How-To

People often wonder how to save battery life on their iPhone or iPad. Lots of tips and tricks to extend iPad and iPhone battery life stay the same for several iOS and iPadOS versions and Apple device generations. But, Apple is always working to develop its operating systems to include new features, and sometimes these new software features are responsible for draining battery life, and require new solutions. One useful new feature of iOS 14 and iPadOS are widgets, but unfortunately, widgets can also shorten your iPad or iPhone battery life. If you find yourself asking, "why is my iPhone battery draining so fast?" your iPadOS or iOS widgets might be causing the problem, and we have a solution for you! We've already gone over how to add widgets to your iPhone and iPad; now, read on to learn how one easy tip can act as a major battery saver and extend iPad and iPhone battery life. 

Apple App Clips: Your Complete Guide

By Amy Spitzfaden Both

This article will tell you how to use the new App Clips from Apple. App Clips are a new feature introduced with iOS 14 that enable you to use part of an app without downloading it. This is particularly helpful for things such as ordering food, paying for parking, or if you want to test out an app before you download it in full. As its a new feature, availability is currently limited, so we're going to go over how to find iOS 14 App Clips, as well as how to use them, and remove them once they're no longer needed. Let's dive in and learn all about this new feature.

How to Set Up the Apple Translate App

By Amy Spitzfaden Both

This article will tell you how to set up Apple Translate on your iPhone. Apple Translate is one of the many new and exciting features introduced with iOS 14. You can use it to translate a web page in Safari or translate text or spoken conversations in real time. The icon is added automatically to your Home Screen when you update to iOS 14, but how do you get the app up and running. Turns out, it's very quick and easy to do! Let's take a look at how to do it. For more tips on new iOS 14 functions and updates, be sure to check out our Tip of the Day.

Customize your contact icon in the Messages app, and you’ll be able to share any picture on your iPhone, including a Memoji, Animoji, or emoji or initials with a custom color with anyone you message. You can also edit your iMessage profile picture and name. Once it’s set, you can choose whether to make your profile name and image visible to everyone in your contacts list or only to select contacts. Let’s get started.

This article will tell you how to add a photo to a Reminder on an iPhone. A useful feature of Apple's Reminders app for the iPhone and iPad is the ability to add attachments to Reminders. We've previously covered how to set a reminder and how to search for a particular reminder, now we'll get into how to make your reminders even more useful by adding attachments like photos or documents. 

The Apple Calendar app has long been a great free calendar app for iPhone and iPad users. One of the most convenient and useful aspects of the Calendar app is the ability to get a map, driving directions from your current location, and an estimated travel time to your appointment's locations without ever leaving your Calendar. Let's go over how to use the Calendar app as another iPad and iPhone navigation app; we'll learn how to get directions from your iPhone Calendar app now.

Handwashing is always important, but it's especially important during the age of COVID-19. Sometimes it’s easy to forget these simple precautions, so Apple programmed their Apple Watches to help keep people safe with Handwashing and Handwashing Reminders. We'll look at how to use Handwashing on your Apple Watch, how to customize Handwashing Reminders, and which Apple Watches are able to perform these functions.

In Apple's Safari browser on your iPhone and iPad, you can add an article or web page you want to save to your Reading List. The Reading List on your iPhone and iPad is a Safari feature that makes it easy to come back later and read all your saved articles. With iOS 11 and later, iPhone and iPad owners can tell Safari to save articles to read later, even offline, without internet access. This is an easily overlooked feature that’s actually really cool. We've already shown you how to enable Safari Reader mode, so you can look at web pages without ads. Now, here’s how to save web pages and articles on your iPhone and iPad with the Safari browser for online or offline reading. We'll also cover how to find your Reading List, so you can keep reading no matter what your location.

The default mail app in the iPhone and iPad has always been Apple Mail. While it is a great email app, users who prefer Outlook, Gmail or something else have been at a disadvantage. The new iOS 14 update, however, allows users to pick the default mail app of their choice. Changing your mail app will make it auto-open when you click on an email link while browsing the internet. This can make managing your personal and work email accounts easier, allowing you to easily navigate incoming and outgoing email.

This article will tell you how to add widgets to your Home Screen by pulling them from your Today View. Your Today View is the screen farthest to the left when you're swiping through your Home Screens. In iOS 14, your Today View will show you all sorts of widgets, from weather, to photos, to tips, and more. While it's helpful to have all your widgets in one place, you might want a couple of them on your Home Screen instead. If you check the news a lot, you might enjoy having the headlines right there next to your apps, or if you enjoy seeing your photos even when you're not in your camera roll, these widgets might be ones you want to add to your Home screen. So how do you do it? Let's take a look.

This article covers all the new features in Photos and Camera apps in iOS 14 including how to add captions to photos, how to filter photos, the best way to organize photos, how to create a memory or make a slideshow from an album, how to save mirror selfies to your camera roll, and how to take burst photos on the iPhone using the volume controls. Some of the most exciting new features introduced with iOS 14 are in the Apple Photos and Camera apps. Let's take a look at what's new and how best to utilize these features.

The Activity app tracks and records all your Apple Watch workouts, including steps taken and time standing, but it does much more than that. Beginning with iOS 13 and now improved with iOS 14, it also offers a big-picture view of your health with Trends and Highlights. It learns your activity habits and offers tailored suggestions just for you. Let’s take a look at how to use Trends to keep track of your health, set goals, and get motivated to go the extra mile.

A hilarious function of modern devices is the extra sounds we have to mimic the sounds older technology used to make. Two such sounds are the Keyboard Clicks and Lock Sounds on the iPhone. When the function is turned on, you’ll hear a sound similar to a door closing when pressing your side button (Sleep/Wake button) that lets you know you’ve locked your phone without needing to look. Or, when you’re typing on the iOS keyboard, you’ll hear clicking sounds letting you know you haven’t missed a letter. However, a lot of people find this unnecessary or even annoying and want to turn off the typing sounds, the locking sound, or both. Here’s how to turn off Lock Sound and Keyboard Clicks on your iPhone.

Customizing which photos individual apps can access is a great security feature. Now, you do not have to allow every app to access all of your photos. You can grant access to a few photos or even just one depending on what you are using the app for. In this article, you will learn how to customize the photos an app can access on your iPhone. This is a feature new to iOS 14. You must have iOS 14 on your iPhone in order to utilize this setting.

Some iPad and iPhone apps require mic and camera access to function properly, and some don't. Apple has introduced new app privacy settings with iOS 14, which allow users to customize access to personal data like photos and videos, app by app, choosing to allow full access, partial access, or no access at all. There's also a way to check microphone and camera access in your Settings app. This way, you can change camera and microphone settings for any app, all in the same place, so apps that don't need to listen to you or see you can't. Let's learn how to allow camera access on your iPhone and iPad or turn it off, and how to allow microphone access, or turn off access to your iPhone or iPad microphone.  

Closing your Activity rings on your Apple Watch creates a sense of accomplishment. Now you can customize each of your Activity goals to meet your needs! You might be training for a marathon or a competition, or you may be recovering from an injury and need lower move goals until you are recovered. Meeting your goal means progress regardless of how it compares to the goals of others, which is why it’s so important to customize your Move, Exercise, and Stand goals for your activity needs. Regardless, it’s good to set goals that are just beyond what you think you can achieve; that way you have the opportunity to surprise yourself! Here’s how to change your Move, Stand, and Exercise goals on your Apple Watch.

The official Apple announcement has arrived! The second fall 2020 Apple event will take place on Tuesday, October 13. We can confidently assume that Apple will finally announce their new iPhones, the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. We'll find out if talk of four different new iPhone models (one 5.4-inch, two 6.1-inch, and one 6.7-inch model) is accurate, if Apple will offer a more affordable version of the HomePod, and Tile-like Bluetooth trackers, called AirTags. We'll be offering commentary during the event in our Facebook group, and in the special podcast episode we'll be recording right after. Here’s how you can watch Apple's iPhone reveal too.

This article will tell you how to access the keypad on your Apple Watch and switch the audio output. If you use your Apple Watch for phone calls, sometimes you'll need to use a keypad or even switch the audio output to a different device such as a speaker or headset. If you're wondering "Where is the keyboard on my Apple Watch?" read on. Here's how to open the keypad and how to change the audio output during an Apple Watch call. 

Sometimes we run out of space on our Apple devices. External storage for iPads and iPhones can be tricky to use, so we are going to walk you through using a USB (also called a flash drive or thumb drive) with both an iPhone and an iPad. This will help you easily transfer things like photos to an external storage device or external hard drive. Moving certain items to external storage will free up space for you to keep taking photos and utilizing your device to its fullest potential. Let’s look at how to use a USB drive with an iPhone or iPad.

Apple’s focus on accessibility has grown since its first days of larger type and simple setups, and the Sound Recognition setting is possibly the most exciting new example of Apple’s inclusivity initiative. For those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or simply frequent users of noise-canceling headphones, the Sound Recognition feature in iOS 14 can alert them to a whole host of pre-programmed recognizable sounds. I use this feature when I’m working in my studio and can’t quite hear things like the doorbell, running water, or other important sounds. Here’s how to set up Sound Recognition, how to use it, and what to know before you start.

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