As assistants we rely heavily on our smartphones, so I wanted to pass along these iPhone tips you may not know exist:
SAVE BATTERY LIFE
Don't charge your iPhone longer than it needs to be (try not to go over the 95% charge mark) and don't let it drain 100% either. "The 'lithium-ion' in the battery has its own level of 'stress'. If you increase the 'stress' of your smartphone by overcharging it, the battery life of your phone is ultimately shortened." (Source: 22 Words).
FREE UP SPACE
There are several photo and video hacks to free up space (source: New York Magazine):
If you don't want to back up and delete the photos on your iPhone (which takes up tons of space) then turn off the HDR setting. The HDR setting basically stores two versions of each photo (the HDR and normal version). Settings > Photos & Camera > Keep Normal Photo > unselect.
Next, disable Live Photos if you don't use them. With the camera app open, look for the icon with three concentric circles at the top of the screen. If it’s yellow, tap it.
Minimize the video quality (it's hard to tell the difference, so you won't be sacrificing quality). In the Photos & Camera setting and tap Record Video and lower the setting to 720p at 30 fps.
There's an interesting trick through iTunes if you get really desperate (source: New York Magazine):
In iTunes find a movie that takes up more space than you have available.
Tap “Rent” twice. Don't worry, you won't get charged because your iPhone will not be able to process the action; it will instead alert you that there's not enough space to do so.
Now check your storage. It went up!
You can repeat this process until your storage stops increasing.
SPEED UP YOUR PHONE
Clearing your RAM is one way to speed up your iPhone. Press and hold your power button as if you were about to turn off your phone. When the “slide to power off” screen appears, press and hold your home button. (Source: wimp.com)
You also can try clearing your cache. Open any of the App Store, Podcasts, Music, or Game Center apps. Once you have opened one of these apps, tap any icon near the bottom 10 times. (Source: wimp.com)
SPEED UP WI-FI
If your Wi-Fi is acting slow, enable the LTE access. Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > and select either Voice & Data or Data Only.
SAFARI
You can actually remove ads on Safari. When you see the Reader button in the search field on Safari, tap it to see just the text and photos — without ads. (Source: Apple)
If you're looking for a particular word or phrase on a webpage, you can find it by typing the word or phrase in the URL/search bar at the top of the screen. You'll see a list of web search results - and search results from the App Store, Wikipedia and so on if applicable, but you need to look at the bottom of that list for a section labeled "On This Page", with the number of matches. Tap it, and you'll see that the results are highlighted on that particular webpage in yellow. Tap the arrows at the bottom of the screen to go to the next instance. (Source: Macworld)
FORMAT TEXT IN EMAIL In some apps like Mail, you can use rich formatting to make text bold, italics, or underlined. Just highlight the text you want to edit, and tap the arrow in the copy/paste pop-up. Then, choose "B / U" to access the formatting options. (Source: cnet)
In the keyboard, there are hidden symbols. Press and hold a letter, symbol or number and other options pop up for many of the keys. Example: if you hold the "e," you can find an e with an accent above. If you hold the "$" key, you will see symbols for other currencies. (Source: cnet)
SAVE AS PDF You can turn web pages into PDFs and add them directly to your iBooks app. Tap the Share icon, scroll across the apps to find Save PDF to iBooks. Tap it and the web page will be converted and added to your book collection. (Source: Macworld)
THE HIDDEN LEVEL
This might sound like a video game, but I mean the actual instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is exactly horizontal or vertical. Open the Compass app and swipe from right to left to access the level tool. (Source: The Mac Observer)
SAVE DATA
Apps
Check which apps use cellular data. In here you can decide which apps get to use cellular data, and which apps can load only over Wi-Fi. Head over to Settings > Cellular to disable cellular data usage for any installed apps. (Source: cnet).
Facebook Facebook allows you to turn off auto-playing videos when you’re not on a Wi-Fi network. In the iPhone app, tap the three lines in the bottom right corner, then select Settings > Account Settings > Videos and Photos > Autoplay > Autoplay On Wi-Fi Connections Only (Source: WSJ)
iMessage
If you are traveling abroad without a data plan, you can still send text messages to other iPhones using Wi-Fi. Go to Settings > Messages and make sure Send as SMS is disabled, and that iMessage is enabled. (Source: cnet)
Instagram Instagram’s setting will limit loading photos on mobile networks and won’t preload videos in its new Stories section. Enable it by tapping the person icon in the bottom right corner then hit the settings gear in the top right corner > Cellular Data Use > switch on Use Less Data. (Source: WSJ)
Snapchat Snapchat’s Travel Mode keeps its Stories from automatically loading on mobile data. You will need to tap to load them. To turn it on, tap the ghost on the top of the screen, tap the Settings gear icon in the upper right > Manage Preferences > switch on Travel Mode. (Source: WSJ)
Twitter Twitter also has an autoplay switch. Select the Me tab > then the gear icon > Settings > Data > Video autoplay > Use Wi-Fi only. (Source: WSJ)
Do you have any iPhone tips to add? Please comment below!
