How-To

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.

The Shortcuts app, a new addition to iOS 12, is designed to help you streamline your productivity on your iOS device. The shortcuts you create can be amazingly simple or incredibly intricate, depending on what you are looking for. Here is a list of my five favorite shortcuts that you can try for yourself.

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.

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.

Apple Maps got a few new features with iOS 14, one of which is Guides. Maps users can create Guides that include favorite destinations on their iPhone or iPad then share them with friends and family via Messages, email, social media, and more.  

Apple ProRAW for iOS 14.3 and later combines the best data from multiple images into one photo using Smart HDR, Deep Fusion, and Night Mode. You can use the ProRAW feature on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max; here's how.

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.

When Apple announced that its keyboards would have a predictive text feature, the general reaction was, "About time, Apple!" But it turns out there are some iOS users who find the feature really annoying. Fortunately, it's easy to remove the predictive text feature on your iphone.