By Conner Carey
In your Contacts app, you can assign photos to each contact for easy recognition. When you open the Messages app, you’ll see a photo next to each message if that contact has been assigned a photo. However, if you’d prefer to turn this feature off, it’s easy to do. Here’s how to disable contact photos.
By Conner Carey
In order to sometimes fit more names on your iPhone's screen, your Contacts’ names will appear shortened. By default, your settings are set to shorten only the first name. However, you can customize this feature or turn it off completely in your Settings app. Here’s how to change how long names are shortened in lists.
By Jim Karpen
The fourth-generation Apple TV has been quite popular, and it's likely that in some households it's being used by multiple individuals, each with their own iTunes account. Fortunately, this new model lets you add each person's Apple ID. Then when someone wants to use the Apple TV to access their media, it's simply a matter of switching accounts.
Kindle by Amazon may still hold the monopoly on e-books, but Apple is trying to catch up. The iBooks app has seen consistent improvements. One great advantage it has over Kindle is the ability to purchase a book within iBooks and immediately begin reading it. Another great feature is the ability to preview chapters from the Table of Contents with an iPhone that has 3D Touch. Here’s how to do it.
By Conner Carey
The Apple News app is a great place to follow your favorite magazines and websites, and the day's top stories. You can save articles to read offline, Like articles to see more of the same, Mute Channels you don’t want to hear from, and Share articles you want your friends to read as well. Regardless of what topics you’re interested in, there’s easily something for everyone here. Here’s how to share articles in News that you find and love.
With the introduction of iOS 9.3, we saw new additions to Apple apps that are 3D Touch enabled. One such addition is the Settings app. Often, there are three main places within our Settings that we need to visit on a regular basis: Battery, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. By adding 3D Touch to the Settings app, Apple has made it super easy to access those frequently visited sections. If you have an iPhone with 3D Touch (iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus), then this will be a welcome addition.
By Conner Carey
If you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone, you’re familiar with Activity rings. On the Apple Watch, your activity is represented by three concentric circles that track how much of your daily goals you have met. There’s a red circle for your Move goal, a green one for Exercise, and a blue one for Stand. However, you can also view these Activity rings in graph form in the Health app and include it as a part of your health Dashboard. Here’s how to view your activity rings in your health app dashboard.
By Conner Carey
In the Apple News app, you have the option to save articles for reading offline. Perhaps you’re about to be in a zone without Wi-Fi and you want to have a list of reading during that period of time. Or maybe you’re at work when you discover an article and you want to save it for the commute home. Whichever the case, it’s an easy process to make sure your New Stories are saved and available offline.
By Rich Hall
You can check the balance on your AT&T bill or the remaining number of minutes you have directly from your iPhone. From the Home screen, go to Settings >Phone >AT&T Services. Select Check Bill Balance or View My Minutes. AT&T will promptly send you a free SMS with the info.
By Conner Carey
Using Do Not Disturb on your iPhone is a great way to take a break from technology to focus on something else. There are multiple ways to turn on Do Not Disturb. One such way is in Control Center. You can also turn it on in Settings. However, the easiest way is to simply ask Siri to turn it on. Turning on Do Not Disturb will silence calls, alerts, and notifications. Here’s how to use Siri to turn Do Not Disturb On and Off.
By Conner Carey
When things stop working, whether in an app, with Bluetooth, or anywhere else, the first thing to do is turn off your iPhone and turn it back on. Often this will reset whatever wasn’t working and fix your problem. This may seem obvious, but judging by the number of readers whose problems we have solved with this advice, perhaps it isn't. So, here’s how to turn your iPhone on and off when things aren’t working.
One of the things that confused me on the Apple TV was when the music I was listening to kept playing even after I closed the app and began navigating to other apps. I would then navigate back to the Music app and stop it from playing. As you might expect, there is a simpler way to do this.
You can use Siri to control Apple TV settings on your 4th generation Apple TV, and this is especially useful if you want to reduce a movie's background sounds. This feature of Apple TV not only makes the dialog more audible, but also reduces the chances that you'll disturb your neighbors.
By Sarah Kingsbury
Our Apple ID account contains sensitive personal and financial information. If someone were to guess your password and security question answers, they could possibly access and change your Apple ID information and make iTunes and App Store purchases as you. If you want to keep that information extra secure, consider enabling Two-Step Verification This will prevent anyone from using your Apple account even if they know your password. Here's how:
By Conner Carey
Wi-Fi Assist was introduced with iOS 9. When enabled, Wi-Fi Assist will automatically switch over to your data plan if your Wi-Fi connection becomes too slow. When the feature was released, a lot of people were upset by the surprise charges they received from their data bills. With iOS 9.3, however, Apple added the ability to see how much data Wi-Fi Assist is using. Here’s how to check.
By Conner Carey
A lot of people tell me that they are never the early adopters of new iOS updates, “I always wait at least three months.” I felt the same way before I started working for iPhone Life, but being immersed in all things iPhone has changed my perspective. If there were ever an update to download, iOS 9.3 is it. With new features like Night Shift Mode and Touch ID or passcode protection for the Notes app, there’s a lot to appreciate. Here’s the best five features iOS 9.3 provides and how to use them.
By Conner Carey
When your iPhone is in Night Shift mode, the display emits light from the warmer end of the spectrum rather than the default blue light, which can interfere with sleep and strain the eyes. You can manually enable Night Shift mode or set a daily schedule for the feature. Here’s how to use Night Shift:
By Conner Carey
With 3D Touch, you can quickly preview information, web pages, access Quick Actions, and more functions for apps are being added all the time. One such function is the ability to get information about a location and select actions pertaining to the address in the Maps app. You can use 3D Touch when pressing a pin or an address in Maps and it’s a super convenient way to jump into getting directions. Here’s how to get information about a location by pressing a pin in Maps.
By Sarah Kingsbury
If you've ever searched your inbox for an email you're certain you did not delete, but couldn't see it on the list, consider your email-flagging habits. If you know you're going to want to return to an email later, you can make it easier to find when searching your inbox by flagging it. Here’s how to make emails easier to find again later.
By Jim Karpen
Apple’s iOS has tons of features, so many that no one could ever use them all. And many aren’t obvious. We’ve rounded up 11 useful and novel features that are either buried deep or hidden in iOS. Some of these also work on an iPad.
