How-To

If you're not able to make a phone call, you can send a text! For experienced iPhone users, texting is generally second nature. But other iPhone users are unsure where to get started. This tip is for them. Sending and receiving text messages is quick and convenient. I prefer texting since it's quiet and talking on the phone isn't my favorite thing to do. I can also send a text and maybe get a reply faster than if I had to call and leave a voicemail. Here's how to send a text message on your iPhone. 

The Photos app stores all the photos you take with your device, and if you're like me, you have hundreds of photos to scroll through to find the ones you want to share. Here's a general guide to navigating the Photos app, so you'll be able to find, organize, and share your photos with ease. In this article, I'll simply show you the different tabs and their uses in the Photos app. If you have location services enabled on your iPhone, your photos will have a location tag. This will help identify photos you took on vacation, for example, and can also help you find certain photos as you'll be able to search by location in the Photos app. 

If you're trying to find a better way to keep in touch, FaceTime is a great option! FaceTime has features you can use like call waiting, and we have a FaceTime guide you can browse to learn more about this helpful video and audio calling app. Below, I show the first thing you need to know about FaceTime: how to make a FaceTime audio or video call. The person you call will also have to have FaceTime enabled on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

If you're learning how to use your iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR, here's an overview of the different buttons and ports you'll see on your device. So if you've been wanting to know just what is this button on your iPhone is called, or what the holes on your iPhone are for, here is a general explanation. For anyone using an iPhone X or later, here's an introduction on how, and a little bit why, your iPhone looks the way it does.

Instead of opening an app, you can use Hey Siri to check the weather forecast. With a simple "What's the weather today?" Siri will tell you what to expect for the current day's weather. Siri uses the Apple Weather app by default. You can also ask about the forecast for the coming week, ask for sunrise and sunset times, or any questions related to the weather.

If you're wanting to call someone whose number you've saved, edit their contact details, or share their contact details with someone else, you can quickly find their contact card by searching Contacts. Here's how to search your iPhone contacts in either the Contacts app or the Contacts tab in the Phone app to find who you're looking for. 

If you're wanting to know what the weather or temperature is in your current location or somewhere else, you can open the Weather app on your iPhone and get the current and weekly forecast. Thanks to Locations Services, you don't even need to enter your current location to get the local weather. Your iPhone will know where you are and show you what weather and temperatures to expect.

Want to know how to get in touch with your favorite people even faster? Here's how to add a contact to Favorites in the Phone app. When you add a contact to Favorites, you can set a default contact method and then just tap their their name and get instantly connected by whichever option you choose. So text, call, and FaceTime with just a tap! 

• Read more about 10 Siri Voice Commands for iPhone for the Blind & Visually Impaired
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The Apple Photos app is great for collecting, organizing, storing, and sharing your photos, but you wouldn’t know that at first glance. If you’re wondering how to access your iPhone gallery, how to create and edit Memories, how to add or remove people, or are interested in creating photo albums using the Photos app, then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for the best photo app for managing your important memories, don’t discount the Apple Photos app quite yet. Read on to learn all about how to organize and manage your photos using the iPhone or iPad.

Know you have a birthday party to go to this month but can't remember the date? Need to see when your last haircut appointment was? Here's how to search the Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad to find events and their dates. You'll have to have the events already saved to your Calendar, but most holidays (like Easter or Ramadan) are automatically saved to Calendar by default.

If you came of age in the pre-smartphone era, you already know the basics of phone etiquette. But now that texting and messaging apps have overtaken phone calls as the preferred method of staying in touch, it’s a good idea to become familiar with the dos and don’ts of texting as well. Here’s how to avoid being the bane of the group chat, telling someone it’s funny that their loved one died, and snubbing someone just by letting them see that you read their message!

Ever since I got my iPhone X last year, I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of creating a wireless charging station for it. Sure, there’s a burgeoning supply of furniture with Qi chargers already built in, but they’re more expensive than I’m willing to spring for. Beyond that, I enjoy repurposing all sorts of items around the house, from pallets, to fabric, to old box springs, and thought this project would be a great way to reuse a less-than-gorgeous piece of furniture while improving my less-than-stellar carpentry skills. My goal was to combine the old and worn with cutting-edge technology to create a piece of furniture no one would suspect had the ability to wirelessly charge your iPhone. 

There's something soothing about grouping related things together, and that goes for contacts too! Contacts are listed alphabetically in the Contacts app and Apple doesn't offer a way to group them by any other criteria (although you can use the search function to filter contacts by things like company name or notes you may have added to a contact card). But these contacts won't otherwise be grouped all together in your list of contacts. You can work around this by editing your contacts' names to include initials or words so they appear grouped together according to criteria determined by you. Use this tip to group your contacts by how you know them—work, a hobby, family, etc.—so you can quickly browse to message a specific person or see everyone in that group at once. 

It's easy (and annoying) to be distracted by your phone's alerts and incoming calls. Follow this tip on turning on your iPhone's silent mode if you need some peace and quiet but don't want to enable Do Not Disturb. Here's how to put your iPhone's ringer on silent while the baby is napping or you're watching a show, or if you just find the sound of a phone ringing unpleasant.

Are you using your iPhone as a speaker while you listen to music, and wishing there was a little more oomph to the the audio? Here's a quick trick to get an audio boost for your iPhone's speakers when just turning up the volume isn't cutting it. Essentially, this tip works by suppressing the bass tones of the audio, so you'll hear softer sounds more clearly. 

Want to see what any given week has in store for you in your iPhone's Calendar app? Just turn your iPhone on its side and you'll see your week in more detail. The Calendar app is one of a handful of iOS apps that shows you a different view if you hold your iPhone horizontally instead of upright. (You can see the Week view in both landscape and portrait oritentation on the iPad.) Looking at events in the week view allows you to see at a glance what you have planned over the next few days and makes it easy to reschedule events by dragging them from one time slot or day to another. Here's how to see the week view in Calendar. 

Having a timer with you at all times is incredibly handy. Setting a timer on your iPhone can prevent a cooking mishap or get you motivated if you're trying a time management style like the Pomodoro Technique. I often use the Timer when I have about 30 minutes before I need to leave the house, so I can catch up on dishes without being late. Here's how to set a timer on your iPhone. 

Most people prefer listening to audio on their AirPods in stereo (where sound is fed through at least two channels). This requires listening to both AirPods to get the full dual-channel experience. But what if you only want to use one AirPod? You're going to miss out on the sounds coming through the other AirPod. Whether you have hearing loss in one ear, want to share the other AirPod with someone else, have misplaced one of your AirPods, or just want to keep one ear tuned in to what's going on around you, it's possible to make all the sound come out of one AirPod by enabling Mono Audio in your Accessibility Settings. Switching to this single channel setting means you'll be able to hear all the audio from either AirPod, so you can choose which AirPod to use.