Lock Screen

By now we’re all familiar with Touch ID, the fingerprint authentication security feature introduced with Apple’s iPhone 5s in 2013. The iPhone X replaces Touch ID with a facial recognition system, Face ID, which can be used to unlock your phone, open apps, make purchases in iTunes, and more. Biometric authentication protects our phones, but also introduces new privacy concerns by leaving iPhone users open to the possibility of criminals stealing data or law enforcement accessing it without a warrant. If you have even a few seconds notice before a robbery or unlawful search, you can discreetly and temporarily disable Touch and Face ID on your iPhone; let's learn how.

I've had the experience of finding a smartphone and having a hard time figuring out who the owner is. It always seems urgent, since I know the owner is desperately looking for it. Should you find a lost iPhone or iPad, you can simply ask Siri who the owner is. Siri will tell you the owner and show contact information. Here’s how to return a lost iPhone or iPad to its rightful owner.

Control Center is great because it allows you to quickly do all kinds of useful things like turn Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, and Do Not Disturb on or off, lock your screen orientation, control playback, adjust volume levels, open your phone's calculator, and use your iPhone as a flashlight. However, some people worry about privacy when Control Center is accessible from Lock Screen (although, rest assured, nothing private can be opened without unlocking your phone), and others get tired of accidentally opening Control Center in an app while playing a game. Which is why Apple made it possible to turn off access to Control Center from Lock screen and within apps. Here’s how to disable access to Control Center from Lock Screen.

Part of iOS 10 on the iPhone is having a widget screen that’s to the left of your Lock Screen. The widgets screen allows you to see snapshots of certain apps and information. But you can use the search bar at the top to do a phone-wide search for Mail, Notes, websites, apps, wikipedia pages, movies, Twitter, and more. Don’t worry about privacy—you’ll have to unlock your phone before accessing the information. But if you know what you’re looking for, this feature can save you some time getting there. Here’s how to search your iPhone from the Lock Screen.

iOS 10 on iPhone added a fresh Widgets screen, available with a right swipe from Lock Screen or Home Screen. On this Widgets screen, you can choose what information is displayed. If you allow Maps Nearby to be active, you can easily search for nearby locations with Lunch, Coffee, Shopping, Gas, and more. Searching for nearby maps locations from the Widgets screen in iOS 10 jumps right to the information you need once you’ve unlocked your iPhone. Here’s how to search nearby locations from Widgets screen in iOS 10.

Siri is an awesome time saver. Want to view your most recent calls, text someone, get directions, or post to Facebook? Just ask Siri. You can even do all this from your lock screen. The problem is, so can anyone else. If your settings allow for it, anyone can access your call history, send a tweet, or get directions to a contact's home from your lock screen just by bringing up Siri and asking.