Hot Gadget Hacks How-Tos

How To: 19 New Accessibility Features in iOS 14 That Every iPhone User Can Benefit From

According to the CDC, one in four U.S. adults has a disability, where limitations can involve vision, cognitive function, hearing, motor skills, and more. That's why the iPhone has accessibility features; so that everyone can use an iPhone, not just those without any impairments. Apple's iOS 14 has only made the iPhone even more accessible, and the new tools benefit everyone, not just those that need them.

How To: This Hidden Twitter Feature Makes It So Much Easier to Share Tweets from Your iPhone

If you're someone who shares a lot of tweets outside of Twitter, you know the struggle. Twitter's share button, like YouTube's, is proprietary, which means you need to wade through Twitter's own sharing options to find your iPhone's regular Share sheet instead. However, there's a hidden trick that lets you open the stock iOS sharing options right away.

How To: Use Your iPhone's Volume Buttons to Shoot Photo Bursts & QuickTake Videos

When you can't touch the shutter button on the screen in the Camera app, your iPhone has another way to snap a picture or take a video — just press the Volume Up or Volume Down button. But when it comes to bursts and QuickTakes, however, things are a little bit trickier in iOS 13, iOS 14, and iOS 15.

How To: Stop Picture in Picture from Starting Automatically in iOS 14 When You Exit Video Playing in Apps

For some, one of the coolest new features in iOS 14 is the Picture in Picture mode, which had previously only been available on the iPad. With it, you can continue watching a video from an app in an interactive floating overlay window on the home screen or within other apps. But for others, it can be annoying when it appears unexpectedly all of the time, and there's a way to stop it.

How To: Get iOS 14's Picture in Picture Working for YouTube on Your iPhone

Aside from home screen widgets, one of the most exciting updates to the iPhone with iOS 14 is Picture in Picture mode. With it, you can watch minimized versions of videos on top of other apps so you can multitask like a pro. However, not every service is on board with Apple's new features. YouTube is the primary culprit, but there is a workaround.

How To: Bring Back the Scroll Wheel in iOS 14 to Pick Dates & Times Like You Could Before

Before iOS 14, the date and time picker on the iPhone had been a scroll wheel for a very long time. Whether you loved or hated it, it was like second nature to use it. Now, you need to use a calendar and your keyboard to input dates and times. If you got so used to the old way and find the new method jarring, there's a trick to getting the scrolling date and time selector back.

How To: Make iOS 14 Show Newly Downloaded Apps on Your Home Screen Like It Did Before

If you're asking yourself where your newly installed iPhone apps are, you aren't alone. Upgrading to iOS 14 offers many beneficial features, but it also can stop new apps from appearing on your home screen. Sure, they're always in the App Library, but that shouldn't prevent you from accessing your favorite apps the old-fashioned way. The good news is that you can make iOS set things back to normal.

How To: Remove the 'Browse' & 'Listen Now' Tabs for Apple Music on Your iPhone to Keep the Focus on Your Library

The Music app for iPhone underwent a significant update back in iOS 8.4 when the Apple Music subscription service was incorporated into the user interface. It then had another transformation in iOS 10 that improved the UI for everyone. But things can still feel a little cluttered in Music, even in iOS 14, especially if you don't or never will subscribe to Apple Music.

How To: iOS 14's New Security Alerts Rat Out Apps for Privacy Invasions on Your iPhone & It'll Only Get Better

In the tech world, our data is always under attack. When you download and install a new app, it can be difficult to know what information the app is actually accessing. Thankfully, a new emphasis on privacy in iOS 14 changes the game, exposing more of what your apps want access to — and even changing some behavior along the way.

How To: Stop Your Default Apps from Switching Back to Apple's After Your iPhone Reboots in iOS 14

As cool as iOS 14 is, it isn't without bugs. One of those bugs in iOS 14.0 just happens to affect one of its coolest features — choosing default browser and mail apps. When you reboot your iPhone, iOS will reset your default apps back to Apple's defaults, Safari and Mail. Not ideal. However, there is a fix that will stop you from having to choose default apps over and over again manually.

How To: Change Your Default Browser in iOS 14 from Safari to Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Another App

For the longest time, we were simply stuck with Safari on the iPhone. Sure, you could install a third-party browser, but Safari was always the default, so tapping on links would always open Apple's app. Times have changed, however, and now you can set third-party browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge as your iPhone's default choice.

How To: Add Widgets to Your iPhone's Home Screen in iOS 14

We've wanted them for years, and Apple has finally made widgets accessible on the home screen in iOS 14. These are not the same widgets found in past versions of iOS. They're more data-rich, more colorful, and more versatile. And best of all, both the home screen and Today View get access to them.

How To: Apps That Work with iOS 14's New Home Screen Widgets

Chief among iOS 14's excellent new features is the overhauled home screen. Now, you can add customizable widgets that live alongside your traditional apps, and both first-party and third-party apps can take advantage of it. Talk about an upgrade. They even work in the Today View and lock screen, so you can have the reinvented widgets for one or the other — or both.

How To: Get Notifications Only for Messages You're Tagged In on Your iPhone

Group chats, particularly ones with many active participants, could bombard your iPhone with hundreds of texts in a single day. It can get overwhelming real quick unless you take precautions to hide all notifications for that conversation. But there's another option now, one that'll make sure you only get alerts for the messages that matter to you most in the thread.

How To: Become an Expert Data-Driven Project Manager for Under $50

Since Motorola engineer Bill Smith invented Six Sigma in 1986, corporations around the world have employed it to eliminate costs and process cycle time while increasing profits and customer satisfaction. These techniques and tools for process improvement were invaluable to famed CEO Jack Welch, who used them to redefine General Electric's business strategy in 1995.

How To: Use Apple's Translate Tool in iOS 14 to Convert Text, Speech & Full-Blown Conversations Between Two Languages

There have been third-party iOS apps for live conversation translations, and Google Assistant pushed out its own feature for iPhone last year. Still, iOS 14 now has a default translator for real-time multi-language talks in person. So you can finally chat with people who use a different language without missing anything or having to install any complicated apps on your device.

How To: Add iOS 14's New Smart Stack Widget to Your iPhone's Home Screen

One of iOS 14's best new features is the ability to add and stack widgets on your home screen, which lets you check in with your favorite apps without actually needing to open them. Apple takes the concept one step further with "Smart Stacks," where iOS intelligently stacks widgets together based on how you use your iPhone.

How To: Do This to Make Sure You're Not Getting Billed by Any Mysterious Subscriptions on Your iPhone

We hardly need to "buy" anything these days since games, music, books, news, movies, and TV are all available on the iPhone with various monthly subscriptions. Just set it and forget it so that your wallet does all the work for you. But if you're on a free trial or two and don't want to commit, you might get an unexpected charge if you forgot or don't know where to cancel. Here's how to avoid that.