August Garry is an Associate Editor for iPhone Life. Formerly of Gartner and Software Advice, they have six years of experience writing about technology for everyday users, specializing in iPhones, HomePods, and Apple TV. As a former college writing instructor, they are passionate about effective, accessible communication, which is perhaps why they love helping readers master the strongest communication tools they have available: their iPhones. They have a degree in Russian Literature and Language from Reed College.
When they’re not writing for iPhone Life, they’re reading about maritime disasters, writing fiction, rock climbing, or walking their adorable dog, Moosh.
You may know the Breathe app on your Apple Watch from the notifications it sends you—whether you ask for them or not. In watchOS 8, the Breathe app became Mindfulness, and now includes both Breathe and a new feature called Reflect. We'll go over how to use the Mindfulness app and how to disable Breathe notifications if you're tired of getting them.
By August Garry
The Driving Focus allows you to send a customized auto-reply text on your iPhone to friends and family, explaining that you're unable to respond right now, but in a friendly way without relying on cold, scripted replies. Let's dive into how to set up the automatic text reply on your iPhone!
By August Garry
In this article, we'll show you how to open a new tab in Safari just by swiping on your address bar. We'll also discuss who will love the feature and who may not, as well as how to enable the feature if you don't have the bottom address bar in Safari.
By August Garry
Switching Safari tabs on your iPhone used to take multiple taps on the screen each time you wanted to move to another tab, but now there's a better solution! Now, you can swipe between tabs instead of navigating via your list of tabs. We'll show you how to switch tabs fast.
Apple has let you create unique, dummy email addresses to mask your personal email address for a while, so long as you are able to use Sign in with Apple. Now, this service is expanding to any online form that requires an email address. With iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey, if you have iCloud Plus, you can now sign up for any account or mailing list with a dummy email address and have all information sent to that address forwarded to your personal inbox. We'll go over why you might want to use this service and how to do it.
By August Garry
Apple caused a big splash by introducing App Tracking Transparency, a feature that requires app developers to announce their intentions to track their users and allow users the opportunity to opt out of tracking. With iCloud Private Relay, a feature for paid iCloud Plus users, Apple doubled down on giving users the power to protect their own data. But what is iCloud Private Relay? Is Private Relay a VPN? How does it work? How can you use it? In this article, we'll cover all your burning questions about this service.
By August Garry
Live Text is an iPhone feature that lets you copy, paste, and share text straight from your Camera or Photos app. Your iPhone will recognize text in a handwritten note, a business card, a nutrition label, a street sign, and so many other places. We'll teach you how to use Live Text on iPhone in Photos and Camera.
By August Garry
If you've ever tried to FaceTime in a noisy location, you know that FaceTime's audio clarity can leave a lot to be desired. With iOS 15, Apple aims to fix that by offering a Voice Isolation Mic Mode for FaceTime so your voice will stand out above the background noise. We'll show you how to use this new feature to enjoy better-quality sound in FaceTime.
By August Garry
iOS 15 (currently in beta and available to the public in fall 2021) brings with it many FaceTime updates, including SharePlay, which gives you the ability to FaceTime screen share, watch movies or TV shows, and stream music with family and friends. In this article, we'll go over how to do all three, so you can get more from your FaceTime experience.
By August Garry
I love the Notes app for the ability to, well, take notes on my iPad wherever I am. But up until now, to use the Notes app with another app, you've needed to enter Split View. Now, with iPadOS 15, available to the general public in fall 2021, you can pull up a Quick Note anywhere, from any app. Let's learn what you can do with the new Quick Note tool.
