Videos by Category: iPhone

If you want to silence your iPhone at night or while in meetings, you can use the Do Not Disturb mode to temporarily disable audible alerts. You can turn this on manually, or set a daily start and stop time.

You can have a lot of fun using your iPhone's camera and various photography apps. In this example, take a look at using the 360 Panorama app from Occipital. You can easily capture an image that includes everything around you, then view it later on your iPhone or any other device. You can also share these via email or social media.

Often you need to type a name, special word or non-dictionary word on your iPhone or iPad. Autocorrect will then replace that word with something else from its dictionary. You can easily force iOS to accept anything you type by tapping one button.

The new Night Shift feature in iOS 9.3 changes the color of your iPad and iPhone's screen to fit studies that show that a warmer display will make it easier for some people to get to sleep. You can try Night Shift with your iOS device if you read in bed at night to see if it helps you.

You can create a ringtone for your iPhone or iPad from a song you own using iTunes and QuickTime Player. This works for iTunes purchases as well as songs obtained in other ways, but not for Apple Music songs. You can trim the song to a section you want to use as a ringtone and then use iTunes to transfer it to your iOS device.

You can set default ringtones and text tones on your iPhone. But you can also set each contact to use a specific ringtone or text tone so that you can identify the caller or message sender without looking at your phone.

Both Google and Microsoft offer voice assistant apps that you can download for your iPhone or iPad for free. Google's app offers some advantages over Siri, but neither app can match Siri because of Siri's connection to your built-in iPhone apps.

You don't have to settle for a ringtone as your iPhone's alarm sound. You can use any song in your music library. This means you can also record your own audio track, sync that through iTunes, and select that as your alarm sound. You can use that audio to give yourself reminders or other information upon waking.

If you want music to automatically stop playing after a period of time, there is a sleep timer on the iPhone. But you won't find it in the Music app or in the Settings. Instead, you'll need to know where to look in the Clock app.

When you plug in your iPhone, iPad or digital camera, the Photos app and iTunes may launch automatically. If you would prefer to stop this behavior, you can easily turn off these options with selections in these apps. But you need to connect the device first and know where to look.

It is fairly easy to grab a screenshot of your iPhone or iPad if you know how. You've got to press the two physical buttons on your iOS device at the same time. This puts a copy of the screen into your Camera Roll in your Photos app. From there you can share it various ways. You can also attach a copy of the screenshot to an email message.

You can use the QuickTime Player in Yosemite to record your iOS device's screen and create videos. You'll need iOS 8 on your device and Yosemite on your Mac, plus the lightning cable to attach the two. Then you can record the screen as well as audio from a microphone. You can then save it, trim it or share it. You can also bring the video into other apps for more editing.

You probably knew that you could use the Maps app in Mavericks to get directions. And likewise with the Maps app on your iPhone. But you can also figure out a route on your Mac and then send it to your iPhone. After getting Directions, choose File, Share and you should see your iPhone in the list as long as you are logged into the same iCloud account. Then on your iPhone, tap the Directions button at the upper left and you will see the route in the list.

With the fast processor in the iPhone 5s, you can take 120 FPS video and slow down a portion of that video for an interesting effect. Learn how to use this feature, and how it really works.

Take a look at ten small but useful features of iOS 7. Learn how to easily remove email and messages, see time stamps on messages, get to calendar list view, use your iPhone as a level, make audio-only FaceTime calls and more.

There are three ways to tracks your app usage in iOS 7. You can see how much storage space each app is using. You can see which apps are using location services, and which ones are using it at this very moment, possibly using your battery more than you would like. You can also see how much cellular data each app is using and deny apps access to data when you are away from a wifi connection.

AirDrop for iOS is a new feature of iOS 7 that allows you to send a photo or other document from one iOS device to another one nearby, without using a network. You can easily send photos to friends or share notes, contacts and other app documents.

Take a look at iTunes Radio, the new streaming music service from Apple. You can stream music based on a song, artist or genre using your Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple TV. You can create several stations and continue to customize them.

Control Center is a new feature of iOS 7 that lets you access many common settings and controls from any screen. You can pause and adjust music playback, change wireless settings, screen brightness, and other features. Accessing Control Center is easy once you learn how to bring it up.

Switching between apps is different in iOS 7 compared to earlier versions of iOS. You can now easily bring up a list of currently running and recently used apps, and flip through the list. Then you can jump to one. You can also use this list to quit an app. A second method exists to force-quit a stubborn app.

iOS 7 is a big departure from previous versions of iOS, with a very different look and feel. Besides new icons, the look of many of the major apps has been flattened to simpler text on white backgrounds. Have a look at iOS 7 and some specific features like wallpapers and searching.

You may be surprised at how much you can do with the controls on your EarPods with your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. In addition to pausing music and changing the volume, you can also rewind and fast forward. You can also answer and refuse calls and activate Siri. You can even take a picture.

When you add a Google Gmail account to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can get email, calendar and notes syncing, but not contacts. To add contacts, you need to add the Google account a second time, as a CardDAV account. Then you can see your Google contacts in your Contacts app.

When you back up for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your Mac, it stores it deep in your hard drive. But you don't need to go searching for those backups. You can manage them from inside iTunes. This is useful if you want to review your backups and delete old ones from old devices. You can also quickly find them on your drive to see how much space they take up. An archive function lets you save a backup and start a fresh one for a device.

Instead of using sync settings to decide what music to put on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can set iTunes to let you manually drag and drop music and video into your device. This lets you have finer control over exactly which songs are on the device. You can also get media on to your device without it needing to be in your iTunes library. Another advantage is that you can transfer media from a second Mac to your device without needing to erase the existing media.

If you use and iPhone and travel outside of your home territory, you may run into huge phone bills when you return unless you sign up for the right services. Be sure to log on to your carrier's system before you leave and sign up for voice, text and data plans to fit your needs. Or, be sure to set your phone so it never tries to use mobile networks so you won't be charged. (Apologies for the audio quality on this one!)

Game Center is a universal high score system provided by Apple that many app developers can use in their games. Once you extend your Apple ID to use Game Center, you can compete in high score leaderboards, challenge friends and register in-game achievements.

With the help of Siri on your iPhone, you can listen to and reply to text messages without ever looking at or touching your iPhone's screen. This can be useful when cycling or running, or just quicker than typing. Setting up your contacts correctly can help.

You can use the Google app to perform voice searches that return similar results to using Siri. Google voice searches can often be faster because your voice is interpreted on the phone, rather than being processed by a remote server. But Google voice search isn't integrated with iOS like Siri, so using both is your best option.

You can choose from a list of equalizer presets in iOS to adjust how you hear music from your Music app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The best way to use it is to play some music and try different settings. The Late Night setting is a little different as it applies to video as well. You can use iTunes on your desktop computer to get an idea about what each preset is doing.