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iOS 18 Tips, Tricks, How-Tos, News

How To: This Is the Quickest Way to Add a New Contact on Any Phone

The awkward silence when you're adding someone's name and number to your contacts is worse than usual since you're meeting a new person and this is part of their first impression of you. So don't get labeled as clumsy or slow before you even get a chance to network with your new contact — just whip out your phone and confidently showcase this trick instead.

How To: Use Google Maps or Waze with Siri Instead of Apple Maps

When driving, you can get directions hands-free by asking Siri. You can also make general map searches, show a location's details, call a query's phone number, and view traffic details. However, Siri defaults to Apple Maps for all those. If you prefer Google Maps, Waze, or another third-party navigation app, the map-based Siri commands won't work. But that doesn't mean you can't still use Siri.

How To: Apple's Massive Calculator Update Lets You Convert Currency, Area, Length, Time, and Other Measurement Units with Ease

Apple's Calculator app received a massive redesign, making it so much more than a simple calculator with built-in scientific functions. There's a new Math Notes feature that ties in with the Notes app, it can keep a history of your calculations, and you can even convert over 200 currency and measurement units.

How To: Your iPhone's Action Button Has Way More Actions to Choose From — Here's What's New and Changed with iOS 18

If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, your Action button has even more actions it can perform thanks to the iOS 18 software update. These actions are also available on the iPhone 16 series lineup — the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max — all of which have the Action button.

How To: 23 Things Your iPhone's Volume Buttons Can Do Besides Volume Adjustments

The volume buttons on the side of your iPhone can do more than just adjust the volume levels for media, ringers, alerts, Siri, and other sounds and voices. You can use them to perform different actions in certain apps and even create custom actions using the Shortcuts app. It's not exactly button mapping, but it's as close as you'll get without jailbreaking iOS.

How To: High Heart Rate Warning on Your Apple Watch? Here's What That Means

Your Apple Watch sends you notifications from friends, family, and the apps that are important to you. Occasionally, however, the watch may scare the heck out of you with a notification warning of an abnormal, elevated heart rate. If you have no history of heart conditions, this alert might come as a shock. Why do you have a high heart rate, and what are you to do with the information?

How To: 11 New Apple Maps Features That Improve Hikes, Search, Favorites, Saved Locations, and More on Your iPhone

Apple Maps just received a major upgrade in its latest software update, and some of its new features are perfect for urban explorers, national park adventurers, and everyday travelers alike. Some of these enhancements provide more personalized and precise guidance, making every journey more enjoyable and efficient.

How To: Every Hidden Special Character on Your iPhone's Keyboard That You Can Unlock Right Now

Almost 190 secret characters are hiding behind your iPhone's default keyboard, and I'm not talking about what you see after tapping the "123" or "#+=" keys. These special composite characters can include accents, dots, and other diacritics, and you'll even see some strange typographical characters like the section sign, inverted marks, and per mille symbol. Here's how you find them.

How To: You Can Run Shortcuts Right from Your iPhone's Lock Screen & Here Are 6 Ways to Do It

Shortcuts are meant to make your life easier, and iPhone shortcuts are no exception. They can use different triggers, manual or automated, to perform actions in the background, allowing you to do things like send a prewritten text message during a bad date or change your wallpaper at certain times of the day. However, sometimes it's not only about the shortcut itself but about how fast you can run it.

How To: The Simple Trick to Stop Your iPhone from Automatically Going to Sleep

You're halfway through reading an article on your iPhone, when the display just turns off. Frustrated, you open the article again, only for the display to go black again. You shouldn't have to keeping touching the screen to keep your iPhone from going to sleep. Luckily, you can delay or even stop your iPhone from doing so with just a few taps.

How To: The Trick to Disabling Link Previews for URLs in Your iPhone's Messages App

Apple automatically converts most URLs in the Messages app into rich link previews, but they aren't always pretty, and sometimes you just want to see the full URL instead. While there is no setting on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS that disables rich link previews in the Messages app, there is an easy way to show the URL complete with the scheme, domain name, and path.

How To: Safari's Secret Weapon to Distraction-Free Browsing Gives You Complete Control Over Webpage Annoyances

Visit a webpage on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and there's a good chance you'll be bombarded with distractions such as ads, fullscreen pop-ups, cookie consents, log-in requests, notifications, email signups, sticky videos, and calls to action. If you're using Safari and content blockers, "Block Pop-ups," and Reader mode can't hide the elements you need, Apple's got a new tool you should be excited about.

Snapseed 101: Use the 'Healing' Tool to Remove Unwanted Elements from a Photo

Snapseed is an app that you should definitely be using not only if you're really serious about photography, but also if you want to ensure that your online work sets the standard for social media. It's a great companion app to Instagram and VSCO, and it will save your day many times over when you find yourself on your phone, on-the-go, needing to edit an image beyond the typical everyday filters.

How To: Get Follow-Up Reminders in Apple's Mail App to Get Answers to Important Questions You Forgot You Sent

Important emails can slip through the cracks in any email client, especially sent emails you were expecting responses to but never received — and ultimately forgot about. Apple has an easy solution for this problem, helping you get answers in Mail for all your pending questions.

How To: Group Texts Split into Separate Conversations on Your iPhone? Here's the Fix

Ah, the dreaded "green bubble" group chat. All it takes is one non-iPhone contact to turn an entire thread from iMessage paradise to SMS slog. Normally, it isn't that bad since the group chat still functions. However, sometimes, you end up getting messages individually instead of in a single group thread. Before you go blaming your Android friends, know that the issue is probably on your end.

How To: Resize Widgets on Your iPhone's Home Screen on iOS 14 Through iOS 17

Home Screen widgets come in various sizes on iOS 14 and later, and which size you choose will depend on how much content or data you actually want to see. But what happens when you pick the wrong widget size? In a perfect world, you would just edit the current widget's settings, but Apple didn't make it that easy.

How To: 10 Things Everyone Should Know About the iPhone's Keyboard for a Better Typing Experience

Seventeen years ago, Apple released iPhone, the first mainstream consumer phone with a touchscreen as its main typing input method. Apple has been perfecting its onscreen keyboard for almost two decades, and it's built with some fantastic features that make typing faster and easier. But it's easy to overlook some of these features, so here are some tips and tricks you need to be using if you aren't already.