Apps

The beauty of Apple Music is it allows you to add tons of songs to your collection without taking up storage space on your iPhone. But songs that aren’t downloaded to your iPhone also aren’t available for offline listening. If you’re someone who listens to music without an internet connection a lot of the time, consider turning on the setting that allows songs to automatically download to your iPhone when you add them to your Apple Music library. Here’s how to automatically download songs added to your Apple Music library.

Over the decades, I've heard some call iOS gaming escapism, while others may call it a distraction from the headline news on any given day; but as a lifetime core gamer, I've found myself extremely grateful on more than one occasion for the comfort, the exhilaration, the competition ,and the break from the day-to-day, real-world ups and downs that some of the more deeply immersive iOS game can provide. Mobile gaming has come a long way over the years and we now have plenty to choose from when it comes to core iOS games. On that note,  it's my pleasure to present iPhone Life's picks for best core iOS games.

When Apple released iOS 9, Notes added a lot of features including the ability to create folders, share websites, add images to Notes, and more. Those features are still present in Notes on iOS 10 as well. One of the things you can do in Notes is draw a sketch and add it to the note. If you have an iPhone with 3D Touch (iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus), you have the ability to sketch dark or light lines, depending on how firmly you press when drawing. Here’s how to make more nuanced sketches in Notes with 3D Touch on iPhone.

You’re probably familiar with the idea of sharing a song from Apple Music via Messages or Mail. But did you know that you can Airdrop an Apple Music song to someone? This is a great method if you’re in the same room or building as the person you want to send the song to. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection and for both of you to have Airdrop turned on in Control Center on your iPhones. Here’s how to Airdrop a song from Apple Music.

3D Touch on iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 6s, and 6s Plus allows you to jump into a specific place within an app using Quick Actions. This is done from Home screen by 3D Touching an app icon. Options for jumping into the app will pop up and you can select one. For example, the Settings app has Quick Actions for jumping to the settings for Wi-Fi, Battery, Bluetooth, and Cellular Data. Here’s how to jump into apps with 3D Touch on iPhone.

Are you stuck on a song you love? Want to find more music like it? You can create a radio station from your favorite song in Apple Music. Apple Music has different kinds of radio stations. Stations like Beats 1 are stations of their own, more similar to regular radio. Radio stations you create from a favorite song in Apple Music use algorithms to find other songs similar that you might like to hear, similar to the way Pandora works. Here’s how to create a radio station from your favorite song in Apple Music.

There’s no better time to slow down and evaluate your goals than around the New Year. New Year’s Resolutions have started to get a bad rep, because often people set their goals too high and don’t have practical steps towards the goal or a support system to help them get there. Technology offers a unique realm of possibilities when it comes to sticking to our New Year’s Resolutions. Regardless of your goal, there’s an app that can help you keep your New Year’s Resolution, somewhere in the App Store. Having apps on your iPhone help by offering both practical steps and support towards achieving and maintaining your goals. That’s why I wanted to put this list together; if you’re wondering how to keep your New Year’s Resolution for 2017, here’s the best apps to help you stay consistent.

Want to take a quick selfie? You can get to the Camera app with the front-facing camera pointed at you in two taps with this tip. If you have an iPhone with 3D Touch, you can jump right to the Selfie setting in Camera from Control Center. Next time you want to take a selfie, use this tip to quickly get to the place you want. Here’s how to take a selfie from Control Center using 3D Touch.

Tired of getting too many notifications for Facebook Live posts on your iPhone? You can disable Facebook Live notifications, but turning them off can’t be done on iPhone, except individually. Facebook Live allows users to record what’s going on as it happens. Currently, Facebook sends you a notification whenever someone you’re friends with or someone you follow begins recording live. This has resulted in a lot of users being inundated with Live notifications, leaving us wondering how to stop the Facebook Live notifications from alerting us throughout the day. You can do this easily from your computer, since the desktop version of Facebook is needed. We’ll also go over how to turn off all Facebook notifications on your iPhone, from your iPhone. Here’s how to turn off Facebook Live notifications.

There are a lot of free photo editor apps out there that let you create collages from your photos, but I found one that lets you also include videos. The appropriately named Photo & Video Collage (free) from Bits & Coffee lets you edit pictures and videos together in a collage. The photo editor app offers assorted collage formats, for free, with more options available by upgrading.

With iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra, Apple has added multiple new tools for easily working across your devices. iCloud Drive, which was introduced with iOS 9, allows you to access files from your Mac on your iPhone. This process of transferring your Mac documents to your iPhone has become easy with iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra, because now you can simply drag an image or document to your Mac desktop and find it in your iCloud Drive app on your iPhone. You can even create folders in the iPhone Files app, so you can find the documents more easily. We’ll go through the whole process; here’s how to get files from your Mac into the iCloud Drive App on your iPhone.

The calculator app that comes bundled in iOS is adequate for basic, quick calculations, but it lacks even a simple memory function or running history of operations. Hundreds of alternative calculator apps, both free and paid, are available from the App Store. But when you want the best, the absolute top of the category, PCalc ($9.99) from TLA Systems claims that it's the one to beat. Let's find out if that's the case.

I have seen the future of online mobile gaming, and it is MOBA. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena is a term familiar to any core, hardcore, or professional gamer. If it's not already a common term in your vocabulary, popular iOS MOBA titles like Vainglory and Ace of Arenas plan to change that, as they help usher in a new renaissance of mobile gaming.

I switched to satellite-based DirecTV a while ago, when AT&T (owner of DirecTV) offered unlimited wireless data for DirecTV subscribers. It was a good deal, as we were anxious to leave Time Warner but not ready to cut the cable cord yet. But for those who prefer watching TV using apps, the company just announced DIRECTV NOW, an app-based streaming service that includes live TV as well as on-demand shows. It could be a bargain and it just got better.

Once you get the hang of editing text on iPhone, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is. Furthermore, adding italics, bold text, or an underline on the iPhone is also easily doable. You can also indent right, select, copy, and paste text on the iPhone. It all starts with highlighting the text you want to edit. Let’s jump in; here’s how to edit and format text on the iPhone.

Facebook has this nifty little feature called “On This Day” or “Year In Review” that shows you posts from the past and encourages you to share and comment on them, which is great if they’re memories you want to see. However, Facebook selects which pictures to show you based on past interaction, which doesn’t always mean you end up seeing the happiest of memories. There isn’t a blanket way to turn off the feature, but you can designate people and dates you don’t want to be reminded of. You can easily choose to stop setting Facebook memories from within the mobile app. Here’s how to turn off Facebook “On This Day” Memories on iPhone.

WatchOS 3 on Apple Watch along with iOS 10 on iPhone allows you to share your fitness metrics (and activity circles) with friends in the Activity app. Since the spirit of competition is a motivating factor for lots of people, this allows you to compete with your friends, attempt to keep up, and ultimately surpass them. When you want to share your fitness metrics with someone, you must send an invite to them. Once they accept, you’ll see their fitness metrics and in turn, they’ll see yours. Here’s how to share fitness metrics with friends in the Activity app.

The News app on iPhone makes it easy to keep up with topics and publications you love or are interested in. When you’re browsing through Apple’s News app, you may find a story you definitely want to read but don’t have the time to read right now. You can save that story for late and return to it when you have more time. Here’s how to save News app stories to read later on iPhone.

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