How-To

You can rename your AirPods, AirPods (2nd Generation) and AirPods Pro using your iPhone. Renaming your AirPods can save you a headache if you have multiple pairs of AirPods in your household. Here's how to change the display name of your AirPods, making them quick to find if you need to do some adjustments. Note that your AirPods will need to be paired and connected to your iPhone to change their name. 

When you allow Siri to be accessed from your Lock screen, you may want to consider what Siri is capable of doing without unlocking your device. For example, let’s say you’re in a room with multiple other people. If one of them were to activate Siri when you have Voice Dial turned on, they could tell Siri to call someone without needing your passcode. But if you have Voice Dial turned off, Siri won’t make the call until you enter your iPhone’s passcode. This may or may not be important to you, but it’s good to know what can and cannot be accessed from Lock screen. Here’s how to turn Voice Dial off on iPhone.

Here's how to find and use your iPad and iPhone emoji keyboard. Apple offers happy, cute, smiley, and holiday emojis, and thousands more free iOS emoji! Let's learn how to find and use the emoji keyboard on your iPhone for text messages, social media posts, and more. This way, you won't have to copy and paste emoji; just click to add them to your text. 

It might surprise you to learn that the selfie portrait has a history dating all the way back to 1839 when Robert Cornelius snapped a pic of himself in a full-length mirror. Fortunately, taking a selfie is much easier now than in the days of billows and silver nitrate. Your iPhone is the perfect tool for creating both fun and professional-looking self-portraits with minimal hassle. Read on to learn more about taking the perfect selfie with your iPhone.

Apple first announced HomeKit, its smart-home platform, in June of 2014, but HomeKit-compatible devices have been slow in coming. And frankly, it may not have been easy to understand exactly what HomeKit is and what the benefits are. iHome generously sent me its smart plug a few weeks ago, and now I finally get what HomeKit is. It's really cool. I want to share with you what I've learned, in case you're interested in what HomeKit is and whether you may want to start creating a smart-home environment. This is especially relevant now, because with the annual Consumer Electronics Show currently going on, more and more HomeKit devices are being announced.

If you're just getting started with Apple HomeKit automation, beginning with a timed automation is a great first step! Here's how to schedule an Apple Home automation, so your smart home accessory will perform an action like clockwork. For example, you can set your porchlights to turn on every day at sunset or open the curtains at a certain time while you're out of the house so your indoor plants get plenty of sunlight. The smart accessory will need to have previously been added to the Home app, as well as be charged and connected to Wi-Fi.

Have you noticed a warning in Safari that the website you are browsing is not secure? What does secure mean in this context? In short, Safari is warning you that the website is using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) instead of Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). Websites using HTTPS have encrypted their data, making browsing their site and especially entering any sensitive information, such as login credentials or payment information, much safer for you. Here is what to do if you see this warning while browsing Safari on your iPhone.

You can send contact details (also known as a contact card) via text or email directly from the Contacts app in your iPhone. Do you often find yourself typing out phone numbers or addresses into a text when you need to share one contact's information with another contact? Well, you'll be happy to hear that there's a much easier way to share contact information on your iPhone—and it doesn't involve copying and pasting or tediously typing it out.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve often wished you could watch your favorite video podcast on your phone and work in other apps at the same time. Lucky for us, iOS 14 has introduced a cool new feature that will let you watch videos through Apple Podcasts while multitasking on your iPhone. It’s called Picture in Picture, and activating it is quick and easy. Let’s go through how to do it.

Want to know how to set Family Sharing? Apple Family Sharing is a great way to share apps, media such as music, books, and movies, and even iCloud storage plans with your family. You can also use it to manage your kids' screen time and purchases. Though I love the idea of sharing Apple Music, Books, and App Store purchases with my family (who really wants to have to purchase the same song three times so everyone in the house can have it?), the job of setting up your Family Sharing account can be daunting. Here's a quick tutorial about how to set up your Family Sharing account.

If you’re looking to customize Siri's iOS 14.2 What’s My Update feature, the short answer is: you can’t. You can remove (or add, if you’ve previously removed it) the short news clip Siri will play through the Podcasts app, but otherwise the rundown of your day Siri gives you will remain the same. Hopefully in the future, Apple will add more customization options for this feature, but for now, let’s take a minute to learn how to add or remove the daily news update from What’s My Update.

Previously, we covered creating keyboard shortcuts to help you quickly type commonly used phrases. Did you know you can also create shortcuts for emoji characters (those cute emoticons that go way beyond your average smiley face)? This is handy if you use a lot of emoji characters and don't want to switch back and forth between keyboards all the time.

Pages