MacMost Now 927: Ten iOS 7 Useful New Features

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.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode let's take a look at ten new useful features of iOS 7.
So these are all small features of iOS 7 that you should know about. But none of them deserve their own video so I put them altogether.
For instance in Mail if you are looking at a list of messages and you swipe from right to left you get these two buttons and you can instantly throw something in the Trash or Archive it depending on the type of email service you've got or you could hit the More button and do various things with it. It is great instead of having to go into the message.
By the way you can do the same thing in Messages when looking at your list of incoming messages you can swipe right to left and get a delete button there. Plus the next thing I want to show you is that inside of Messages you can see the time stamps of each individual message by swiping from right to left. You can see that you get these little times next to it.
Speaking of Messages, say you want to block text messages from a number. As a matter of fact you want to block both calls and text messages from a number. Well, you can go into Settings and under Settings you can go to Phone and there you've got Blocked. Here you can add a Contact. So you can create a contact for that phone number and then now add it here in this list.
Now in Calendar the main thing I want to show you is how to get to List View, which is very useful and it seems to be gone now. But it is not really gone. You just simply tap on the magnifying glass like you are going to start a search. You start a search but you get List View at the bottom. Also one of the things that I love about the new Calendar look is that you are not locked into looking at one month at a time. You can kind of scroll between months like that. So when you are at the end of the month it is very easy to see the beginning of the next month as well.
App folders are great in iOS 7 because you can have as many as you want. You can put as many things in there that as you want. There are different pages for App folders so you can keep adding items to this and you will keep getting more dots at the bottom and you will be able to swipe between them.
Also if you are looking to change the name of an App folder it is a little tricky. You want to tap and hold the name. Now not only can you remove an App from inside an App folder but you can also edit the name as well.
The new design of the Compass app is great not just because it has a cool design but it has two screens. See those two dots at the bottom. If you swipe over to the next screen it is a level. You can lay this down on a surface and it will tell you when it is perfectly level.
Now if you don't like how Siri pronounces something, say your name or somebody else's name or the name of a restaurant, whatever, you can ask it to change the pronunciation. 
It is easier in iOS 7 to create custom ringtone vibration patterns. This means that you can tell whether or not you are getting a text message or a phone call or who it is coming from just by the pattern of the vibration. Go into Settings and then into Sounds and let's say let's change the voicemail ringtone here and do the vibration. Under this I can set a custom one, Create New Vibration, and I can basically tap out a pattern. Then hit stop and save it and give it a name. Now I can set it to one of those custom vibrations there and I can also go to my Contacts and set a custom vibration for a specific person.
A really great new feature of iOS 7 is the ability to use FaceTime to make audio calls instead of just video calls. This is great if your mobile connection isn't fantastic or you don't want to use your mobile minutes or perhaps your device like most iPads and iPod Touch doesn't have a mobile connection. If the person on the other end is using an Apple device and they have FaceTime enabled you can call them using, instead of that video button here for a regular FaceTime call, you can just use the audio button to place an audio phone call through the internet without using mobile minutes.
I love the fact that iOS 7 will update Apps in the background, download them and update them automatically, rather than waiting for you to do it. Sometimes you wait so long that you have twenty or thirty apps to update. This way everything is kept up to date. Go into the Apps Store and click on the bottom right Updates so you can see a list of all the Apps and the last time they were updated. You can get information about what is new with them. Also if you want to turn this feature on or off you can go into Settings and under the iTunes & App Store settings you can see automatic downloads. The last one Updates if you have that on it will automatically do it.
So there are ten new features in iOS 7 that I hope you find useful.
Until next time this is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: 17 Responses to “MacMost Now 927: Ten iOS 7 Useful New Features”

~Joan.

11 years ago

This was a very helpful video - concise and practical. Is there a way to remove the list of updated apps? It is really not necessary for me to see all of the apps that have been updated and the dates they were updated every time I go to update.

Thanks.

Gary Rosenzweig

No. Just ignore them. Think of it as a log of all of your updates. just information only, no need to have to look at it. All computers and devices have logs of activities like installs -- this one is just very easy to find.

Greg

I'm trying to find the compass app in your video. Can you tell us which compass this is? Thanks and Thanks for the informative information - Great Job!!

It is built into iOS 7 for the iPhone (not the iPad).

Ruth Shanahan Allmart

Thanks Gary, this was great! Going to set my automatic updates now :)

Russ

Very helpful video Gary...Thanks! I'm amazed at how many people are complaining about iOS7. I feel it's because they haven't taken the time to play w/ it & try to understand it. It's a very cool OS that makes the Apple experience that much better.

nick

Gary
I have a Gmail account set up in the Mail app and when I swipe from right to left I get the choices More and Archive, but what I would like is for Trash to be the choice
Is there a way to make that happen?
thx

That's how Gmail works. See http://macmost.com/understanding-gmail.html.

Kathy

Thanks, Gary, it is so great to get private tutorials to clarify extra features we may not know about! Great for senior citizens!

Barb

I found this video extremely helpful. Easy for me to follow...thank you Gary

Adele McIntosh

OMG, LOVE the new Compass - uber cool.

crystal

Mail.... is there a way to delete all?
Seems I've had to tap, delete, tap, delete for years now and it still looks like my only options are: edit, tap, tap, tap or swipe, delete, swipe, delete.
big time waster. didn't know if I've over looked this handy feature or if you know of an app that applies this feature?
THANKS for your videos! I always learn!

You have to do each one, yes. So the question is: why so much email to delete? I'd imagine I use email much much more than the average person, and I never have this problem. Is it that you don't check email that often? Or, you get a lot of spam?

Ted

I have iOS 7 but I do not see the compass app. How do I find it.

Do you have an iPhone? The compass app is only on the iPhone.

Glenn

Thanks for the video, very informative.

With OS X 10.9 "Mavericks", features that were only previously available in iOS, such as iBooks were implemented. Do you think Apple will introduce Compass for the iPad in iOS 8?

Your guess is as good as mine. But why not just use a third-party app for that?

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 927: Ten iOS 7 Useful New Features

Comments: 17 Responses to “MacMost Now 927: Ten iOS 7 Useful New Features”

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