Productivity & Shortcuts

Believe it or not, there are legitimate iOS apps beyond the App Store that you can install on your iPhone. Some of them even work for iPad, Apple TV, and Mac, and there are also benefits to using them over apps found in the App Store.

One of the biggest grievances with Safari on iPhone was always its lack of customization, and iOS 15's browser upgrades tackle that problem head-on. Apple added many great features, including Safari extensions, Tab Bar, and Tab Groups, but the most prominent feature caters to those obsessed with finding the perfect Home and Lock Screen look.

Privacy is a growing concern in the tech industry, but Apple has fallen behind many of its peers when it comes to email security. Fortunately, iOS 15 changes that. Your email address is the key to a vast amount of personal information, not to mention a stepping stone into your other online accounts, so it's great to see new features for iPhones that protect email accounts and their contents.

Every now and then, an iOS secret surfaces that makes me wonder, "How am I just learning about this?" I remember the first time I found out how to delete numbers in the Calculator app, and when I discovered you could bulk-move apps around the Home screen. Now, there's another tip to add to the list: a hidden iOS app whose icon you quite literally can't find unless you know where to look.

If you've ever used your iPhone's hidden Field Test mode to view your signal strength in decibel-milliwatts, locate the tower you're connected to, or find out the radio frequency in use, you no longer have to dig through all of the confusing-looking data every time you need to check. Apple updated Field Test's interface in iOS 15, and one improvement gives you more control of the Dashboard.

If you regularly run into issues opening images that use the .heic extension, the easiest solution is to convert the file into a more compatible format. Using apps like Photos and Preview on a Mac makes the process simple, but macOS Monterey just streamlined the process so that you don't even have to open an app anymore.

Whether it becomes mandatory or not to show your COVID-19 vaccination card at events, restaurants, bars, hotels, airports, and other public places, it's a good idea to digitize the paper card on your smartphone so that it's always with you. It's also wise to give yourself quick, convenient access to it, so you're not holding up lines while trying to locate the file, and there are a few ways to do that on your iPhone.

There has been drag-and-drop functionality for iPhone since at least iOS 11, but iOS 15 adds a new ability that makes essential emails even easier to find when you need them.

Whenever you need to digitally share large bodies of real-world text, you'd likely show a photo of it or manually type everything into the document or chat. But iOS 15 has a much better way for your iPhone.

Sound Recognition was introduced with iOS 14, and the accessibility feature uses on-device intelligence to detect 13 different sounds and then notify you whenever it hears one. Apple increases that number to 15 with the addition of two more detectable sounds in iOS 15 that it should have included from the get-go.

One thing you couldn't do in the Shortcuts app when building a shortcut was browsing the entire list of available actions for all of the apps and services on your iPhone. That all changes in iOS 15.

You can't always have your hands on your iPhone, which is why Apple developed Siri. When Siri can't do your hands-free bidding, there's Apple's newer Voice Control feature. But if you don't like barking commands at your iPhone, there's another option — at least, when it comes to scrolling through webpages in Safari.

There's no default keyboard on the Apple Watch, but watchOS has another way to let you type text out for emails, messages, music searches, and more on the small display, and that's Scribble. With it, you simply draw letters and other characters on the screen with your finger, then your watch converts that into plain text. However, it's not perfect, and getting the nuances of regular typing can be tough.

Apple's iOS 14 introduced a new world of iPhone customization thanks to its updated widgets that can live on both the home screen and Today View. While they're incredibly useful, they're not very interactive, they restrict what's shown, and you can't resize them afterward. However, those issues pale in comparison to the annoying Photos widget in Today View's auto-generated Smart Stack.

As the U.S. inches closer to herd immunity and reopening after the pandemic, it may become necessary to keep your COVID-19 vaccination cards on you at all times to gain access to places and events that are prone to spreading the coronavirus. You probably won't want to lose your card, so it may be wise to load a copy onto your smartphone for easy access.

It's no secret that Apple and Spotify haven'texactlygottenalongin the past, but things are looking better than ever in iOS 14.5.

I always keep my iPhone's Portrait Orientation Lock on so that my screen doesn't randomly rotate while I'm lying down. However, there are certain apps that I do turn it off for. It's kind of a pain since you have to swipe down the Control Center and toggle the orientation lock — but that ends now. Instead of doing it manually, a new iOS update can automate app orientations for you.

A new feature in iOS 14.5 lets you change your preferred music player for Siri requests. So if you primarily use YouTube Music over Apple Music and other services, Siri will learn so that you never have to tell the virtual assistant to play a song, artist, or album "on YouTube Music" again.

Most packages sent to you via delivery services include a tracking number that allows you to track it from the creation of the shipping label all the way to your doorstep. The U.S. Postal Service includes tracking information with many of its mailing services, but not for first-class mail or periodicals. Luckily, there's a workaround to that limitation that you can set up pretty quickly.

While there's no denying that iPads are better when it comes to multitasking and productivity, your iPhone has a few tricks up its sleeve to rival even the best iPad features. One thing about iPadOS is that it's really easy to highlight editable text with gestures, but it's just as simple on iOS if you know all the secrets.