iPhone

It's that time of year again, when families want to travel and adventure together, school children and college kids are all out for the summer, and warm weather beckons everyone to the waterside for good times. It’s also the time when your chances of damaging your iPhone increase; whether from dropping your device in the water or from something happening to it while you're out and about on miscellaneous summertime escapades. To better protect your precious devices this summer, a heavy-duty, rugged iPhone case can most definitely be an asset. All of the cases included in this roundup provide superior protection for your iPhone, year round, with varying levels of insulation from dust, snow, mud, impact and water intrusion. Which one you decide to go with will depend on personal taste and how you intend to use your iPhone. Worth mentioning: Along with providing exceptional protection for your iPhone, all of these cases allow Qi wireless charging. Also worth mentioning, unless otherwise specified, all of the cases featured here that are compatible with the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus will be compatible with the older iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

Your iPhone has a variety of free ringtones to peruse, and the iTunes Store has a gigantic selection of iPhone ringtones to purchase, but what if you want to make your own custom ringtone? Good news! You can make phone ringtones free using already purchased songs from your iTunes library. All you need is your iPhone, a Mac or PC, a Lightning cable, 20–30 seconds of your favorite song, a little bit of time, and a willingness to try something new. Let's get started learning how to make your own custom free ringtones for iPhone with iTunes! 

I make no claims of being an amazing guitarist; I wouldn't even say I’m all that good. That said, I’ve enjoyed playing guitar for 20 years and I love it with all my heart. I find it to be both a creative outlet and a valuable form of relaxation and meditation. Back when I began my guitar playing journey, learning required paper books and teachers; nowadays, a few good apps can go a long way toward helping you learn and grow as a musician. The following are a few of my favorite, most indispensable iOS apps for guitar players.

It can be a nerve-wracking step, buying your child their first iPhone. There's a lot of inappropriate content in songs, movies, and apps, not to mention creepers and weirdos on the internet. Luckily, the iPhone has parental controls we can set to keep our children from accessing the more unsavory side of the digital world. In this tip, we'll learn how to use the Restrictions screen to enable restrictions and set a passcode so those settings can't be changed by anyone but you. Let's get started learning how to block websites, lock apps, and decide on Allowed Content, Privacy, Allowed Changes, and Game Center features. 

I’ve been a loyal Apple user for decades. I’ve also been an iPhone 6 Plus user since 2014 when the device was first released, with its large 5.5-inch, high-resolution screen, its dual FaceTime-capable cameras, its more powerful battery, and so on. The iPhone 6 Plus served me extremely well, so much so that I had little interest in changing iPhones. Recently though, I upgraded to the brand new iPhone 8 Plus; and if there’s one thing that has surprised me most about Apple’s newest model iPhone, it's just how little I’m impressed by it.

Okay, so you’ve taken the leap and handed your child or teen a smartphone. You may feel like you’ve made the biggest decision already; but if you want to keep your child safe, you have many more decisions to make ahead of you. I hear a lot of chatter about how to keep kids safe on social media (which is a critically important topic), but there’s not as much guidance when it comes to one of the iPhone’s simplest features: text messages. In addition to keeping kids and teens safe while texting, we need to make sure they understand texting etiquette. Here, I’ll touch on the five most important things you and your child need to know to stay safe, secure, and polite when it comes to texting. 

1SE is a video-diary app that allows you to save one second videos of each day. The app will then automatically string all of those memories together to create a movie collection of your life. You can view them anytime or at the end of a year to reflect. It’s any easy yet beautiful way to capture and appreciate a little something from each day you live. With the latest update, you can add two one-second snippets to each day, as well as add journal notes and record your mood. The added features make this both the perfect keepsake and journaling app. Learn more on what 1SE does and why we love it below.

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.

Instagram account holders have been hit with a wave of spam lately, and from a different source than many have previously experienced. I'm talking about the auto-like or auto-follow phenomenon, where Instagrammers suddenly notice they're following unfamiliar accounts. How does this happen? Insta-following seems to happen when Instagram apps are granted more access to our accounts than they should have. Let's learn how to revoke permissions from spammy apps so we can reclaim our iPhone's Instagram feeds.

Facebook recently announced a new facial recognition feature that informs account holders when their image appears in other people's photos and videos, then allows them to tag themselves. In addition, the feature warns Facebook users when their picture is used to open another account. While some Facebook users find the facial recognition feature innocuous, or even helpful, others prefer to steer clear of what they perceive as an invasion of privacy. For those of you who would like to turn off facial recognition on Facebook, read on to learn how to do so on your iPhone.  

We're all aware that there are millions of apps in the App Store, which means there’s very little chance any one of us has heard of even a quarter of what’s available. That’s why we love to look for lists of the coolest iPhone apps, best apps for iPhone, and now, the best unheard of apps, including apps for travel, photography, dating, and more. Lots of cool apps are bound to slip under the radar. But we’re all excited when a new app we’ve never heard of turns out to be fantastic, and better yet, free. We’ll cover eight apps that aren't trending but are still awesome, educational, and helpful for iPhone users. 

There are a lot of different apps you could use to learn a language, but not all language apps give you the tools to truly become fluent in a language. Babbel offers language learning at a classroom level from the comfort of your smart devices. The app offers fourteen different languages and more than 8500 hours of learning content across them. I chose this app to feature because of the way it engages the learner; it immediately felt different to me than the numerous other language apps I’ve tried. We’ll go over more on what it does and why we love it below.

Animoji is a new iMessage feature that currently is only available on the iPhone X. Animojis are animated emojis, and the technology required to create them is really incredible, with far-reaching potential applications. The Animojis feature allows iPhone X owners to animate various characters in ten-second videos and send them to friends. When you move your face, the Animoji automatically moves with you. With Animojis, you are essentially animating your own face, as though you were in a cartoon right from the comfort of your iPhone. The first iteration of Animojis allowed you to be a unicorn, the poop emoji, a panda, a chicken, and more. With iOS 11.3, Apple has added a bear, a dragon, a lion, and a skull.  Here’s how to use Animojis on your iPhone X.

Apple announced the Apple Business Chat platform at WWDC 2017 and iOS 11.3 has finally introduced us to the program. The Business Chat platform allows iPhone users to connect with companies through iMessages, or from the businesses' app or website, rather than talking on the phone. Apple is rolling out Business Chat slowly; it's only available as a beta version right now, with a limited number of partner companies. Let's stay ahead of the curve and learn how to use Business Chat on our iPhones. 

I don't know about you, but before I purchase an app in the App Store, I like to read a few reviews to see how other customers have liked (or disliked) their purchase. Now iOS 11.3 makes it easier than ever before to sort app reviews so customers can find the information they want about individual apps. Let's get started learning how to find and sort user-submitted reviews in the App Store on our iPhones, so we have more information before purchasing apps. 

You rely on your iPhone for everything, so why not for dinner tonight? If you've been in a recipe rut, or just want help to become the best home chef you can be, download these free cooking and step-by-step recipe apps to get you started. Some of these cooking apps require a trip to the grocery store, while others help you find recipes to work with ingredients you already have in the fridge. As a bonus, if you lack motivation, check out our top foodie Instagram account choices to get all the culinary inspiration you need.

The numbers in the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal just keep climbing, from an original 55 million to a new estimate of nearly 87 million account holders who have had their data breached. This is because the quiz, "This Is Your Digital Life," collected data not only from Facebook users who completed it, but from all their Facebook friends as well. Facebook has barred the personality quiz from the platform and sent a message to all account holders who took the quiz, but if you'd like to make sure your data wasn't also breached, there's a way to find out. Let's check and see if our Facebook accounts have been compromised by Cambridge Analytica; it's easy to do right from your iPhone. 

Facebook Privacy: How to Delete Facebook Apps

  1. Tap on the x to the right of the app you want to delete.
  2. Choose Delete App or Delete App & Activity from the pop-up menu. I recommend Delete App & Activity.
  3. After deleting your chosen app, you'll receive a notification telling you the app may still keep data you've previously shared.
  4. After you tap Close, you'll see a screen like this:

The next time your Facebook app refreshes, the apps you deleted will completely disappear. 

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