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.
Apps
With iOS 10, Apple introduced Message Effects that allow you to add a bit of fun to the messages you send. You could make confetti rain or a laser show ensue when the recipient opened it. With iOS 11, Apple adds two new Message Effects— Echo and Spotlight. We’ll go over what each Message Effect does and how to use it. Here’s how to use the new Message Effects with iOS 11 on iPhone.
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.
Mealime: Best Recipe App for Busy & Health-Conscious People
By Conner Carey
I’ve tried Mealime (Free) in the past and shared my experience. It’s one of the few practical daily meal planning apps, as it offers meals you can make within about 45 minutes. Every meal I’ve tried is super delicious, and my only real complaint is that there needs to be even more variety (new recipes are added every week). However, if you’re a busy professional or caretaker who wants to feed yourself and your family healthy meals, I highly recommend giving Mealime a try. The free version is limited but perfect for testing it out. The pro version of Mealime is $5.99 a month; so if you decide you love it too, it won’t break the bank. We’ll go over more of what Mealime does and why we love it below.
How to Add a Table to Notes with iOS 11 on iPhone
By Conner Carey
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.
Expand Your Vocabulary with This Word-a-Day App
By Conner Carey
I remember the days of taking home a huge vocabulary list home from school and spending hours memorizing the definitions. Back then, it was pain in the ass. But nowadays, I get a secret joy from using those same vocabulary words I dreaded. I don’t know about you, but as an adult, I still want to learn new words and continue to expand my vocabulary. Of course, the best way to do that is to read. But the next best way may very well be this app. The Daily Word is a super simple app that gives you a new word to learn each day along with its pronunciation, definition, and an example sentence. Here’s more on what it does and why we love it.
How to Repost a Photo to Instagram
By Conner Carey
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.
How to Save Photos Taken Within Messages to the Photos App
By Conner Carey
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.
How to Use Evernote: The Ultimate Guide
By Chris Vasques
I often refer to Evernote as my “second brain.” The app allows me to follow a modified version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy, a productivity method designed to help you arrange a systematic workflow to prioritize, manage, and execute important tasks while snoozing those that can wait. Today, I don’t know what I would do without my omnipresent, all-knowing digital assistant. Here are some tips that will keep you coming back to the green, glowing reliability of Evernote.
4 Best Free iOS Game Apps for Kids
By Kristin Parodi
Are you an animal lover? Do you have kids? Great, then you’ll love these interactive apps! Along with being visually pleasing and easy to use, these are some of the best game apps for iPad and iPhone that promote learning – through pictures, puzzles, and even some math! Kids will be so into the apps that they will forget they are learning, but parents will be pleased because their children are gaining fundamental knowledge. Here are four iPhone apps for kids that have some purely fun objectives and features to stimulate your child’s giggly, energetic personality.
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.
How to Get the Most from Your Audible Subscription
By Hal Goldstein
Humans have passed down culture from generation to generation through spoken word. Reading, on the other hand, is a relatively recent human invention that requires the brain to convert symbols to words in order to decipher the meaning. Maybe it’s not surprising then that I enjoy listening to a book more than reading it.
Text message stickers for iOS devices are a great way to add an extra personalized touch to your iMessages. If you have an iPhone or iPad running iOS 10 or later, then you have access to the plethora of texting stickers that are available in the Messages App Store.
Help Aurora Reunite with Her Cats in This Adorable Puzzle Game
By Conner Carey
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.
5 of the Best Task Manager Apps & To-Do List Apps to Keep You on Track
By Alexandra Quaye
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.
Best Calendar Apps for iPhone
By iPhone Life Team
If the iPhone Calendar app that came with your iPhone is just not meeting your scheduling needs, don't worry; you've got options! Here are five of the best calendar apps for iPhone. Find out the pros and cons of our favorite calendar apps.
Darkroom: The Must-Have Photo Editing App for iPhoneographers
By Conner Carey
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.
How to Unfollow Artists in Apple Music on iPhone
By Jim Karpen
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.