How-To

One of the new (very odd) things you can do with Messages in iOS 10 is send your heartbeat to someone. If your loved one is concerned you’ve turned into a zombie, send them your pulse to let them know you’re still very much alive. Luckily, sending your heartbeat in Messages is quite easy to do. I’m confident this will become an important tool for the zombie apocalypse to come, because I have no idea why it exists otherwise. Here’s how to send your heartbeat to someone in Messages.

Depending on your point of view, the new effects features in the Messages app is either lots of fun or totally ridiculous. But you never know when you’ll need to send your friend fireworks and confetti, so you might as well be prepared. Reduce Motion on iPhone is a setting we’ve recommended turning on in the past to save battery life. Keeping it on will still help battery life, but if you want to enjoy Message effects, you’ll have to turn it off. This is due to the function of Reduce Motion, which cuts out all the extra transitions and animations on iPhone. If you’ve been wondering why the new, fancy effects in Messages hasn’t been working for you—here’s how to fix it.

iOS 10 added lots of new 3D Touch functions, especially from Home screen. Apps such as Photos, Weather, Maps, Phone, Activity, Camera, Find iPhone, Music, and iCloud Drive all got brand new options. When you 3D Touch one of these icons from Home screen, options pop up that allow you to jump directly to the place within an app you’re trying to access. We’ll go over my favorite new options from the most popular, necessary stock apps your Home screen holds. Here’s how to use the new 3D Touch functions for Home screen apps.

If you’re having trouble with iOS 10, or simply don’t like the changes, you can revert your iPhone back to iOS 9.3.5. The key is to do it as soon as possible and downgrading iOS takes a certain file called an IPSW file, which you can find a link to below. You certainly can downgrade from iOS 10 back to iOS 9, and doing so is the equivalent of uninstalling an update on iPhone. But it’s good to note ahead of time that you’ll need the backup you made before upgrading to iOS 10 in order for this to work smoothly. Without it you risk losing data and information that no iOS downgrade is worth. To downgrade iOS there are three major steps: put your iPhone into DFU mode, revert your iPhone using the downloaded IPSW file, and restore your iPhone with an iOS 9.3.5 backup or older. It may seem daunting to downgrade your iOS, but we’ll go step-by-step so that it’s an easy process. Here’s how to downgrade from iOS 10 to iOS 9 on iPhone or iPad.

Apple added all the different bells and whistles it could think of to Messages with iOS 10 on iPhone. One of the features is the ability to add effects to messages you send. These effects might be applied to an individual text or the entire screen. We’ll go over how to use both. Here’s how to use Effects in Messages.

iOS 10 is Apple’s biggest operating system update since iOS 7. You can finally remove stock apps from Home screen, and soon you’ll be able to ask Siri to hail you an Uber. Voicemails are now transcribed, the Messages app is having it’s own party with fireworks and confetti, Apple Music has been redesigned, and your iPhone can tell you when to go to bed. Yet even outlining all that, I’ve only scratched the surface of what you can do in iOS 10, which is why we created an easy, fun-to-watch video guide for iPhone Life Insiders. If you’re not familiar, iPhone Life Insiders receive daily video tips for mastering their iPhone in one minute a day. Among other features, they also receive in-depth guides filled with helpful information each time Apple does something new. Check out a sneak peak to the guide below where we’ll show you how to send handwritten messages and delete unwanted stock apps in iOS 10.

 

iOS 10 is now available to install on your device! September 13 is here, and users with an iPhone 5s or later will be able to update to the long-awaited iOS 10. Meanwhile iPad users will need to have an iPad mini 2 or later. Anybody who is upgrading will automatically have iOS 10 when their new device arrives, but you'll still want to upgrade your older device (if compatible) for a smooth transfer when you move your data from the old phone to the shiny new one. There are loads of new features in iOS 10 that we’ll be covering in our daily tips in the coming months. Ready to update to iOS 10? Here’s how to do it. New iOS 10 features include a Lock screen widgets page, upgrade Maps, lift to wake screen, ability to delete Apple stock apps, voicemail transcription, and much more. Here’s how to update to iOS 10.

In the Health app on iPhone, you can create a Medical ID with important information in the case of an emergency. Your Medical ID can be accessed from the emergency dialler without unlocking your iPhone. When creating your Medical ID card, you’ll have the option to sign up as an organ donor with Donate Life America’s organ donation registry. Here’s how to register as an organ donor in the Health app on iPhone.

Need to free up space on your iPhone, but having a hard time parting with absolutely anything it contains? I don’t know about you, but I’m that person with a 64 GB iPhone that has 35 GB of music—in other words, way more than I could ever listen to. That storage could be put to better use; and now with iOS 10, it can be, without any of my Apple Music disappearing. Optimizing your iPhone music storage in iOS 10 is pretty easy to do and completely automatic. Optimizing storage on iPhone means selecting a minimum amount of storage your music can take up and allowing your iPhone to remove the downloads of all that extra music you rarely listen to. Here’s how to optimize your iPhone music storage.

Next Wednesday, September 7, Apple will hold its fall keynote event and officially release the iPhone 7. You can easily watch the event on your device or Apple TV—we'll tell you how below. At the September event, we're certain the iPhone 7 will debut with redesigned antenna bands and no headphone jack. Beyond that, we may see the new Apple Watch 2 or a line-up of Macbook Pros. A lot has been kept secret this time around, so tune in and follow our coverage to stay up to date. See you on September 7; we’ll be covering the latest product launches while we stuff our face with pizza. Here’s how you can watch Apple's iPhone 7 September keynote event too.

You can ask Siri all kinds of fun things thanks to its connection with the WolframAlpha database. One of the fun questions to ask Siri is what flights are overhead, the answer to which might surprise you. Sitting in my friend’s apartment in Boulder, CO, there are five planes over my head within a 50-foot slant all at different altitudes. There’s not much you can do with the knowledge of what planes are flying overhead, but it’s a lot of fun. We’ll cover how to ask Siri what airplanes are above you along with a few other fun or helpful things you can ask Siri. Here’s “what flights are overhead” and other things to ask Siri.

Let the choir sing, we can finally delete Apple stock apps on iPhone. Before iOS 10, there were only workarounds that allowed you to hide the apps, either within a folder or by enabling restrictions for the apps, but they weren’t actually gone. Apple finally allows us to remove stock apps from Home screen on iPhone. We're not entirely sure if deleting the apps frees up any storage on iPhone, but deleteled Stock apps are certainly out of sight and out of mind. If you decide you want any of them back, simply visit the App Store to redownload them. Here’s how to delete stock apps on iPhone.

Depending on the privacy settings on your Facebook account, people who aren’t your friends will be able to view your timeline and like, comment, or message you. But perhaps there is a certain someone you are not Facebook friends with who you would rather not have the ability to see your profile or contact you. Well, you can still block that person easily. Here’s how to block people on Facebook who aren’t your friends.

I thought I knew how to use Snapchat, the service that lets you send disappearing photos and videos to friends, but there are a lot of smaller Snapchat features within the larger context of sending pictures and videos to your friends and family. Snapchat is known as an app for millennials, but there’s no reason it can't be Snapchat for all generations of adults. Even if you know the basics of how to use Snapchat, I’m sure we’ll have even more for you to discover in this article. We'll start with how to use Snapchat, and venture into how to use Snapchat filters, send Snapcash, and update Snapchat, and so much more. We’re going through the entire app and showing you all the ways in which you can use Snapchat. Come down this rabbit hole with me, let’s see what madhatters we can meet. Here’s how to use Snapchat: a complete guide.

Many families share iOS devices such as the iPad. Not only do the adults in the household use the device but the children do as well. The internet is a vast and unpredictable place—if you want to make sure kids don’t end up on adult websites, you can set Restrictions within the Settings on iPad or iPhone. Here’s how to restrict access to adult websites on iPhone or iPad.

Ever since my mom got an iPhone she’s been complaining about the alarm. In general, she feels that the darn thing just isn’t loud enough for her to hear it. I too have slept through my iPhone alarm more times than I care to admit, but I’ve never been able to figure out why the volume is so quiet—until recently. If you feel like you’re constantly sleeping through your iPhone alarm, here are some things to do about it. Here’s how to make sure you don’t sleep through your iPhone alarm.

Some names are really popular. You might have four Davids in your Contacts on iPhone and no clear way to tell them apart. If you have a lot of contacts with the same name, this tip will help you tell them apart and keep your Contacts organized. Also, this tip is helpful when sending iMessages, since a select contact only shows the first name of the recipient. Here’s how to organize Contacts with the same name.

The News app on iPhone is a relatively recent reincarnation of the old Newsstand stock app by Apple. It’s similar to other news apps such as Flipboard, which brings together multiple articles from different print and web publications into a single app for viewing, reading, and sharing. However, if you’re looking for something specific, you can search in the news app. Here’s how to search in the Apple News app.

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