Third-Party Apps

I think we can all agree that money can be a tense subject. Rarely do we enjoy reminding a friend they owe us twenty bucks for last week’s group dinner. But, if you’re a social animal in the slightest, I’m sure you’ve found yourself splitting a tab with friends and family. At the beginning of this year, some of the iPhone Life team took a trip to Mexico, where we had to split a whole lot of different things from dinner to snorkeling. But it was easy to keep track of and pay each other back thanks to the app Splitwise (free). Here’s what it does and why we love it.

iPhone Life’s resident iPhoneographer and Managing Editor Rheanne Taylor has a favorite photo editing app that she uses constantly for her polishing her photos: Darkroom Photo Editor (free). But it’s not just her—avid photographers will tell you their all-time favorite filter from Darkroom at the drop of a hat, and a quick look at the app’s review will tell you much users love it. This app offers users a lot of control over their photos with a wide range of options. Access to the basic features of the app is free, but users say it’s well worth $3.99 to get all the premium tools or $5.99 for all the tools and filters. We’ll tell you more about the Darkroom app below, including what  it can do and why we love it.

Watching Netflix offline was a dream until fairly recently. In the past, watching Netflix offline wasn't possible because there was no way to download Netflix movies or TV shows. But that’s all changed and now learning how to download Netflix movies and TV shows for offline viewing is easy with a quick how-to. We’ll cover how to download movies from Netflix, how to watch offline, whether or not you can download Netflix on Mac or PC, which Netflix downloads are available, and how to change Netflix settings from standard to higher video quality for your downloads. Subscribers have been wanting to watch Netflix offline on their iPads or iPhones for years, and now Netflix has made it easy. Here's how to watch Netflix offline on iPhone and iPad.

You can turn a Live Photo into a video or GIF directly from the Apple Photos app on an iPhone with iOS 11 or later. But in many cases, you may actually want to use a third-party app, such as Lively, to turn your Live Photos into a video or GIF. Using an app is also particularly helpful if you want to share your Live Photo on Instagram; because, in order to do so, it must be turned into a video. Before iOS 11, you could make a Live Photo into a video or GIF using Lively, but you couldn’t simply make Live Photos into GIFs or videos from within the Photos app. Now, there are two video and GIF options on the iPhone: Loop and Bounce. We've already told you how to turn a Live Photo into your iPhone's wallpaper, now, we’re going to cover how to turn Live Photos into a video or GIF with Lively. Here’s how to turn your Live Photos into videos or GIFs on the iPhone.

Introducing App Saturdays! (*insert jazz hands*) Every Saturday, we’ll feature an app we love, telling you what it can do and why it’s awesome.

Our first app, Sorted, is a calendar and to-do app to rival them all. Since the Sunrise calendar app died, I’ve searched high and low for a replacement. After months of trial and error, I stumbled across Sorted last week. Here’s what it can do and why you’re going to love it.

How to Avoid Tolls on Google Maps:

Get driving directions without tolls on Google Maps using the following directions:

1. Download Google Maps in the App Store.
2. Open the app and search for your destination.
3. Tap the blue button or Route.
4. Sidenote: you can tap the up and down arrows next to the search boxes to switch your “from” and “to” if needed.
5. Enter your “from” address or use your current location.
6. Tap the three vertical dots right of the search boxes.
7. Select Route Options.
8. Toggle on Avoid Tolls.
9. To save your preference for avoiding tolls with Google Maps, toggle on Remember settings.
10. Tap the back arrow to return to the map.
11. Tap the blue circle with a white arrow pointing up to begin navigating.

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 is a big difference between deleting and disabling your Instagram account. If you want to delete your Instagram account, it’s actually quite easy to do. But when you delete Instagram, you permanently delete Instagram; that account is gone forever. If you just want to take a break or see how it would feel to delete Instagram, you also have the option to deactivate your Instagram, which is also known as temporarily disabling your Instagram account. When you deactivate your Instagram, you always have the option of re-activating your Instagram account in the future. However, if you’re certain you want to permanently delete your account (or delete a second Instagram account), we’ll show you how to quit Instagram. Here’s how to delete an Instagram account, or just temporarily disable Instagram via deactivation.

I love to add my photos to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, whether it’s to show off my vacation or share pictures of my kids for distant family members to see. And, of course, there’s the not-so-occasional cute photo of my pets. If you have an account on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, there is an easy way to upload your photos from your iPhone or iPad right to your choice of social media sites. Here’s how to upload photos to your social media account on iPhone.

A while ago, Facebook introduced autoplay for videos on the social network. Perhaps the most obnoxious part about it is that every time a video ad starts playing in your News Feed, you are essentially paying with your precious data or battery power for them to advertise to you. Fortunately, it's easy to disable this feature. Here’s how to disable Facebook’s video autoplay.

Not too long ago, Instagram introduced the ability to save photos you like into your own little collection board. This is a great feature for keeping track of photos you’ve found that you love and may want to check out again later on. But, not only can you save those photos, you can organize those photos into collections, much like a Pinterest board. I’m saving every Insta-pic I like now, so this feature is perfect for making sure I can find the image I want to among the many saved. Here’s how to organize your saved Instagram photos like a Pinterest board.

A while back, you may have noticed color gradients suddenly appearing behind friends' Facebook statuses. At first, I found them quite disconcerting; but I’ve started to get used to the darn things, and I even use them now and again. By now, the feature has rolled out to most (if not all) Facebook users. Here’s how you can add colored or patterned backgrounds to your Facebook posts on iPhone.

How to Make a Meme:

For making our meme, we’re going to use my favorite meme maker app for iPhone: Meme Generator Free. While the design of each meme maker app will be different, the general process should be the same. To make your own meme:

1. Choose a meme maker app you want to use. Open the App Store on your iPhone and download the meme generator app you’ve chosen.
2. Open your meme maker app.
3. When you open the Meme Generator Free app, you’ll see a list of memes.
4. Once you find the meme image you want to use. Tap on it.
5. Here’s what I love about this meme generator app, particularly for beginners: tap Example at the bottom to see some examples of text that would fit the image. They aren’t the most cleverly written, but they do provide valid examples.
6. Tap the text bars at the top to edit your caption.
7. You can tap the icons in the upper right corner to further customize your meme image and caption options.
8. When you’re satisfied with your meme, tap Save or Share. Save will save the photo to your iPhone Photos app. Share will allow you to share the meme you just created to social media or via messages and email.

Managing multiple Instagram accounts used to mean signing up for another account and logging in and out to switch between them. Nowadays, if you want to make a second account on Insta, you can do so and toggle between your multiple accounts seamlessly. Making a second Instagram account is fairly easy to do with the right instructions. Creating a second Instagram or having multiple Instagram accounts is ideal for those who need an Instagram business page, are social media managers, or have super cute pets that they want to create an account for. With the ability to switch between your multiple Instagram accounts, you can keep them each separate but equally accessible. We’re going to cover how to make a second Instagram account, how to manage multiple Instagram accounts, and how to delete an Instagram account.

Amazon does not want you to delete your account. As with many online companies, you have to go through quite a process to officially cancel and delete your Amazon account. If, instead of deleting your Amazon account, what you’re really trying to do is use a different email or payment source, you can do that within your Amazon account settings without cancelling the account altogether. If, having considered your options, you’re certain that you want your Amazon account permanently deleted, you’ll need need to write Amazon a note. The company will do the rest. There’s no one-click button for deleting your Amazon account; you simply have to tell the company via their contact form that you want to cancel your Amazon account. Here’s how to delete your Amazon account permanently.

Whether you want to create a fun image, a small poster to promote an event on Social Media, or any other graphic with words, using the free app Over is a great way to go. The app is easy to use and allows you to create professional-looking graphics on your iPhone. Here’s how to add words to a photo with Over on iPhone.

There are several reasons why you might want to see comments on a Facebook post—I often want to see comments if the poster is asking a question I'd like to know the answer to. You can receive notifications about future comments by leaving a comment yourself. Indeed, I often see people comment "following" or "commenting because I'd like to receive updates" on Facebook status updates. But did you know that you can easily subscribe to updates without commenting on a thread? Here's how to follow a Facebook thread and receive notifications of comments without leaving a comment.

When you purchase a new Kindle book, it’s automatically delivered to your default device. You can send e-books you’ve purchased to any or all of your devices, but only your default device will receive it automatically. While you may simply be able to view your Kindle Cloud on your device and download the book for reading there, you may not want to go through that process each time you get a new book if you know for certain where you’re going to end up reading it. For some, books get read on iPhone or iPad, since it’s a device that’s often or always with you. Regardless of whether you want your iPhone, iPad, or Kindle device to be your default, here’s how to change where new Kindle books are sent.

For the longest time, every new app I downloaded on my iPhone seemed to also appear on my Apple Watch. I found myself constantly deleting apps from my Apple Watch that I knew I would never ever use on the tiny screen. Eventually, I got so frustrated with all the new apps crowding my watch face that I went searching through settings for a solution. Here’s how to prevent new apps from automatically downloading to Apple Watch.

We’ve all done it. We’ve all searched Facebook for a particular person while looking over our shoulder to make sure no one can see us. Whether it’s a long-lost friend, ex-partner, your mischievous child, or someone else, we’ve all searched for a person on Facebook that we don't want other people knowing we’ve searched for. I have a (silly) habit of looking up the person I have a crush on, only to feel embarrassed after the fact. So to soothe my blushing cheeks, I simply clear that Facebook search history and pretend I didn’t just do that. Here’s how you can clear your Facebook search history so we can all be secret onlookers together.