Apps

I think we can all agree that money can be a tense subject. Rarely do we enjoy reminding a friend they owe us twenty bucks for last week’s group dinner. But, if you’re a social animal in the slightest, I’m sure you’ve found yourself splitting a tab with friends and family. At the beginning of this year, some of the iPhone Life team took a trip to Mexico, where we had to split a whole lot of different things from dinner to snorkeling. But it was easy to keep track of and pay each other back thanks to the app Splitwise (free). Here’s what it does and why we love it.

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.

These five to-list apps and task management apps are fairly simple, contain a sleek interface, and most importantly, keep you organized. Say goodbye to forgetting to write important tasks down and having to remember the paper list on the counter. The following to-do list apps can help you keep up with your everyday life while keeping the process as simple (or detailed) as you like and as personalized as you desire. Also, they all have free versions with the option to pay for premium with an in-app purchase. Give one (or all) a try and comment below on how it goes.

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.

Apple Music's social networking feature lets you follow your favorite musicians. They share things such as behind-the-scenes photos, lyrics they're working on, a new video, and whatever else interests them. When you add songs to your music library, by default the artists are automatically added to your Connect Posts. But you may not want to follow some of these artists. In my case, for example, I added Beethoven, but it seems unlikely he'll be sharing anything. You can change the default so that artists aren't automatically added. Or you can unfollow selected artists that were added by default. Here’s how to unfollow artists in Apple Music on iPhone.

For new Apple Music users, Apple offers a three-month trial. When those three months are up, you can choose to cancel your subscription if you’ve decided it’s not for you. But Apple will automatically begin to charge your account if you haven’t turned off auto renew. On the other hand, let’s say you’ve been using Apple Music for a while but want to cancel. You can use this tip to make sure your account isn’t automatically renewed for another month of Apple Music. Here’s how to turn off Apple Music auto renew on the iPhone.

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.

Welcome to 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 brains have a great way of never shutting up. Just search Mindfulness in the App Store and you’ll see that people are actively looking for ways to relax, let go of the past, calm their heart, and come to a present state of awareness. But do any of those apps deliver on what they promise? I’ve tried a few and have even found some that I like. But never before have I found an app that utilizes a proven method of hacking our unconscious responses. You’ll be amazed what a simple breathing technique can do for your body, mind, and spirit. Don’t take my word for it though; this is the same breathing technique used by the military and professional athletes. This is Box Breathing. Here’s what it does and why we love it.

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.

There are several reasons why you might want to see comments on a Facebook post—I often want to see comments if the poster is asking a question I'd like to know the answer to. You can receive notifications about future comments by leaving a comment yourself. Indeed, I often see people comment "following" or "commenting because I'd like to receive updates" on Facebook status updates. But did you know that you can easily subscribe to updates without commenting on a thread? Here's how to follow a Facebook thread and receive notifications of comments without leaving a comment.

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.

A while ago, Facebook introduced autoplay for videos on the social network. Perhaps the most obnoxious part about it is that every time a video ad starts playing in your News Feed, you are essentially paying with your precious data or battery power for them to advertise to you. Fortunately, it's easy to disable this feature. Here’s how to disable Facebook’s video autoplay.

With the iOS 11 beta 1 release, the Notes app looks poised to take on Evernote as the life-organizing app du jour. With in-line drawing, drag and drop features, tables, and expanded formatting options, iOS 11 integrates Notes into your daily workflow in new and organic ways. Continue reading to find out whether Notes in iOS 11 could replace your Evernote subscription.

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