Your music library holds everything...right? Well it doesn’t have to. You have the option to add a song to a playlist without that song automatically ending up in your Apple Music library too. For example, if you’re creating a Christmas playlist, you probably don’t want to hear those same songs play on shuffle in May. Luckily, it’s easy to change this feature in Settings. Here’s how to add a song to an Apple Music playlist but not your library.
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.
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
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
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
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 Sarah Kingsbury
If you find yourself checking your phone every time any phone in your vicinity vibrates, it may be time to create a custom vibration pattern to set your iPhone's ringtone apart from the pack. It’s super easy to do and you can tap along to a favorite song of yours for a fun, unique vibration rhythm. Here’s how create customized vibration patterns.
By Conner Carey
App developers are consistently releasing updates and upgrades to improve in-app experiences and to fix bugs. To make this process easy, your iPhone will automatically download available updates over Wi-Fi. Apps, books, and music you purchase on other devices are also automatically downloaded. If you prefer to updte your apps manually, here’s how to turn the option off.
By Conner Carey
When you’re browsing the web on your iPhone or iPad, it’s important to protect your information from malicious or fraudulent websites. The problem with this is you can’t always tell which websites are legitimate and which could cause your device trouble or steal your information. However, Safari has a built in function that will warn you with a Fraudulent Website Warning before you open a suspicious website. Here’s how to turn this on.
By Conner Carey
Many apps provide extra content or enhancements for a fee, but in-app purchases are a good way to accidentally rack up a high App Store bill. Those 99 cent extras add up quickly and before you know it, you (or your kids!) have gone way over your monthly phone bill budget. No worries though; there’s an easy way to prevent this in your Settings app. Here’s how to restrict in-app purchases.
By Tommy Ly
There’s two ways to add events in mail to your calendar app. With iOS 9 or later, there’s a feature in Settings that allows for Events Found in Mail to automatically be added to your Calendar app. You can turn this feature on or off. If you’d prefer to turn it off, you can also add individual Mail events to your Calendar app manually. This tip will show you how to do both.
By Conner Carey
When you open a new tab in Safari, it gives you suggestions for frequently visited websites. This feature can be turned off in Settings.
By Conner Carey
In iOS 9, you can view specifics on which apps are using your iPhone’s battery. If you find your battery is draining quickly, viewing detailed battery info is a great way to figure out why. You can see which apps use chunks of your battery life, how long the app was active, and how long the app was running in the background. This is also a great way to see how much time you're spending on a particular app; in case you're still in denial about your Facebook habit.
By Conner Carey
Low-Power Mode is a battery life saver when your iPhone is running out of juice. It’s easy enough to navigate your Settings and turn it on; however, Siri can do it for you even faster.
By Conner Carey
With a subscription to Apple Music or iTunes Match, you can use the iCloud Music Library. This is an easy way to have access to your music across all of your devices. When your iCloud Music Library is enabled, you can add an Apple Music song to My Music from your iPhone, then check your iPad and the song will be there.
By Jim Karpen
Apple introduced third-party keyboards in iOS 8 after a lot of user requests. Now, the options seem endless, from the popular SwiftKey app to adding a gif keyboard for fun communication between friends. To add a third-party keyboard, the first thing you need to do is download a keyboard app from the App Store. Once downloaded, the setup is easy.
I use reading glasses for some things, a concession to middle age, but fortunately I don't ever need them when I'm using my iPad. That's because I've adjusted the settings so that the text is larger and bolded, making it much easier to see. These settings apply to all of Apple's apps and to third-party apps that support Apple's Dynamic Type. Ever since iOS 8 was introduced, Apple has gathered text size, bold, view, and brightness into a single panel in Settings.
By Conner Carey
On by default, Safari Quick Search uses search shortcuts to look within websites. Therefore, if you type a website name as a part of your search, Safari will look within that website for what you need. For example, type “Youtube cat video” to show YouTube search results for cat videos. If you’d rather this feature be turned off, here’s how.
By Conner Carey
When you type in popular app names into the Safari search url bar, Apple will try to match that with apps you either have or may want from the App store. It’s a suggestion feature turned on by default. Here’s how to turn it off.
