Category Archives: iOS Tips and Tricks: Quick Tips

How to Quickly Check Local Air Quality Index Using Siri

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How to Quickly Check Local Air Quality Index Using Siri

Siri has the ability to give many helpful pieces of information and checking the local Air Quality Index is one of them. It is really easy to do. Here is how to quickly check local air quality using Siri: Activate Siri – you can do this by either holding the side button (iPhone X and later) or the home button (iPhone 8 and older devices). If you have “Hey Siri” enabled, you can also just activate Siri that way. Ask Siri what the air quality is. Here is the phrase I use: “Hey Siri, what is the air quality?” Receive Continue Reading →

How to use 3D Touch to move text insertion point

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I’m always amazed to discover how many people are unaware of one of my favorite features in iOS – using 3D Touch to gain fine-grain control over the text insertion point while writing. With the advent of the iPhone 6s, Apple introduced 3D Touch as a feature shipping with its high end iPhones and has continued to include it up to the present day. This feature, which brings an additional layer of functionality to many controls across the system, can also be used to gain accurate control over the blinking cursor that signifies where typed text will be inserted. Prior Continue Reading →

How to customize Control Center

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In iOS 11, which was released in the fall of 2017, Apple gave users an unprecedented number of ways to customize their devices – allowing control over things that had been unchangeable in the past. One great example of this is Control Center – iOS’ one stop shop for quick access to your device’s settings that’s just a simple swipe up from the bottom of the screen away (or down from the top right of the screen, if you happen to be using an iPhone X). Having the ability to swipe up and quickly interact with one of these controls Continue Reading →

Quick Tip: How to turn on Wifi or bluetooth even when in Airplane Mode on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

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Did you know you can turn on Airplane Mode on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and also leave Wi-Fi or Bluetooth turned on? Airplane Mode is a great feature that allows you to turn off all of the wireless communications signals on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. This includes the cellular signal (voice and data), bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and Location Services. Airplane mode is perfect for…you guessed it, flying on an airplane. There are also other uses for Airplane Mode, though. For example, you can use it when you have your iOS device plugged into a larger sound Continue Reading →

How to use Reading List on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

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Reading List is a way to save webpages and articles that you want to read at a later time. It even includes a handy offline reading function so that you can preload a bunch of articles and webpages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch before you jump on the plane and access all of them even though your iOS device is in airplane mode. Here is how to use Offline Reading List: 1. Open up a webpage on your iOS device in Safari that you want to add to Reading List for later reading. 2. Once the page has loaded, tap Continue Reading →

Quick Tip: Shortcut to add a period and start a new sentence on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch

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There is a simple shortcut that allows you to automatically enter a period and start a new sentence on your iOS device. All you need to do is double tap the space bar when you reach the end of a sentence. This will enter a period at the end of the sentence, put a space after the period and capitalize the first letter of the next word you type. If it doesn’t work for you, you will need to go to the Settings app to enable it. Go to Settings –> General –> Keyboard –> and flip the “.” Shortcut Continue Reading →

Quick Tip: How to find and easily open apps that aren’t on your Home Screen (and contacts, texts, and emails)

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As you add more apps to your iPhone, iPad , or iPod Touch, it can become increasingly difficult to locate the apps when you need them. This is especially true if you have created folders for your apps. Thankfully, there is an easy way to search for and open any app on your device (this also works with contacts, texts, emails, and more). If you are running iOS 7 or later, all you need to do is to pull down on the the Home Screen. This will initiate a Spotlight search. Once in Spotlight, just start typing the name of the app Continue Reading →

Quick Tip: How to quickly access toggles, brightness, and music controls on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

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At any given time while you are using your iOS device running iOS 7 or later, you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up Control Center. This tray gives you access to toggles including Wi-Fi and Rotation Lock, a screen brightness slider, music playback controls, AirDrop settings, and quick shortcuts to apps and, on iPhone, a handy flashlight. This works on the home screen, in apps, and even on the lock screen. For additional quick tips and tricks for iPad (Mini), iPhone, and iPod Touch, click here: Quick Tips    

How to get Siri to set a wakeup alarm and a timer on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

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Siri is Apple’s personal assistant that was introduced with the iPhone 4S. You can ask Siri all kinds of things using normal sentences. There are a number of requests I make of Siri every day. Two of these are setting a wakeup alarm and a timer. 1. Wakeup Alarm Each night when I go to bed, I ask Siri to set an alarm for me. You can say, “Wake me up at 7am.” Or, you can say, “Set me an alarm for 7:30 in the morning.” Siri will respond by telling you that your alarm is set. You can also Continue Reading →

Quick Tip: Shake your iPhone or iPad to Undo

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Whenever you make a typing mistake or accidentally delete a string of text on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, there is a simple way to Undo (similar to Edit/Undo on your computer). Simply shake your device side-to-side and a little box will appear asking you if you would like to Undo. Tap the button to Undo your last action. If you want to Redo your last action, shake your device again and you will be given an option to Undo again or Redo.