Here are some iPhone tricks I stumbled across, many of which I didn't know, except for the magnifying glass, which is one of my favourite apps. Great for looking at small print on products at the store.
See where you’ve been
Having trouble remembering when you did something? Have no fear — your iPhone has been tracking your movements since you first activated the phone. If you need to pinpoint the day you went somewhere special or even remember the date of a trip to the hospital, this information can be useful. Go to Settings, then choose Privacy. Within the Privacy section, go to Location Settings. Scroll to the bottom, select System Services, and then find your Frequent Locations. Prepare to be amazed to see the list of all the places you have visited and how frequently you’ve been to them.
Make your iPhone keyboard function as a trackpad
If you’ve ever tried to move your cursor in a text only to find yourself stabbing at your phone’s screen with your finger, you need a trackpad on your phone. Here’s an iPhone trick that will come as a surprise to most people: You can turn your iPhone into a trackpad as long as it has iOS 12 or a more recent update. Just start typing in an email or text message, then press and hold a finger on the space bar on your iPhone’s keyboard. When you do this, the other keys will fade to gray, and you can use the area as a trackpad. [Man, I wished I had known this one a long time ago]
Flip a coin
Did you know that flipping a coin to make a decision can actually make you smarter? It can also, at the very least, help you wade through your pros and cons to get to the decision you truly want to make. “When we see the result of the coin toss and react with either pleasure or disappointment, we realize that we actually did have a preference for one option over another whether we knew it or not,” writes Hal McDonald, PhD, for Psychology Today. However, not everyone carries around cash and coins these days. Your iPhone can be a convenient substitute. Simply talk to your Apple virtual assistant, saying, “Hey, Siri, flip a coin!” She will then give you the result of the virtual coin toss.
Access a magnifying glass
Have you ever been reading a magazine only to find that certain passages were teeny-tiny and impossible to read? If that happens to you again, you don’t have to rummage through junk drawers to find an old magnifying glass. Your iPhone will act as a magnifying class with a few clicks on the screen. To access this iPhone trick, go to the main Settings of your iPhone, then click on Accessibility. Tap on Magnifier, then switch it to on. Now it will magnify anything you point the phone at. Open Magnifier on any screen by triple-clicking the side button if you have an iPhone 10 or later model. To adjust the magnification, move the slider that should then appear on the screen.
Set your phone to answer itself
You have the option of setting your iPhone to automatically answer itself. If you are often in a situation where you don’t have your hands free or can’t quickly grab your phone when it rings, having your phone automatically pick up can help ensure you don’t miss important calls. Go to the Accessibility option, then select Call Audio Routing. Toggle the Auto-Answer Calls option to the green “on” option. When you activate this feature, it will answer any call and let you speak with the caller automatically.
Sign documents
Electronic signatures are more often becoming the acceptable norm for business contracts and new-hire employee forms. You don’t have to buy expensive software to sign something electronically—you can do so easily within the Mail app using the markup option on your iPhone. Open the document from the Mail app on your iPhone. If it wasn’t sent to you via email, forward it so that you can easily access it from the Mail app.
Now, go to the email and tap on the attached document that you want to sign. If you haven’t downloaded it already, click to download it. Next, scroll through the document until you pull up the lines where you need to provide text. Tap on the lines and fill them out as directed. For the line with your signature, tap the mark-up symbol. (If you are unfamiliar with the mark-up option, it’s the small icon that looks likes a pen in the upper-right corner.) An assortment of pen options will appear along with a plus sign. Select the plus sign and then the signature option that will appear. A screen will open that allows you to use your finger on the screen to write your signature. When you finish writing your signature, click done. You can then place your signature precisely where you want it on the document.
Hide screenshots and photos from prying eyes
There are many reasons why you’d want to have your screenshots or photos protected from immediate access by anyone who uses your phone. Luckily, you’re just a few clicks away from being able to do so. Go to your Photos app and click on the pictures and screenshots that you want to hide. Then—and this may sound contradictory to your goals—select the Share option. That should pull up a list where you can choose the option to hide the selected photos or screenshots. Go back to the Photo Library to make sure that the photos are now private. They will be in the Hidden folder that was created automatically when you hid the photos. You can find this folder by clicking on your Photos app, then going to the Albums tab. If you change your mind and want to “unhide” the photos, simply select the photo and choose to move it back to the primary album of the Photos app.
No comments:
Post a Comment