By Conner Carey
Apple's free Find My Friends app allows you to track the location of friends and family members who have given you permission. The feature probably works best for keeping track of teenagers running around town, and Siri is happy to help you locate them.
By Conner Carey
Currently, Live Photos can only be viewed from an Apple device running on iOS 9 or later and Macs running OS X El Capitan. Others will see only the still version of the Live Photos. However, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users are eager for those Live Photos to be shareable beyond that limited circle of Apple users. Here’s how to create a GIF from a Live Photo so you can share it with anyone.
By Jim Karpen
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.
Siri is an awesome time saver. Want to view your most recent calls, text someone, get directions, or post to Facebook? Just ask Siri. You can even do all this from your lock screen. The problem is, so can anyone else. If your settings allow for it, anyone can access your call history, send a tweet, or get directions to a contact's home from your lock screen just by bringing up Siri and asking.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Panoramic photos are great for capturing an expanded view of a beautiful landscape. Typically, this is done by moving your iPhone from left to right or right to left as you take the photo in Pano mode. But what about when you want to capture a shot of something really tall, like a tree, for example, or even the Eiffel Tower? Well, you'll be excited to hear that you can take vertically oriented panoramic photos with your iPhone too!
By Sarah Kingsbury
Use timers a lot? Here's a fun way to use music on your iPhone to time showers and other activities like workouts or your kids' chores. If you like to fall asleep listening to music or podcasts and want playback to stop after a set time, this tip will work for that too.
By Conner Carey
iBooks allows you to browse, buy, and read books on your Apple devices. You can even download samples of a book to read before you buy it. The Featured section has the latest titles, and you can find just about anything else by searching. It does what Kindle won’t with in-app purchasing that makes the process from buying to reading instantaneous.
Your music library holds everything...right? Well it doesn’t have to. You have the option to add a song to a playlist without that song automatically ending up in your Apple Music library too. For example, if you’re creating a Christmas playlist, you probably don’t want to hear those same songs play on shuffle in May. Luckily, it’s easy to change this feature in Settings. Here’s how to add a song to an Apple Music playlist but not your library.
By Jim Karpen
When you’re playing music from your iPhone, you’ll notice the Lock screen will provide information on the song playing as well as some added controls. It doesn’t matter if you’re listening to playlist, your music library, or streaming Beats radio — the Lock screen will look roughly the same. Here’s how to control Apple Music from Lock screen.
By Rheanne Taylor
With as much time as the average user spends on Facebook, you would probably think that we all know everything there is to know about the popular social media site—but think again! There are actually a lot more hidden features to Facebook than you may realize, and this guide is here to help you start taking advantage of each of them.
By Jim Karpen
Everyone who has wondered how to get Starz without cable can now rejoice. The premium cable channel is now available as a standalone service, joining similar offerings from HBO and Showtime that launched last year. The service is less expensive, at $8.99 a month, compared to $10.99 for Showtime and $14.99 for HBO. In addition, it allows you not only to stream movies and shows but also download them — which makes it unique among the premium services. Note, however, that Starz doesn't stream its programming live, instead making all of its content on-demand.
By Conner Carey
The Apple weather app that comes preinstalled on all iPhones is easy to use and simple to navigate; however, it doesn’t give you a whole lot of detail. You can see a general expectation of this week in weather, but that’s about all. Luckily, there are plenty of weather apps available in the App Store that provide most information in just as eloquent a package. So here’s the top five free weather apps for iPhone.
Kindle by Amazon may still hold the monopoly on e-books, but Apple is trying to catch up. The iBooks app has seen consistent improvements. One great advantage it has over Kindle is the ability to purchase a book within iBooks and immediately begin reading it. Another great feature is the ability to preview chapters from the Table of Contents with an iPhone that has 3D Touch. Here’s how to do it.
By Conner Carey
The Apple News app is a great place to follow your favorite magazines and websites, and the day's top stories. You can save articles to read offline, Like articles to see more of the same, Mute Channels you don’t want to hear from, and Share articles you want your friends to read as well. Regardless of what topics you’re interested in, there’s easily something for everyone here. Here’s how to share articles in News that you find and love.
By Conner Carey
If you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone, you’re familiar with Activity rings. On the Apple Watch, your activity is represented by three concentric circles that track how much of your daily goals you have met. There’s a red circle for your Move goal, a green one for Exercise, and a blue one for Stand. However, you can also view these Activity rings in graph form in the Health app and include it as a part of your health Dashboard. Here’s how to view your activity rings in your health app dashboard.
By Conner Carey
In the Apple News app, you have the option to save articles for reading offline. Perhaps you’re about to be in a zone without Wi-Fi and you want to have a list of reading during that period of time. Or maybe you’re at work when you discover an article and you want to save it for the commute home. Whichever the case, it’s an easy process to make sure your New Stories are saved and available offline.
One of the things that confused me on the Apple TV was when the music I was listening to kept playing even after I closed the app and began navigating to other apps. I would then navigate back to the Music app and stop it from playing. As you might expect, there is a simpler way to do this.
By Conner Carey
Who doesn’t struggle with eating healthy? Our lives are busy and we juggle a lot of responsibilities constantly. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to fall out of the habit of taking care of ourselves with fresh, whole foods. That’s why it can be extremely helpful to have a weekly plan for your meals that allows you to grocery shop on Sunday for everything you’ll need. And the easiest way to plan your meals, by far, is with an app. However, a lot of meal planning apps appear free but then require a premium membership. So here’s five of the best free apps for meal planning.
By Conner Carey
With 3D Touch, you can quickly preview information, web pages, access Quick Actions, and more functions for apps are being added all the time. One such function is the ability to get information about a location and select actions pertaining to the address in the Maps app. You can use 3D Touch when pressing a pin or an address in Maps and it’s a super convenient way to jump into getting directions. Here’s how to get information about a location by pressing a pin in Maps.
