Top 10 Things Users Don’t Know They Can Do On Their iPhone

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are ten things that many iPhone users don't know that they can do with their iPhone. 

Here are some of the features that when I tell people about them they can't believe they didn't know that their iPhone can do this. Let's start with creating a ringtone from just about anything. If you can record something with your microphone you can set it as your ringtone. All you need to do is go to the Voice Memos App that comes with iOS. Go into that and just record with your microphone. You saying something or any noise in the environment. Like this. (ring, ring). Then tap the three dots there. Then choose Share. Now look for Use As Ringtone. This will add it as a custom ringtone to your Ringtones List in Settings and you can assign it as your main ringtone, a text tone, or a custom ringtone for any contact in the Contacts App. 

Now sometimes we take pictures of things for reference. Sometimes we want to scan in a document. Other times we just want to copy text. You don't have to take a picture to do that. You can use Visual Intelligence on newer iPhones and copy the text right from that. All you need to do is activate Visual Intelligence either with the Action button or using Control Center, and then freeze the shot and you can tap and hold. Now you can select text and copy it. But if your iPhone is too old or in the wrong region to have Apple Intelligence you can do the same thing with the Magnifier App. So just launch the Magnifier App and then tap Capture when you have the text in view. Now tap and hold and you can adjust the selection and copy. 

If you find these videos valuable consider joining the more than 2000 others that support MacMost at Patreon. You get exclusive content, course discount, and more. You can read about it at macmost.com/patreon. 

This is a really basic one but I'm surprised many people don't use this even though it has been around for a long time. You can use Search, sometimes called Spotlight on your iPhone, as a basic interface for almost everything. All you need to do to activate Search is just do a little drag-down of the middle of the screen like this and now you can type what you want. So, for instance, you can use this to launch apps by simply typing the first few letters of the app and then tapping the app icon. You can also just start typing a person's name and you'll get quick access to their contact. But more importantly you can start FaceTime, Messages, or a phone call with them or look at your communication history for that person. It's often the quickest way to simply get to a conversation in Messages to send a new message. Start typing the name of a file and it will find files in the Files App, like this Keynote document and this text document right here. No need to go into the Files App at all just to find a document to launch an app with it. 

You can also quickly get to Settings by starting to type the Setting name, like you can jump right into Text Replacement which usually takes lots of taps to get to. Or you can get to BlueTooth this way although some settings, like Bluetooth actually show you a switch right here in the Search results.You can even find Safari results here including your history and bookmarks and just jump right to it saving lots of taps. 

You can pretty much access your entire iPhone doing everything you need by starting with Spotlight Search like this. 

Now when you need to take content from one app and bring it to another you can do it using two-fingers. One finger to drag and the other to switch apps. So, for instance, here I am in Mail composing a new message. Let's say I want to attach a photo to it. I can use the Attachments Button here and find the photo and all of that. But I can also just switch to the Photos App, find the photo I want, and with one finger I'm going to tap and start dragging, like that. Then with the other finger I'm going to switch apps by dragging up from the bottom, go back to the app I want, and then drag and drop right in here and it will insert that content. Here I am doing the same thing but with a file in the Files App. I can take this PDF right here, tap and start dragging it and then switch to Mail and drag it in and drop it right there to attach the file. You can do it with selected text as well. 

Now with any photo, whether it's in the Photo App or you're viewing a file in the Files App, you can lift the subject out of the photo so easily and then also drag that somewhere else. So, I can go in this photo here and tap and hold right there and start dragging around the subject. You can see the background isn't included. Now I can go to another app, like say back to Mail like that, and drag and drop just this subject in here. You can drag into any app that takes an image like for instance Notes or Messages.

Now when typing it can be hard to position the text cursor where you want. You can tap and place the cursor in different places but it is hard to get it inside of a word, for instance. However, you can turn your entire keyboard here into a trackpad by just tapping and holding the spacebar. When you see all the keys go blank like that notice as you continue to drag the text cursor moves around like you're using a trackpad on a computer. So you can drop it wherever you want, even inside a word. You can use this for selecting as well. Start the same way by tapping and holding the spacebar and go to the beginning of the selection, like right here. Now use another finger and tap and hold anywhere on that blank keyboard and then start dragging again and you'll see that you can make a selection like that. Then just release both fingers and now you've got that text selected and copy it or delete it or just start typing to replace it. You can even, at this point, start dragging it like this and do what I showed you before moving to another app and dropping it in.

Now your iPhone has the ability to play white noise or background sounds. You can use this to help you concentrate while you're working or studying or to help you sleep. Just go into the Settings app here and then go down to Accessibility. Then go down to Hearing and go to Audio & Visual. Then look here for Background Sounds. Go into this and you can choose the sound. There are a whole bunch of different ones to choose from. Then you can turn it On with this switch. You can change the Volume. You can determine whether or not while other media is playing if the background continues. You can adjust the sound using an equalizer here. You can even have a Timer automatically turn the background sounds Off. 

Now depending upon the model iPhone you've got you have a Side or Top button. You've got Volume Up or Down. You may have an Action button and a Camera control as well. But you can add two other ways to interact physically with your iPhone by turning on Back Tap in Accessibility. So go in Accessibility and look under Touch. Then go to the bottom here and you'll see Back Tap. There are two types of Back Tap. Double Tap and Triple Tap. So to use these what you need to do is hold your iPhone steady and then tap either twice or three times on the back very quickly, like that. You can see how that activated Control Center because that's what I've got the double tap set to. But you can change what each of these does by going in and there's a long list of things. There's a whole bunch of other system things that can be done. There are Accessibility Settings that can change. There are gestures. You can set it to any shortcut that you create. So you can create shortcuts for say launching apps or setting Focus and have a double or triple Back Tap activate that shortcut. 

Now this next feature can also be found in Accessibility and then go to Audio & Visual and then look for Live Listen. Live Listen has requirements concerning your iPhone hardware and your AirPods hardware. It also works with some hearing aids too. If everything you have is compatible and your AirPods are connected to your iPhone then you should see start Live Listen here and you can start listening. It is going to use the Microphone on your iPhone and send that audio to your AirPods. So you could, say, place your iPhone by the TV and then hear the audio from the TV better than you may be able to hear it, say, from across the room. In addition, if you go into Control Center you should see there at the top Live Listen. You can go in and change things and, say, set it to Voice Isolation Mode or Wide Spectrum. Plus, somewhere here in Control Center, in this case it is on my second page, you should see this button. You go into this and you should find a Transcript there at the bottom where it says Listening dot dot dot. You can also use the little ten second back button to rewind and listen to the audio from 10 seconds ago in case you missed something. You can see the transcript there going as I talk and the microphone is picking this up.  

Live Listen is really pretty incredible. If you've got the right hardware try it out. You won't believe how well it works. 

Finally, did you know that you can use your iPhone as a measuring tape and as a level. Just look for the app that comes with your iPhone called Measure. Go into that. You just need to go to the starting point, like say right here, and then go to the ending point, like say right here, and it will give you a measurement. Then if you go to Level then your iPhone acts as a level. You can set it down on a surface and hang pictures perfectly. 

I hope you found these useful. Thanks for watching.