iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

If you've ever wondered how to download videos or music from YouTube and been frustrated that you can't, there's a fix for that. Better yet, it's a legal one, and it doesn't violate the YouTube terms of service. I'm talking of course about YouTube Premium (formerly called YouTube Red), a paid membership that allows you unlimited access to commercial-free videos, background play to keep your tunes going even when you're using other apps or your screen is off, and the ability to download songs and videos to watch on your iPhone even when you're offline. Let's go over the details of YouTube's premium service, so you can decide if this is the way to save YouTube videos you've been looking for. 

I appreciate a good podcast though I have never cared for the built-in Podcast app on my iPhone. Yet it wasn’t until very recently that I decided to finally look for a solid replacement. There are various options in the App Store; you can certainly try out your fair share of podcast apps and see which you like the best. But my choice was surprisingly easy to make: iCatcher Podcast Player is a highly customizable podcast app that makes discovering new podcasts fun and listening to those you already love easy. Learn more on what it does and why we love it below.

Great news, everybody; iOS 12 has been announced at WWDC 2018, and it's bringing performance improvements across the board. These benefits will extend not just to the latest iPhone models, but also to every older iPhone that can be updated to the new operating system as well. This means that things are about to get a lot quicker and smoother for the iPhone 5s and later. From animations, to app launch, to Camera, to keyboard display, if you need your iPhone to perform better, the release of iOS 12 is just the boost your device needs. Let's get started talking about the latest iPhone update, and how it's going to make your iPhone faster! 

One aspect of iOS 12 that I can't wait to try out when the new operating system is released in September, is a fun new feature called Memojis. Memojis allow you to create your own Animoji, but not just any Animoji, an Animoji of yourself or any character you can dream up. Once you've created your Memoji, you can use it in FaceTime or Messages. You can create as many custom Animojis as you want, some for family, some for friends, and you can customize their features, hairstyles, accessories, and much more. Of existing iPhone models, Memojis can only be created on the iPhone X running iOS 12 since this is the only version of the iPhone to incorporate the TruDepth camera; but the new crop of iPhones, and possibly also the new iPads coming this fall will also be able to create and use Memoji. If you don't have an iPhone X and won't be purchasing one of the new iPads or iPhones, you'll still be able to receive Animoji and Memoji messages, although you won't be able to create them. If you still want some of the fun of custom Memojis, check out this article about a free emoji app. Let's go over how Memojis work, so you can be ready to make your own avatars once you update your iPhone to iOS 12.  

Using two-factor authentication helps ensure that the accounts associated with your Apple ID are safe. Even if someone has your login name and password, they won't be able to access your accounts without a verification code from a trusted phone number or one of your trusted devices. Once you verify a new device, you won't need to use two-factor authentication again unless you sign out of it completely, erase your device, or change your password. Similarly, when signing in on the web, you can choose to trust that browser so that you don't have to go through the verification process each time you sign into your account on your computer. Let's go over the steps of signing in to a new device or iCloud account with two-factor authentication.

When you have thousands of photos, there’s no way you’re going to look through them to try and spot the duplicates. There’s also the matter of exact versus similar duplicates—it would be a pain in the ass to try and sort that out manually. Well, a question in the iPhone Life Facebook group about this very topic sent me on a search for the best app for easily removing duplicate photos. And I do believe I’ve found it: Remo Duplicate Photos Remover on the iPhone is a free app that scans all of your photos, presenting you with a quick look at all of the duplicates. Then the app makes it easy for you to quickly remove the photos you don’t want to keep. Learn more on what this app does and why we love it below.

WWDC 2018 has come and gone without any new hardware announcements. Still, features revealed about Apple's latest iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 12, give us tantalizing hints about the iPad(s) that are sure to come later in the year. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010, and Apple has since released five more generations of the tablet, as well as four generations of the iPad mini, two generations of the iPad Air, and two generations of the iPad Pro. Apple currently offers three different iPad models: the recently announced 9.7–inch iPad 2018, a 10.5 and 12.9–inch iPad Pro, and a 7.9–inch iPad mini. We're expecting the announcement of new hardware this year, including a few new iPad Pros, and hoping for several long-awaited features to be incorporated into the tablet. There's also a hint at an iPad mini 5, although I'm not so sure about that. Let's discuss when the new Apple products may be released, which upgrades and improvements to expect, and all the other iPad hints and rumors we've been collecting for the past several months. There's no way to know exactly what Apple has in mind until an official announcement, but we can have fun piecing together clues and making educated guesses in the meantime!