iPhone.

The camera roll on my iPhone is jam packed with pictures of my dogs—there's just something about those fuzzy faces that demands to be adored and photographed so that the pictures can be adored as well. Then of course there's the sharing; #instadog #socute #sorryyouguysicantrestrainmyself. I've been known to take dog photos with Instagram, share them to Facebook, then text and private message them to friends and family that really must see the latest iteration of canine cuteness right away. Therefore it is with great delight that I announce the discovery of my new favorite app, BarkCam, the "Instagram for Dogs." 

The front camera on iPhone X is capable of a lot of incredible things, including improving your selfie game with front-facing Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting. You're likely familiar with how to take a selfie on iPhone, but Selfie Portrait Mode and Lighting makes taking good selfies super easy. With the Portrait Lighting, you can change the lighting before ever taking a photo. You have various lighting options to choose from, depending on the effect you want and your location. And the background of the photos are blurred for that professional Bokeh look. For iPhone X users, front-facing Portrait Mode and Lighting is essential to learn for taking great selfies. You can use this Portrait Lighting when taking regular photos (not selfies) on iPhone X and iPhone 8, and you can use Portrait Mode on those devices as well as the iPhone 7 Plus. But Selfie Portrait Mode and Lightning is reserved to the iPhone X for now. Here’s how to use Selfie Portrait Mode & Portrait Lighting on iPhone X.

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.

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.

With iOS 11 on iPhone or iPad, you can quickly and easily track the flight your friends and family are on in Safari. All you need is the airline and flight number and Safari will provide details. You can then tap on the details card to see the flight’s trajectory and where it’s currently located. Here’s how to track flights in Safari with iOS 11 on iPhone.

I’m sure we’ve all opened up Safari to search for the definition of a word. But with iOS 11, you don’t even need to search. Once you begin your query, Safari will automatically provide a details card at the top with the definition of the word. And as you’re typing it, Safari will even guess what word you’re looking up. Here’s how to define words in Safari with iOS 11 on iPhone.

If you enjoy handwriting notes on your device, it’s essential to be able to find what you’re looking for within those notes later on. Previous iterations of the Notes app only allowed you to search for words that were typed. But with iOS 11, the Notes app is capable of searching through your handwritten notes as well. Here’s how to search handwritten words in Notes with iOS 11 on iPhone or iPad.

With each new iOS, Apple improves the once barely adequate Notes app. Now, it’s a bona fide note-taking app with lots of features. With iOS 11, the list of features grows with the ability to add tables to a note now possible. Making a table in the Notes app can be helpful for creating various items. For example, you could use one to keep an easy tally of your expenses. Here’s how to add a table to Notes with iOS 11 on iPhone.

If you have an Instagram account, you’ve surely seen reposted photos with credit given to the account it originated from. But there is no option to repost a photo within the Instagram app, so how do they do it? With a third-party app! Being able to repost photos is crucial for businesses and fun for individuals. There are multiple third-party apps you can use to repost photos to Instagram, but I’m going to show you my favorite and how I use it along with the Instagram app to repost a photo.

If you take a photo within Messages, it isn’t automatically saved to your iPhone. If you take a photo you really like, you’ll want to manually save it with this tip. It’s nice that iPhone doesn’t automatically save those photos so that you aren’t accidentally taking up too much space or saving private photos meant only for the conversation. But if you send a photo you like, here’s how to save it to the Photos app.

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.

Want to get rid of that annoying, “Sent from my iPhone” signature? Here’s how. Better yet, if you have more than one email account connected to your Mail app, you can create different signatures for the separate accounts. This is especially convenient if you have mail accounts for different purposes, such as one for work and one for personal use. You can create different signatures for Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, iCloud, and more. Here’s how to create different signatures for separate email accounts on iPhone.

When you do a search in Safari, it preloads the top search result in the background so that if you do indeed select that result, the page will appear almost instantly. What this means, though, is that if that's not the web page you want, you've already used up some of your data to preload it. This is fine if you're on Wi-Fi or an unlimited data plan, but perhaps not a good idea if you're trying to keep down your data usage. Fortunately, you can turn off this feature, thereby avoiding data usage for web pages that you may not want to access.

I use the Reminders app on my iPhone quite a bit. I’ll create a reminder to pick up my dry cleaning, to buy my cousin a birthday present, or to pay a bill. When I create Reminders, I usually set them to remind me on a certain day, at a certain time. But if I need to make a change to one reminder among many, manually shuffling through them is a pain. For example, I made a Reminder to “pay a fee for the school trip” my son was going on. I forgot what the fee amount was and needed the information before the due date. Instead of tapping each folder and scrolling through them to find it, I simply accessed the Reminders search field. Here’s how to search for a particular reminder on iPhone.

Introducing App Saturdays! (*insert jazz hands*) Every Saturday, we’ll feature an app we love, telling you what it can do and why it’s awesome.

Our first app, Sorted, is a calendar and to-do app to rival them all. Since the Sunrise calendar app died, I’ve searched high and low for a replacement. After months of trial and error, I stumbled across Sorted last week. Here’s what it can do and why you’re going to love it.

Not too long ago, Instagram introduced the ability to save photos you like into your own little collection board. This is a great feature for keeping track of photos you’ve found that you love and may want to check out again later on. But, not only can you save those photos, you can organize those photos into collections, much like a Pinterest board. I’m saving every Insta-pic I like now, so this feature is perfect for making sure I can find the image I want to among the many saved. Here’s how to organize your saved Instagram photos like a Pinterest board.

I love to add my photos to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, whether it’s to show off my vacation or share pictures of my kids for distant family members to see. And, of course, there’s the not-so-occasional cute photo of my pets. If you have an account on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, there is an easy way to upload your photos from your iPhone or iPad right to your choice of social media sites. Here’s how to upload photos to your social media account on iPhone.

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