How-To

My iPhone has become something I always carry with me, along with my keys and wallet. I have a better chance of finding my iPhone in the dark than say, the bathroom doorknob on the first try. One of the most useful things my iPhone provides is the Flashlight feature. With the iOS 12 update, I can now turn the Flashlight on and off using "Hey Siri" voice commands. So if I'm stuck in the dark, "Hey Siri" lights the way.

What is Venmo? It's a fun and free way to send and receive money among friends, family, and online retailers. It eliminates the need to run to an ATM or wait for checks to both arrive and be deposited. Venmo is great for casual use and to quickly send or request even small amounts of money to keep your social status above 'friendly mooch'. If you've ever needed to chip in for a surprise birthday present or have someone reimburse you for a coffee run, Venmo is the app for you.

By default, when you raise your wrist, the Apple Watch screen wakes up. Also by default, it shows you the Watch Face, assuming you want to see the time and have access to complications. But perhaps you’d rather see the most recent app or activity you were using instead. You can change the setting for Wake Screen from Watch Face to Last Activity. Here’s how to automatically reopen an app on your Apple Watch.

WatchOS 4 for Apple Watch added a lot of quality features to the smartwatch, including new watch faces. My personal favorite addition is the new Kaleidoscope watch face that uses either a built-in photo or a photo of your choice to create a colorful image in one of three different styles. We’ll go over how to use the Kaleidoscope watch face and how to create your own Kaleidoscope Apple Watch face on iPhone.

I absolutely love going on road trips, or travel of any kind, really. One of the most fun aspects of any trip for me is finding places to eat, as well as museums and shops that are off the beaten path, local favorites that become part of my mental "must visit" list for future adventures. One of the best tools I've found for trip research to destinations near and far is the Yelp app. Yelp is a free app that collects professional and business reviews from all over the world including restaurants, movers, home cleaning services, shopping, and even doctors and clinics! Yelp has collected over 135 million reviews so far, and the number keeps growing as more and more smartphone users discover this handy app. If you're the type of person that likes to plan ahead and get the most for your money and time, you'll want to learn more about Yelp, including how to set up your own free account and use it to read and write reviews.

Now that we've all got our hands on the iOS 12 update, it's worth a reminder to check a few settings. One of the biggest changes with iOS 11 was the new driving Do Not Disturb for iPhone feature. If you haven't used this driving mode for your iPhone yet, it's a safety feature that's well worth your time to set up. I’ll show you how to turn on Do Not Disturb While Driving, how to turn off Do Not Disturb While Driving, and I’ll also cover the Do Not Disturb While Driving text message auto-reply on the iPhone!

Name any hobby, sport, interest, or diversion, and you'll find out more about it than you ever dreamed possible on the Pinterest app. Not so very long ago if you wanted to find guidance for your latest woodworking project, some fresh new garden ideas, inspiration for a unique vacation destination, or an exciting new craft idea, you'd have to pore over books and magazine articles or spend tons of time surfing the web to find all the most helpful links. Now, though, your search can be much more quick and rewarding; you can look to Pinterest as a clearinghouse for pictures, videos, and information about over 100 billion different topics ranging from wildly popular to extremely obscure, right on your iPhone or iPad. What's more, you can share your favorite Pinterest categories and findings with friends and family who are also using the site or app, and keep all your best pins (saved posts) for whenever you'd like to go back and refer to them. Let's get started learning about everything Pinterest now, so you can start pinning with the best of them! 

Need iPad and iPhone help? Sign up for iPhone Life Insider and Sarah will help you with all your iPhone troubleshooting and iOS-related issues. To learn more go to iPhoneLife.com/Insider. In this Hey Sarah column, one Insider wants to know how to change the default greeting on their iPhone's voicemail. Other questions include how to view more than the current month on Apple Watch and how to sort notes in the Notes app alphabetically.

Every morning, five days a week, we publish iPhone how-tos to help you get the most out of your phone. But just as important as understanding how your Apple devices work is finding the best apps to use with them. That's why every Saturday we share one of the apps the iPhone Life Team has used and loved with our readers. 

According to AARP, only four out of ten American adults have created a will. Writing a will is an important step for every adult, particularly for those of us with children, because we don't want those we've left behind unprotected and confused about our final wishes. Since I'm one of the six out of ten who haven't made a will yet and don't want to spend the time and money to visit a lawyer, I've made it my mission to find a way to write a do-it-yourself online will, preferably for free. I've found an iPhone and iPad app called Tomorrow that not only helps users write a will, including designating heirs, executors, and guardians for children and pets, but also walks us through the process of purchasing life insurance and setting up a trust for our beneficiaries. To learn more about how the Tomorrow last will and testament app works, read on.