Phone

Need iPad and iPhone help? Sign up for iPhone Life Insider and Sarah will help you with all your iPhone troubleshooting and iOS-related issues. To learn more go to iPhoneLife.com/Insider. In this Hey Sarah column, one Insider wants to know how to change the default greeting on their iPhone's voicemail. Other questions include how to view more than the current month on Apple Watch and how to sort notes in the Notes app alphabetically.

We already know that Apple's HomePod delivers a high-fidelity audio experience and helps control smart home devices, and that we can manage these functions with Siri. But did you know that you can also transfer phone calls from your iPhone to your HomePod, so you can utilize the room-filling sound of the HomePod for speakerphone calls? Using your HomePod as a speakerphone is a great way to go hands-free when you need to move around the room without carrying your iPhone or worrying about sounding muffled. Let's get started learning how to transfer calls on your iPhone to your HomePod so you can use your HomePod as a speakerphone. 

If you've just bought your first iPhone, or if you're one of the many people who just never got around to setting up their voicemail until now, you may be wondering how to open and listen to voicemail on your phone. You'll also want to learn how to delete voicemail messages, since too many undeleted messages will mean new messages can't be added to your voicemail. Voicemail on iPhone is quick and easy to use, once you learn a few quick steps. Let's get started learning how to check voicemail on iPhone, and how to delete voicemail as well, so you never miss a message. 

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! 

Voicemail-to-text transcriptions on the iPhone aren't a perfect offering, the service often drops words and mangles names. Despite that, voicemail transcriptions are highly useful for those of us who would rather quickly scan a bit of text than listen to a long voice message. One feature I'd love to see added to the voicemail-to-text feature is a single-step method for sharing voicemail transcriptions. While we're waiting for this feature, though, there is a workaround for the lack of a streamlined transcription sharing feature. Read on to learn how to share voicemail to text transcriptions on your iPhone.

You've been trying to get in touch with a friend or family member, but they haven't returned your calls or messages. Are they just busy, is something wrong with their phone, or have they blocked your number? How can you tell if someone blocked your number? There's not a surefire way to know if your number is blocked, but there are a few telling signs that indicate someone blocked your number from texting or calling. We've already gone over how to block a number, as well as how to block your number or call privately, now let's go over the clues that calls and messages from your iPhone are being blocked.

When you make a call on your iPhone, Caller ID reveals your phone number to the person you're contacting. But what if you'd like to make a private call and want to block Caller ID from showing you number? We've already covered how to block a number and how to know if someone blocked your number, so this is just one more aspect of blocked calls we need to cover. If you want to know how to make a private call, there are a few ways to accomplish this. We'll learn three ways to keep your phone number private, as well as who can still see your number even with these methods, and a simple way to make your phone number visible again on a call-by-call basis. Let's get started learning how to call without Caller ID so you can maintain your privacy when you need it. 

We've gone over how to block a phone number on the iPhone, as well as how to block texts on the iPhone, but did you know that even when someone's number is blocked they can still leave you voicemails? It seems odd to be able to receive voicemails from someone you've directed your phone to block, but there it is, and in a way this peculiar feature has its merits. For example, if you've blocked an ex or cyberbully, it can be useful to know if they've moved on or if you may have cause to worry. So let's get started learning what happens when you block a number on the iPhone, and how to listen to voicemails from blocked numbers, as well. 

The camera roll on my iPhone is jam packed with pictures of my dogs—there's just something about those fuzzy faces that demands to be adored and photographed so that the pictures can be adored as well. Then of course there's the sharing; #instadog #socute #sorryyouguysicantrestrainmyself. I've been known to take dog photos with Instagram, share them to Facebook, then text and private message them to friends and family that really must see the latest iteration of canine cuteness right away. Therefore it is with great delight that I announce the discovery of my new favorite app, BarkCam, the "Instagram for Dogs." 

Signal is a privacy app that uses end-to-end encryption for individual and group texts, videos, documents, voice, and picture messaging. Open Whisper, Signal's parent company, produced Signal using grants and donations, utilizing Open Source software, with the aim of providing a free and secure platform for worldwide communication, without SMS or MMS fees—this even includes free long-distance calls to anyone, anywhere in the world who also has the Signal app! No one at Signal or anywhere else can read or view communications on the platform, they can only be viewed by the individual user, who can also choose when each message will disappear. Since the whole point of an encrypted communication app is to ensure privacy, Signal is free of tracking, affiliate marketers, and ads. Signal uses your existing address book and phone number, and will only allow you to register one mobile device, so you'll need to choose if you want to use your iPhone or iPad. Getting Signal on your iPhone is free and easy, it pops right up in the App Store, but Signal for iPad is a bit more complicated. Read on to learn how to get Signal on your iPad!

AirPods users: did you know you can answer a call on your AirPods? The streamlined look of AirPods makes this an easy feature to overlook; but if you’re one of the many people sporting AirPods, you’ll certainly want to utilize this feature. You can answer your iPhone with AirPods and hang up calls with your AirPods as well; we’ll go over how to do both. When learning how to use your AirPods, make sure this is one of the tips you memorize. If you wear your AirPods more than you don’t, you’ll definitely need to answer calls with them. Here’s how to answer a call with AirPods.

If you are logged into iCloud on Apple devices, you’ve likely had this happen: one minute, you’re calm, the next, you receive an incoming call, and every device you own is suddenly beeping and blaring. This happens because of a handy feature called Continuity, which can connect your Mac, iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone. Once these devices are connected, they'll work together, and you'll be able to use Handoff with apps like Safari, Mail, Maps, Messages, Phone, and more to start a task on one device and finish it on another. Continuity and Handoff make it possible for you to make and receive calls on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and iPod Touch; but what if you don't want your calls ringing through to all your devices? Here’s how to make all of your devices stop ringing when you get a call on iPhone.

Did you know that the iPhone allows your phone to automatically answer calls after a certain number of rings? If you’re the type of person who’s always near their cellphone but sometimes takes too long to answer, or if you find the swiping-to-answer motion annoying (like my mom) or difficult to do, then you can turn on this setting. You can find this feature in your Accessibility Settings. Here’s how to set your iPhone to automatically answer calls after a fixed amount of time.

Figuring out how to download music on Apple Music for offline listening is fairly straight forward—tap the plus sign next to a song and then the cloud icon. While downloading individual songs or albums on Apple Music is easy to do, learning how to download all music on Apple Music isn’t so obvious. If you want to listen to your Apple Music offline, you’ll need a way to download all Apple Music at once. However, unlike Spotify, Apple Music doesn’t provide a clear Download All button to download your music for offline listening. We’ll first explain how it is that you can use Apple Music offline, then we’ll jump into how to download all music on Apple Music with iPhone or iPad. Let’s go.

Let’s say you’re listening to music using your fantastic Bluetooth speaker and you get a call. When you answer that call, it will probably default to your iPhone. But what if you want the call to automatically default to you speaker? Or your headphones? You can choose where your call audio defaults to in your settings on iPhone. Here’s how to set your speaker or headphones as the default audio on iPhone.

Sometimes, whether it's an ex, a cyberbully, or an obnoxious telemarketer, a person just won't get the message and stop calling or texting you. That's when it's time to block their calls and texts on your iPhone. We've already gone over how to use a call blocker to stop unknown callers, and how to know if your number has been blocked, so now let's talk about how to stop unwanted messages or phone calls on your iPhone. Enabling call blocking for a specific number on your Apple device means you will no longer receive phone calls, FaceTime calls, text messages, or iMessages from that number. Here’s how to block a phone number on iPhone, so you won't receive calls or texts from that number again!

Your ringtone on iPhone lets you know when you have an incoming call or text. Since you’re likely to hear the sound often, it’s nice to choose one you like. You can choose to use a ringtone that Apple has built-in. But you can also use ringtones you’ve purchased within the iTunes Store on your iPhone. Here’s how to change your default ringtone on iPhone.

I had no idea this was a thing until I started looking for an answer. Let me explain: my mom has been slowly adjusting to using an iPhone. With her old flip phone, she merely closed the phone to hang up the call. But with an iPhone, you have to press the big red dot on the screen. But for her, it felt more intuitive to press the Home button. So she found herself thinking she’d hung up the phone when she hadn’t. This let me to search for an easy solution. There’s no setting on iPhone that allows you to use your Home button to hang up a call, but you can use a different button. Here’s how to hang up your iPhone with the click of a button.

Do you have a person in your Contacts who you'd like to silence for awhile? You can turn on Do Not Disturb mode on your iPhone for individual contacts, although the process is slightly different with iOS 12 than it was with iOS 11. Whether you’re on a date and don't want to hear from that one friend who texts constantly or you’re in a meeting and don’t want to be disturbed by personal calls or texts, you need Do Not Disturb. Do Not Disturb mode is indicated by the crescent moon symbol or icon to the left of your selected contact, and allows you to mute texts and calls from the person you don't want interrupting you. Here’s how to turn on Do Not Disturb for one contact on iPhone with iOS 12.