How-To

Ever since my mom got an iPhone she’s been complaining about the alarm. In general, she feels that the darn thing just isn’t loud enough for her to hear it. I too have slept through my iPhone alarm more times than I care to admit, but I’ve never been able to figure out why the volume is so quiet—until recently. If you feel like you’re constantly sleeping through your iPhone alarm, here are some things to do about it. Here’s how to make sure you don’t sleep through your iPhone alarm.

Some names are really popular. You might have four Davids in your Contacts on iPhone and no clear way to tell them apart. If you have a lot of contacts with the same name, this tip will help you tell them apart and keep your Contacts organized. Also, this tip is helpful when sending iMessages, since a select contact only shows the first name of the recipient. Here’s how to organize Contacts with the same name.

The News app on iPhone is a relatively recent reincarnation of the old Newsstand stock app by Apple. It’s similar to other news apps such as Flipboard, which brings together multiple articles from different print and web publications into a single app for viewing, reading, and sharing. However, if you’re looking for something specific, you can search in the news app. Here’s how to search in the Apple News app.

Some iBooks in the Apple iBooks store include multimedia elements you can interact with, such as movies, diagrams, presentations, galleries, 3D objects, and more. But when you stumble across one of these multimedia iBooks, how do you navigate it? There’s a couple different taps, pinches, and swipes to know before you start reading. Here’s how to read an iBook with interactive multimedia.

The Podcasts app on iPhone allows you to listen to all of your favorite podcasts in one simple app. There are podcasts on literally every topic imaginable, from creativity to tech and beyond. But those podcasts pile up if you aren’t an avid weekly listener. One way to make sure you don’t miss episodes from your favorites is to create a station, which is the Podcasts app's version of a playlist. Here’s how to create a station of your favorite podcasts.

SIM cards (Subscriber Identity Module cards) are how carriers connect your iPhone to their network; they also makes it easy to keep your number when switching phones. If you get a new iPhone, you may end up needing to remove the SIM card from your old phone and insert it into the new iPhone. You may also want to switch one SIM card for another when traveling abroad in order to use a local carrier. Most modern phones have SIM cards, and if you have an iPhone 4s or later, your phone definitely has a SIM card slot in case it’s needed. Here’s how to remove or insert a SIM card from your iPhone.

Night Shift on iPhone is a feature that came out with iOS 9.3. It’s meant to be used at night and reduces the amount of blue light on the screen. This is said to help us  get to sleep sooner even if we’ve been recently looking at our iPhones. It most certainly cuts down on eye strain when looking at our devices at night. You can also choose how you want the Night Shift color balance to appear when the mode is turned on. You can make the colors appear warmer or cooler, depending on what you prefer. Here’s how to adjust Night Shift color balance.

We've all googled how do you take a screenshot on Mac at one point or another. These days, I take screenshots on my Mac nearly everyday in order to capture either the whole, or part of my Mac’s screen for how-tos and tips. Luckily, once you learn the keyboard shortcuts for taking a screenshot on Mac, you’ll quickly memorize the ones you use most. It becomes second nature. There are two ways to screen capture on Mac that are the most regularly needed and we’ll include a few more to cover the spectrum and give you the top five way to take a screenshot on mac. Whether you need a screenshot of the entire screen or just a portion, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to take a screenshot on Mac—the top 5 screen captures.

Inverting colors on iPhone mostly just looks really cool. It’s also a way to seriously cut down on how much light your screen emits, which makes it good for using at night when you need to see your surroundings while using your iPhone. You can turn on Invert Colors in your Settings app, but you can also ask Siri to do it. Here’s how to invert colors with Siri on iPhone.

You likely find it convenient to use Siri to set an alarm just by saying, "Set an alarm for tomorrow morning at 6 am." However, you can also instruct Siri to set an alarm for more than a single day, including setting the alarm for every day or for weekdays only, which is significantly faster than checking every day individually when manually setting an alarm in the clock app.

I have several hours of commute time every week, and I don’t always have my iPhone’s Bluetooth headset with me. The last thing I want to do while going 55 on the highway is fidget around in Contacts looking for the person I need to call. Luckily, you can use Siri to make speakerphone calls whenever you need to keep your hands free. Here’s how to make speakerphone calls using Siri.

There’s a great feature in iBooks that allows you to tap a button and skip fifteen seconds ahead or backward when you’re listening to an audiobook. This is helpful if you didn’t hear what the reader said, if you’ve already heard this portion of the book, or if you really enjoyed a point and want to hear it again. However, you can alter how far you skip back and forward when listening to an audio book in iBooks. Here’s how to change the length of time audiobook tracks skip in iBooks.

Who doesn’t love free apps? Luckily, there are a lot free apps in the App Store. But it’s not always easy to tell the awesome free apps from the apps you’ll open once and never again. Luckily there are lots of categories in the App Store that help you search for the specific kind of apps you’re looking for, and there’s also a Free tab so you can sort through only the apps that won’t cost any money to download. Here’s how to find the top free apps in the app store on iPhone.

Once you get over the fact that Apple's earbuds are called EarPods™ you can start to appreciate all the cool things you can do with them. You can answer and decline calls, fast-forward and rewind songs, take pictures, and more with your Apple earphones. Oh yeah, and you can also adjust the volume up and down.

The reminders app is my favorite way to easily remember events coming up. Often, I’ll ask Siri to set a reminder for me. When you add a time or location to your reminder, you’ll get a notification at the perfect moment. Usually to edit this information in the Reminders app, you need to tap the blue “i” next to the reminder. But with 3D Touch (only on iPhone 6s and later), you can skip all that and quickly jump into editing. Here’s how to edit reminders with 3D Touch.

The iPhone has a primary language that is found across and throughout the device. But you can choose to change which language your dates, times, and numbers are shown in while keeping your primary language the same. Someone who is bilingual or learning a new language may find this setting useful. Here’s how to make the language for dates, times, and numbers different than the primary language on iPhone.

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