Third-Party Apps

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If you have a limited data plan or a data cap for your iPhone, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on where your cellular data is going. But how do you find out which apps use the most data? How much data does Spotify use? What about YouTube? If you can find out which apps are sucking your data, you can turn off Cellular Data usage for them, which means you’ll only be able to access the apps over Wi-Fi. If you have unlimited data, how to check and manage data usage on an iPhone isn't a big deal. But if you’re trying to stay within a certain amount of gigabytes each month, this data saving tip will make it easy. Here’s how to check what apps are using the most data on your iPhone.

Sometimes you need to hide apps on your iPhone from others who might snoop. Or from yourself, if there’s a game you’re particularly addicted to. To start, hide the app on your iPhone by using app folders. Next, hide it from iPhone Search and in your iPhone’s App Store purchase history. You can even get rid of Apple’s pre-installed apps while you’re at it. Here’s how to hide apps on your iPhone using each of these methods. And how to find hidden apps on your iPhone—just in case you hide them too well.

We tend to think of our iPhone getting hacked as a far-fetched scenario, but large tech companies like Apple pay big money to white hat (good guy) hackers to find the bugs and loopholes it can’t see. iPhones can definitely be hacked, even with the ever-increasing layers of security Apple implements to protect our devices. It’s even possible for someone to hack an iPhone remotely via iCloud. While it’s not worth panicking over, it’s good to take precautions and use the security features on our iPhones, and also to exercise caution to not unwittingly allow hackers access to our devices. You can do a lot to secure your iPhone and protect it from possible hackers. The thirteen tips below will ensure you’ve implemented every safeguard possible; here’s how you can protect your iPhone from hackers, both local and remote.

Apple Maps got a lot of improvement with iOS 10, but one area in which it’s still behind Google Maps is transportation options when getting directions. Unfortunately, you still can’t get bicycle direction on Apple Maps. However, you can find a bicycle route in Google Maps. Luckily, you can easily use Google Maps to get great bicycle directions on your iPhone; here’s how.

One of my favorite features of my Kindle device and the Kindle app on my iPhone and iPad is the ability to read a book on one device, then set the device down, only to pick up a different device, open the book and continue reading from the same place. I tend to use my Kindle Paperwhite at home for morning reading, then I use the Kindle app on my iPhone for reading during my commute or when standing in line at the coffee shop, and other opportunities during the day. If this feature (called Whispersync) wasn’t enabled, I’d have to constantly remember what page I’m on. Here’s how to sync your reading place across devices in the Kindle app on iPhone or iPad.

If you enjoy downloading and trying new apps, the Home screen on your iPhone or iPad will quickly fill up with little app icons. At a certain point, you may want to organize those apps into folders, which you can label. I’ll go over everything you need to know about organizing your home screen on the iPhone or iPad, including how to move app icons, how to create and add folders to your Home screen, and how to put those apps into the new folders. Creating a folder is fairly easy once you get the hang of it, and you can create new folders on iPhone for all the different categories of apps you might have. On my Home screen, I have a folder dedicated to Apple apps, games, productivity, social media, and more. 

In the past, when a stranger on Facebook sent you a message, you didn't receive a notification the way you would with messages from friends. These messages used to be filtered into a section of Facebook Messages called the Other Inbox, but now Facebook has split the Other Inbox into two separate areas: Message Requests and Filtered. The Message Requests Inbox is for messages from people you've communicated with in the past, although you might not be friends with them on Facebook. The Filtered Inbox is for completely unknown senders. There’s actually an easy (though unintuitive) way to access your hidden messages. Most of the time, these messages aren't important. But every now and then, there’s a message you need or want to read. Here’s how to view your hidden Facebook messages on iPhone.

Big news broke the internet recently. Since Instagram now has Snapchat-like features such as disappearing photo stories, the social network decided to continue its imitation: if someone takes a screenshot of your disappearing photo, you will receive a notification. While the internet seemed to freak out over this, it’s a great measure for privacy. Disappearing photos are supposed to...well, disappear. So it only makes sense that you’d receive a notification when someone decides your disappearing photo should be a more permanent photo on their device. Now that Instagram stories are a bit more secure, here’s how to take an Instagram photo that will disappear.

Facebook’s selection of free stickers is so much better than Apple’s, which is one of the many reasons users love Messenger so much. Stickers in Facebook Messenger work very similarly to stickers in Messages: you can download sticker packs and send them to friends. Since Facebook Messenger has such a great variety of stickers, they’re a lot of fun to use. Here’s how to download stickers for Facebook Messenger on iPhone.

Did you know that you can send and receive money from your friends via Facebook Messenger? I didn’t until I received a notification informing me that my sister had sent me $5. It seems there are a million apps for sending friends and family money these days, from Venmo to Snapchat. But if you already have a debit card connected to your Facebook account, then using Messenger to send or request money on iPhone is the quickest way to go. Here’s how to send and request money via Messages on iPhone.

QR codes, they're becoming ubiquitous! You’ve probably seen quick response codes on packaging, signs, and in magazine ads telling you to scan the code with your iPhone for more information, extra discounts, or other perks. With so many QR codes to scan, it's a good thing the Camera app on iPhone now has QR code scanning ability. So, how to scan a QR code with your iPhone? We'll go over how to use your iPhone's Camera, and how you can use a QR scanner app as well. There are a lot of QR code reader and scanner apps available, so let's go through my picks for the best QR reader apps on iPhone, as well as how to scan QR code with the Camera on your iPhone.

There are various ways to share Kindle books. With friends, you can loan ebooks out for a couple weeks. But if you set up Family Sharing with Amazon, you can share Kindle books with family members easily and with fewer limitations. When you share Kindle books, the recipient can read the Kindle book you lend them via the Kindle app on iPhone or iPad, as well as Kindle devices, including Kindle Fire. Kindle family sharing allows two adults to create an Amazon Household with up to four children. The two adults in your Kindle family must have separate Amazon accounts. However, setting up family sharing and sharing Kindle books with your Amazon Household is actually quite straightforward. We’ll go over how to set up Family Sharing on Amazon, how to share Kindle books with that family, how to access content shared with you via Amazon Kindle family sharing, and how to leave an Amazon Household should you need to in the future. Here’s everything you need to know about how to share Kindle books with family members.

The iPhone Photos app  allows you to trim a video on the iPhone; but apart from that, the Photos app isn't set up to crop videos or for further video editing. There are a ton of iPhone video-editing apps you can download for free in the App Store. Some of those video editing apps will include everything you could possibly need for editing videos on iPhone; but since this tip is focused simply how to crop videos on the iPhone, I’m going to use an app designed specifically to trim videos on the iPhone. Here’s how to crop a video on your iPhone.

The TV app on iPhone or iPad allows you to bring all of your shows and movies together in one app. You can sign in with your cable provider to watch shows from ABC, NBC, and many others. You can also connect your streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, and HBONow. If you’re concerned about using too much cellular data watching shows, you can turn this feature off. But if you’ve got enough data and want to watch your shows even when you don’t have Wi-Fi, use this tip to turn on Cellular Data for playback.

From big chain stores to small businesses, Apple Pay is accepted at over four million locations. Despite the widespread availability it's not always obvious whether or not a store accepts Apple Pay. There are a couple different methods available for finding Apple Pay stores in your area. It would be impossible to list all the stores that accept Apple Pay because the list keeps growing. However, I’ll offer some tips on how to find Apple Pay locations near you. You can even view places that take Apple Pay in the Maps app on your iPhone or iPad! Let’s take a look at where and how you can use Apple Pay.

If you’re an avid golfer, your iPhone and Apple Watch can be a great boon to your game, and things are about to get even better. Some top new sports apps are on the way because Apple just rolled out two major software updates, iOS 12 and watchOS 5. Three new iPhones (the Xs, Xs Max, and the XR) and the highly anticipated Apple Watch Series 4 have also made their debuts. These new devices and software will pave the way for the best iPhone apps, as well as the best Apple Watch apps yet, and of course, there are sure to be some golf apps among those offerings. The improved AR capabilities from iOS 12, as well as the next-generation accelerometer and gyroscope on the new Apple Watch, will enable features we've only dreamed about. We'll keep you up to date on the best new golf apps as they arrive on the market, and in the meantime here's our roundup of the best golf apps currently available to improve your game. I'll include the best golf rangefinder, scorecard, and swing-tracking apps, as well as the best golf GPS apps for calculating distances. While all of these titles will work on your iPhone, a few rangefinder apps and swing analyzer apps also support the GPS-enabled Apple Watch Series 1, Series 3, and Series 4, as well as the cellular-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 and 4, so you can glance at your wrist to determine the distance to the green. Read on to learn how the best golf apps for your iPhone and Apple Watch can help you find everything from golf tips to full-on golf lessons, so you can learn how to hit a driver, improve your golf swing, get better at chipping, and perfect your putt. 

With iOS 10, Apple Maps got a huge, and needed, upgrade. The Maps app is now capable of doing a whole lot more, including connecting to third-party apps on your device. For example, let’s say you want to make a restaurant reservation. If you have your reservation app-enabled for use with Apple Maps, then you can look for a restaurant, make the reservation, and get directions all within the Maps app. Here’s how to enable and use Apple Maps extensions on iPhone.

Getting rid of unused and unwanted iPhone and iPad apps can feel like a chore. In this article, we'll cover how to remove unwanted apps using your iPhone's Settings menu. Most people know how to delete apps by tapping and holding an app icon until they all start wiggling, but did you know there's another method to offload apps from your iPad and iPhone? This alternate app-removing option is perfect for someone who needs to delete multiple apps quickly. Let's go over the two methods for erasing apps and freeing up storage space on your iOS device.

If you've ever considered downloading an iPhone mirror app, this tip is for you. There isn’t a built-in iPhone mirror app, but using your front-facing Camera app will do the trick. We’ll go over how to use your iPhone as a mirror. And in case you absolutely insist on downloading a mirror app for iPhone, I’ve got two great free mirror apps for you too.