iPhone Tricks You May Not Know About

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Turn your iPhone into a magnifier 

First go to Settings<General<Accessibility<Magnifier and turn it on.

Then open the Camera app and tap three times on your home button or the side button on an iPhone X. Now you will see you have a slider bar for adjusting the zoom and buttons to toggle the LED flash, lock the focus and access the filters (use them to improve visibility or enhance details). You can also adjust the exposure and saturation separately, plus invert the colors in the image.

Siri: flashlight and passwords

Aside from standard voice commands, Apple’s personal assistant with each iteration can adjust or access the ever-growing number of features in iOS. In iOS 12, for example, Siri can turn the flashlight on or off on your behalf, which is useful when wearing gloves.

Also new in iOS 12, Siri can show your passwords. “Hey Siri, show me my passwords” takes you to the Passwords & Accounts section of the Settings app, then authenticates you to reveal your saved passwords. More specific queries are supported, too, like “Hey Siri, show me my Facebook password”.

Measure almost everything 

A new app in iOS 12, Measure takes advantage of computer vision, artificial intelligence, machine learning, facial recognition and augmented reality to let you measure almost any object by pointing your iOS device’s camera at it.

How to use the Measure app: First, open the app. At the bottom of the screen you have a choice to Measure or Level. Tap Measure and simply add a point (using the plus sign) to create a starting place for your measurement, then tap the plus sign again to and drag your phone to the end place of the desired measurement. You can add several points. It’s not 100% perfect but will definitely give you a good ball-park measurement.

To use the Level tool, tap it and you'll see how many degrees the object you want to level is off, etc.

Access Your Safari History

Browsing on an iPhone or iPad isn't quite as easy as on a desk or laptop computer, but there is a way to view your browsing history.  Here's how: Open Safari on your iPhone. Tap and hold the back button to view the recent history of your current Safari tab and a history list will appear. 

Do Not Disturb (DND) at Bedtime

If you hate waking up to a mass of missed notifications, use Do Not Disturb at Bedtime. This handy new feature in iOS 12 does a few things on your behalf to minimize distractions that may disrupt your sleep. Not only does it silence all calls and texts but also dims the Lock screen and routes all the alerts to Notification Center until DND ends. When using the Bedtime feature with scheduled Do Not Disturb mode, you will wake up to a weather forecast on your Lock screen, which is totally cool. Once you unlock the phone, the weather widget won’t be seen again until the device enters another Do Not Disturb cycle.

Here's how to set up the Bedtime DND. Go to Settings<Do Not Disturb. Turn on Scheduled.  There you can set your sleep times. And now select Bedtime.

You can, of course, turn on the regular DND at any time in Do Not Disturb Settings too. And if you select Allow Calls From in the same Settings window, you can select a contact to bypass the DND in case you are expecting an important call, etc.

Hard Push on your Apps

This is a feature that often gets overlooked. But if you Hard Push on any App on your Home Screens you'll get a list of quick, easy options. For example, push down on the Message app and you'll get an instant window to send a new message or a shortcut to your most often used contacts. You can use the Hard Push even when your phone screen is locked. Virtually every app has Hard Push functions. Another example, Hard Push down on Safari, and you can easily access your Reading List, Show Bookmarks, New Private Tab or New Tab.

You can use this function too in your Control Center. (Swipe upwards on your iPhone to access the Control Center) Hard Push down on the Flashlight and a screen will pop up to adjust the brightness or push the Timer button and you can set the gauge for a quick timer.  Very handy when cooking! Every app in your Control Center will offer you quick ready to use functions.

So experiment by hard pushing on all your apps to see what options you can easily access.  

Access your Today Screen

Apple improved the appearance of the Today screen and made Widgets more useful than ever. There are already a handful of widgets added to the screen by default, but you can easily edit what is there and add new ones.

To do so, Swipe Left while on the Home or Locked screen to bring up the Today screen. Then, scroll to the bottom and tap Edit to see what other widgets you have at your disposal. Alternatively, you can press down on an app on your home screen and if it has widget capabilities, a widget will appear and you can tap Add Widget in the top-right corner.

Send an invisible text message and more

There are a couple of fun ways you can send a message to a contact, aside from using mere words which you may not know about.

One particular addition is the ability to hide a message so it won’t be revealed until the recipient taps or rubs on it. To use these hidden messages, first, type what you want to say, or attach an image or video, then Press Down on the Blue Up Arrow to bring up the effects options. You want the one that says Invisible Ink. Tap it to add the effect. 

The other effect options are: Gentle, Loudly or Slam It!  So try sending your messages with more impact!

Swipe-to-delete in Calculator

If you use Apple’s Calculator app, you know how frustrating it can be when you accidentally hit that one wrong key and it throws off your whole calculation. To delete the last typed digit, simply swipe from right to left over the last digit you typed in the results section. You can do this multiple times in a row to erase all the numbers of your last entry.

More tricks next week...