Use the back of your iPhone for a secret button with Back Tap, not just for showing off the Apple logo.
The Secret Button You Never Knew Existed
Imagine your phone has a secret, invisible button on its back. This isn’t a myth; it’s Back Tap. A quick double or triple tap on the Apple logo can perform a custom command you’ve chosen. It’s like a secret knock that could instantly open your camera, take a screenshot, or turn on your flashlight. It’s like having a magic wand in your pocket. Instead of fumbling through menus, you give your phone a gentle, secret tap, and it immediately does your bidding, turning a multi-step chore into a single, satisfying action.
Stop trying to tap the exact spot to edit text. Do hold the spacebar to turn your keyboard into a trackpad instead.
The Tiny Mouse for Your Thumbs
Trying to move the cursor by poking at the screen with your thumb is like trying to perform surgery with a mitten on. You can never get it in exactly the right spot. The secret is to press and hold the spacebar. Your entire keyboard magically transforms into a tiny laptop trackpad. Your thumb can now glide effortlessly across the keys to move the cursor with pinpoint precision, letting you select text and fix typos with incredible speed and accuracy. It’s a hidden feature that, once discovered, you will never be able to live without.
Stop asking someone to read tiny text for you. Do use the Magnifier accessibility tool instead.
The Digital Magnifying Glass in Your Pocket
We’ve all been there: struggling to read the microscopic print on a medicine bottle or the serial number on the back of a gadget. The Magnifier is like having a powerful, high-tech magnifying glass built directly into your phone. You can set it as a shortcut, and with a triple-click of the side button, your camera transforms into an intelligent zoom lens. You can turn on the flashlight for better light, add color filters, and even freeze the frame to get a steady look. It’s a real-world superpower that’s been hiding in your phone all along.
The #1 secret for sharing Wi-Fi passwords that your friends don’t know is simply bringing your unlocked iPhone near theirs.
The Secret Handshake for Your Wi-Fi
When a friend comes over and asks for your long, complicated Wi-Fi password, the old way was to find the crumpled piece of paper where it’s written down. The new way is a magical, secret handshake. When your friend tries to join your network on their iPhone, a quiet notification will pop up on your nearby, unlocked screen. You just tap “Share Password.” Without ever revealing the actual code, your phone securely transmits the password directly to theirs. It’s a simple, secure, and deeply satisfying welcome into your digital home.
I’m just going to say it: The Compass app has a secret level tool that is incredibly useful.
The Carpenter’s Level You Always Have With You
The Compass app seems simple, but it has a hidden identity. If you swipe left on the main compass screen, it transforms into a clean, minimalist, and surprisingly accurate carpenter’s level. You can lay your phone flat on a surface to see if it’s perfectly level—the screen turns green when you hit a perfect zero degrees. You can also hold it against a wall to see if a picture frame is straight. It’s an incredibly practical, real-world tool hidden in an app you’ve probably never opened.
The reason your flashlight is too bright is because you’re not long-pressing the icon in Control Center to adjust its brightness.
The Dimmer Switch for Your Flashlight
Tapping the flashlight button in Control Center is like flipping a light switch—it’s either all on or all off. But sometimes, you don’t need to blind yourself just to find your keys in the dark. The icon is not just a button; it’s a hidden dimmer switch. If you press and hold the flashlight icon, a slider will appear, allowing you to choose from four different levels of brightness. It’s a brilliant, hidden feature that gives you precise control, turning a harsh spotlight into a soft glow when you need it.
If you’re still taking screenshots with the button combo and then cropping them, you’re losing the instant markup and share features.
The Instant Polaroid vs. The Photo Lab
After you take a screenshot, a small thumbnail instantly appears in the corner. Tapping that thumbnail is like grabbing a Polaroid as it develops. You can immediately draw on it, highlight text, or add your signature with your finger, right there in the moment. Then, you can share that marked-up image directly to a friend without it ever cluttering your photo library. It transforms the screenshot from a clumsy, multi-step process of “capture, find, edit, send” into one single, fluid, and instantaneous action.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you’ve seen everything your iPhone can do.
The House with Secret Rooms
Thinking you know all of your iPhone’s features is like believing you’ve seen every room in a giant, sprawling mansion after only visiting the main floor. Apple constantly adds powerful, useful, and sometimes quirky features that are hidden away in the “basement” of the Settings app or behind a secret “bookshelf” of a long-press gesture. The biggest lie is that the tour is over. In reality, there are always new, secret rooms and passageways to discover, each one holding a tool that can make your life easier or more fun.
I wish I knew that I could use the Measure app to check someone’s height when I was younger.
The Augmented Reality Tape Measure
The Measure app is more than just a ruler; it’s a piece of science fiction. It uses your camera and advanced sensors to create an augmented-reality tape measure. It can measure the dimensions of a suitcase or a picture frame just by pointing your phone at it. The most magical part? If a person is in the frame, a line will automatically appear above their head with their exact height. It’s a stunning and surprisingly accurate feature that feels like you’re holding a futuristic tricorder in your hand.
99% of users make this one mistake in Calculator: starting over when they make a typo, instead of swiping to delete the last digit.
The Backspace Key You Can’t See
The Calculator app has a clean, simple design, but it seems to be missing one crucial button: a backspace key. If you type a wrong number, your instinct is to hit “C” and start the entire calculation over. But the backspace key is there; it’s just invisible. You can simply swipe your finger left or right across the number display at the top, and it will delete the last digit you typed. It’s a simple, hidden gesture that will save you from a world of frustration.
This one small action of swiping right on a notification to “Manage” it will change how you control alerts forever.
The Butler You Can Train in Real-Time
Notifications can be overwhelming. Swiping right on any alert and tapping “Manage” is like pulling the butler aside for a quick, in-the-moment training session. It gives you immediate, powerful options for that specific app. You can tell the butler, “Deliver these notifications more quietly from now on,” or even, “Stop delivering messages from this person altogether.” It allows you to take control of your notification chaos the very instant it happens, training your phone to be a better, more respectful assistant.
Use Live Text in the Camera app to instantly call numbers or visit websites, not just typing them in manually.
The Magic Wand That Lifts Words Off a Page
Live Text is a real-life magic wand. When you point your phone’s camera at a sign, a menu, or a document, your iPhone can read the text as if it were a digital document. Any phone number or website it sees will glow, becoming an interactive button. You can tap a phone number on a billboard to instantly call it, or tap a web address on a poster to visit the site. It magically lifts words from the physical world and brings them, fully functional, into your digital one.
Stop asking what song is playing. Do use the built-in Shazam integration in Control Center instead.
The Music Expert in Your Pocket
When you hear a great song playing in a coffee shop, the old way was to scramble to ask someone what it was. The Shazam button in your Control Center is like having a world-renowned music expert on speed dial. With a single swipe and a tap, your phone will listen for a few seconds, instantly identify the song and artist, and present it to you. It’s a fast, discreet, and incredibly accurate way to capture the name of a song before it fades away forever.
Stop setting a timer for just one thing. Do set multiple, named timers at once with Siri.
The Kitchen with Multiple Egg Timers
Imagine you’re cooking a big meal. You have pasta that needs to boil for 10 minutes and vegetables that need to roast for 30. In the past, you’d have to use one timer and do mental math. Now, you can run multiple, named timers simultaneously. It’s like having a separate, labeled egg timer for every dish on the stove. You can ask Siri to “set a 10-minute pasta timer” and a “30-minute vegetable timer.” Your phone will keep track of everything separately and announce which dish is ready by name.
The #1 hack for one-handed use on a big iPhone is the Reachability gesture (swiping down on the home bar).
The Elevator for Your Screen
Using a large iPhone with one hand can feel like trying to reach a book on the top shelf when you’re too short. Your thumb just can’t get there. Reachability is the secret elevator for your screen. A short, gentle swipe down on the very bottom edge of the screen (the home bar) will make the entire top half of the screen slide down to the middle. This brings all those hard-to-reach buttons and icons down to a comfortable, one-thumb-friendly height, making your giant screen suddenly feel manageable again.
I’m just going to say it: The Scientific Calculator is hidden in the Calculator app and you just have to turn your phone sideways.
The Calculator’s Secret Identity
The standard Calculator app is simple and unassuming, like the mild-mannered Clark Kent. It’s good for everyday math. But it has a hidden, super-powered identity. If you open the app and simply turn your phone sideways into landscape mode, it will instantly transform into a powerful, feature-rich scientific calculator, revealing a whole new set of buttons for trigonometry, logarithms, and advanced calculations. It’s a brilliant secret that has been hiding in plain sight, waiting for you to unleash its true power.
The reason you can’t find a setting is because you’re not using the search bar at the very top of the Settings app.
The GPS for a Sprawling City
The Settings app on your iPhone is like a huge, sprawling city with hundreds of streets and alleys. Trying to find one specific setting, like “Battery,” is like trying to find a single address without a map. The search bar at the very top of the Settings app is the GPS for that city. Instead of wandering through endless menus, you can simply type what you’re looking for—like “font” or “ringtone”—and it will instantly give you a direct, clickable link to that exact location, turning a frustrating search into an effortless journey.
If you’re still shaking your phone to undo typing, you’re missing the cleaner three-finger swipe gesture.
The Clumsy Shake vs. The Elegant Swipe
The old “Shake to Undo” feature is like having an Etch A Sketch. It works, but it’s a clumsy, physical, and sometimes accidental gesture. The new, modern method is a simple and elegant swipe. A quick, firm swipe to the left with three fingers will instantly undo your last action, like a wave of a magic wand. A swipe to the right with three fingers will redo it. It’s a more deliberate, powerful, and discreet gesture that gives you precise control over your mistakes without looking like you’re having a wrestling match with your device.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the iPhone is “simple.” It’s simple to use, but deep in features.
The Iceberg Under the Water
The iPhone’s interface is like the tip of an iceberg. It’s beautiful, clean, and incredibly simple to approach and use for your basic needs. That is the genius of its design. But the lie is that the tip is all there is. Underneath that simple, placid surface lies the other 90% of the iceberg—a massive, deep, and incredibly powerful world of hidden features, settings, and capabilities. It has the simplicity of a calm harbor, but the depth of the open ocean, waiting to be explored.
I wish I knew about the document scanner hidden inside the Notes and Files apps.
The High-Tech Photocopier in Your Pocket
In the past, if you needed to scan a document, you had to find a big, clunky machine. Your iPhone has a professional-grade scanner secretly built into the Notes and Files apps. When you activate it, it doesn’t just take a picture. It’s like an intelligent photocopier. It finds the four corners of the page, corrects for any skewed angles, removes shadows, and produces a perfect, high-contrast, and searchable PDF. It’s a stunningly powerful tool that turns any piece of paper into a perfect digital file in seconds.
99% of users don’t know they can pin shared content to the top of their Messages conversations.
The Corkboard for Your Friendship
A long chat thread is like a chronological diary of your friendship. But important things, like a shared link, a photo, or a location, get buried over time. The “Pin” feature is like a magical corkboard that sits at the top of that diary. When someone sends you something important, you can long-press and “pin” it. It will now appear as a small, persistent icon at the very top of your conversation, creating a permanent, easy-to-access shortcut to the most important things you’ve shared, no matter how long the conversation gets.
This one small habit of using the Timer to “Stop Playing” media will create the perfect sleep timer for podcasts and music.
The Sleep Timer for Your Ears
Many of us fall asleep listening to a podcast or an audiobook. The problem is that it will continue to play all night long, draining your battery and possibly disrupting your sleep later on. The Timer in your Clock app has a secret, hidden feature. Instead of choosing an alarm sound to play when the timer ends, you can scroll all the way to the bottom and select “Stop Playing.” Now, your timer acts as a perfect, custom sleep timer, gently fading out and stopping any audio that’s playing on your phone.
Use the “Look Up” feature on photos to identify plants, pets, and landmarks, not just using a third-party app.
The Digital Encyclopedia for Your Eyes
When you take a photo of a beautiful flower or a cute dog, your phone doesn’t just see a picture; it sees an object it can identify. If you swipe up on a photo in your library, a “Look Up” feature may appear. It’s like having a digital encyclopedia built into your camera. It can tell you the species of that flower, the breed of that dog, or the name of that famous building you photographed on vacation. It’s a powerful and surprisingly accurate feature that turns your photo library into a tool for learning about the world.
Stop just taking a single screenshot. Do use the “Full Page” screenshot option in Safari instead.
The Single Photo vs. The Unfurled Scroll
Taking a standard screenshot of a long webpage is like taking a single photograph of a long, ancient scroll. You only capture the small portion you can see. But hidden in the screenshot tool in Safari is a “Full Page” option. Tapping it is like magically unfurling that entire scroll and capturing it as one single, continuous, and scrollable document. It allows you to save an entire article, recipe, or set of directions as a single, clean PDF, ready to be saved or shared.
Stop trying to find the perfect GIF. Do use the built-in #images search in iMessage instead.
The Universal Library of Reactions
Sometimes, words just aren’t enough. You need the perfect, funny, animated GIF to capture your reaction. The #images feature built right into your iMessage app is like having a massive, searchable library of every reaction GIF ever created. Instead of leaving the app and searching on a browser, you can tap the app icon, type a keyword like “eye roll” or “mind blown,” and instantly find and send the perfect animated response. It’s the fastest way to add a dose of humor and personality to your chats.
The #1 secret for custom alerts is creating your own vibration patterns for different contacts.
The Secret Handshake in Your Pocket
Normally, every call and text feels the same in your pocket—a generic buzz. Creating a custom vibration pattern is like teaching your phone a secret handshake for your most important contacts. You can create a short, sharp buzz for your boss or a long, rhythmic “heartbeat” pattern for your partner. Now, when your phone vibrates in your pocket during a meeting, you can feel the secret handshake and know exactly who is trying to reach you without ever taking your phone out, giving you a secret sense of awareness.
I’m just going to say it: The Field Test Mode for checking cell signal strength is a geeky but cool hidden feature.
The ‘Behind the Scenes’ Tour of Your Phone Signal
The five signal bars on your phone are like a simple smiley-face rating for your cell connection—not very detailed. Field Test Mode is the secret, geeky “behind the scenes” tour. By typing a special code into your phone’s dialer, you can access a hidden menu that shows you the raw, numerical data of your signal strength. It’s like going from the simple smiley face to seeing the full engineer’s diagnostic report. For most people it’s overkill, but it’s a fascinating peek under the hood of how your phone actually talks to the cell tower.
The reason you can’t hear your alarm is because you’re lowering the ringer volume instead of the media volume.
The Two Different Volume Knobs
Your iPhone has two separate “volume knobs,” even though they are controlled by the same physical buttons. One knob controls the “Ringer” volume—your alarms, your ringtones, and your alerts. The other knob controls the “Media” volume—your music, your videos, and your games. If you have “Change with Buttons” turned on in your settings, when you lower the volume while watching a video, you are only turning down the Media knob, not the Ringer knob. Your alarm will still be just as loud as it was before.
If you’re still letting every app access your precise location, you’re losing privacy by not using the “approximate” setting.
Your GPS Pin vs. Your General Neighborhood
Imagine you order a pizza. The delivery driver needs your precise, exact home address to bring it to your door. But does your weather app need to know exactly which house you’re in? Or does it just need to know your general neighborhood to tell you if it’s going to rain? Giving every app your precise location is like handing out your exact home address to every stranger you meet. Using the “Approximate Location” setting is like telling them you live in the “Maplewood” neighborhood. They get what they need, and you keep your privacy.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that all the best features are advertised.
The Headliner vs. The Amazing Opening Act
Apple’s big keynote presentations are like a music festival. They spend all their time promoting the big, famous headliners—the new camera, the faster chip. But the real magic of a festival is often discovering the incredible, unadvertised opening acts on the smaller stages. The iPhone is the same. For every “headliner” feature, there are a dozen brilliant, life-changing “opening acts”—like Back Tap or the spacebar trackpad—that are never mentioned on the main stage. The best features are often the ones you have to discover for yourself.
I wish I knew that you could long-press the “back” button in many apps (like Settings or Safari) to see your history.
The Trail of Breadcrumbs
When you’re deep inside a multi-level menu, like in the Settings app, getting back to the beginning means tapping the “back” button over and over again. It’s like retracing your steps one by one. But there’s a hidden shortcut. If you press and hold that back button, it will reveal your entire path, like a trail of breadcrumbs. You can then jump back three or four levels in a single tap. It’s a brilliant, time-saving navigation trick that is hiding in plain sight.
99% of users don’t know they can drag and drop photos and text between apps.
The Digital Assembly Line
Imagine you’re building a collage. You have a stack of photos on your left and a scrapbook on your right. You physically pick up a photo and place it onto the page. You can do this on your iPhone. You can press and hold on a photo until it “lifts” off the page. Then, while still holding it with one finger, you can use another finger to switch to your Messages app. Then, you simply “drop” the photo into the text box. It’s a beautifully intuitive and physical way to move content between your digital workspaces.
This one small action of enabling “Announce Calls” will let you know who is calling without looking at your phone.
The Butler Who Announces Your Guests
When your phone rings from across the room, it’s like a doorbell chiming. You have no idea who is at the door until you get up to look. Enabling “Announce Calls” is like hiring a professional butler. Now, when the doorbell chimes, your butler’s voice will project through the house, announcing, “Lord Kensington is at the door,” or “It’s your mother.” It allows you to know exactly who is calling without ever having to look at your screen, letting you decide if the “guest” is worth getting up for.
Use a subject line in iMessage to add emphasis, not just sending a wall of text.
The Title on the Chapter
Sending a long, important iMessage is like writing a chapter in a book. Without a subject line, it’s just a wall of text. By enabling the “Show Subject Field” in your settings, you can add a bolded title to your iMessages. It’s like giving that chapter a clear, bolded headline. It’s perfect for important announcements or for organizing a group chat. It immediately draws the eye, sets the context, and makes your message feel more structured and important than a simple, rambling block of text.
Stop guessing at measurements. Do use the built-in Measure app for quick estimates.
The Sci-Fi Tricorder in Your Pocket
The Measure app is a piece of science fiction that is sitting, unused, on most people’s phones. It uses the camera and advanced sensors to become an augmented-reality tape measure. You can simply point your phone at a picture frame and tap on the corners to get its dimensions, or point it at a suitcase to see if it meets the airline’s size requirements. While it’s not for precision carpentry, it’s a stunningly accurate and futuristic tool for getting quick, real-world estimates without ever having to find a physical tape measure.
Stop closing all your background apps. Do trust that iOS knows how to manage memory better than you do.
The Tidy Butler vs. The Smart Butler
Constantly closing your background apps is like having a tidy but inefficient butler. He’s constantly packing away all your tools the moment you set them down. So, the next time you need your hammer, he has to go all the way to the garage to get it again. Leaving your apps in the background is like having a smart butler. He leaves your most-used tools out on the workbench, frozen in time, so they are instantly ready the next time you need them. He is a master of efficiency; trust him to manage your workshop.
The #1 hack for falling asleep is using the Background Sounds feature to play calming noises like rain or ocean waves.
The Sound Machine Built Into Your Phone
Many people buy expensive sound machines to help them sleep. But your iPhone has a high-quality, professional-grade sound machine secretly built right into its accessibility settings. You can choose from a variety of calming, looping sounds—like gentle rain, a flowing stream, or the deep hum of ocean waves. It’s designed to mask distracting environmental noise and can be a powerful tool for focus, relaxation, or falling asleep. It’s a free, therapeutic feature that most people have no idea they own.
I’m just going to say it: The Stocks app is surprisingly well-designed and useful, even if you’re not a big investor.
The Financial Times on Your Phone
Even if you don’t own a single stock, the Stocks app is like having a free subscription to a beautifully designed financial newspaper, like the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. It allows you to follow the general health of the economy, keep an eye on big companies you care about, and read curated, high-quality business news from top sources. It’s a fantastic, at-a-glance dashboard for understanding the business world, and it’s far more than just a tool for day traders.
The reason you’re re-typing symbols is because you’re not holding down a key on the keyboard to see related characters.
The Secret Compartment Under Each Key
The iPhone keyboard is like a piano where every key has a secret, hidden compartment underneath it. If you just tap the key, you get the main note. But if you press and hold on a key—like the period, the dollar sign, or a vowel—that secret compartment will open up, revealing a whole family of related characters. You can find different currency symbols, different types of dashes, and all the accented letters you need, all without having to switch to a different keyboard layout.
If you’re still using a third-party app to scan QR codes, you’re losing time by not using the built-in Camera app.
The Key That’s Already in Your Hand
A QR code is a key that unlocks a digital door. Using a separate, third-party app to scan them is like seeing a locked door and then having to rummage through your entire bag to find the right key. Your iPhone’s built-in Camera app is the master key that you are already holding in your hand. You don’t need to do anything. Just open your camera, point it at the QR code, and the door will unlock automatically. It’s a seamless, instantaneous process that requires no extra, clunky steps.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be a “power user” to use these tips.
The Secret Buttons in Your Car
Your car is full of little buttons and features that you might not use every day, but that are incredibly useful when you need them—like the rear window defroster or the cruise control. You don’t need to be a professional race car driver to learn how to use them. These iPhone tips are those buttons. They are not complex “hacks” for computer programmers. They are simple, built-in features designed for normal people, and learning just a few of them can make your daily “drive” significantly more pleasant and efficient.
I wish I knew that I could use my iPhone to search for text within my own handwritten notes.
The Librarian Who Can Read Your Scrawl
Imagine you have a library full of your own handwritten journals. Finding a specific thought would mean manually reading through every single page. The search function in the Notes app is like a magical librarian who has learned to instantly read and understand your personal handwriting. You can scribble a note about a “brilliant marketing idea,” and weeks later, you can type “marketing” into the search bar, and that handwritten note will instantly appear. It turns your messy scrawls into powerful, searchable text.
99% of users don’t know that they can use their iPhone’s camera to copy and paste text from the real world.
The Magic Ink-Lifting Wand
Live Text is a piece of real-life magic. It’s like having a magic wand that can lift the ink directly off a physical page. You can point your camera at a recipe in a cookbook, and then literally use your finger to highlight the ingredients list and copy it. You can then paste that text into your Notes app. It is the physical manifestation of “copy and paste,” allowing you to pull words, numbers, and sentences from the physical world and bring them directly into your digital one.
This one small habit of long-pressing app icons on the Home Screen will reveal useful quick actions.
The Secret ‘Right-Click’ Menu for Your Apps
On a computer, right-clicking an icon reveals a powerful menu of shortcuts. A long-press on an app icon on your Home Screen is the secret “right-click” for your phone. It’s not just for deleting or moving the app. It will reveal a hidden menu of useful, context-aware actions. Long-pressing the Camera app might let you jump straight to selfie mode, or long-pressing a messaging app might show you your favorite contacts. It’s a powerful time-saver that lets you teleport directly to the feature you need.
Use the “Hide My Email” feature to create burner emails for sign-ups, not using your real email address everywhere.
The Disposable Mailbox for the Internet
When a sketchy website or a new service asks for your email, it’s like a stranger asking for your home address. The “Hide My Email” feature is like a magical, disposable mailbox that you can create on the spot. It generates a unique, random email address that forwards to your real one. If that website starts spamming you or sells your address, you can simply take that one disposable mailbox and throw it in the trash. They can never contact you again, and your real address remains private and pristine.
Stop manually typing your credit card info. Do use the camera to scan it directly into Safari.
The Personal Scanner for Your Wallet
Manually typing your 16-digit credit card number and expiration date into a website is slow and prone to typos. Hidden in Safari is a feature that turns your camera into a secure, personal scanner for your wallet. When you get to the credit card field, a small “Scan Card” option will appear. Tapping it opens your camera, which will find the card, intelligently read the numbers, and fill them in for you automatically. It’s a fast, accurate, and secure way to get through the checkout process without the tedious typing.
Stop trying to find a specific photo by scrolling. Do use the powerful search feature in the Photos app instead.
The Genius Librarian for Your Memories
Your photo library is a vast, sprawling library containing tens of thousands of books (your photos). Scrolling through it to find one specific memory is a hopeless task. The search bar in the Photos app is like a genius, all-knowing librarian. You can ask for “photos of my dog at the beach in San Diego last summer,” and the librarian will instantly pull those exact photos from the shelves for you. It can search by people, places, dates, and even the objects within the photos themselves.
The #1 secret for organizing your screenshots is the automatic categorization in the Photos app.
The Self-Sorting Filing Cabinet
Screenshots can quickly clutter up your beautiful photo library with random images of maps, memes, and receipts. But your Photos app has a secret, self-sorting filing cabinet. If you go to your Albums tab and scroll down, you will find that your phone has automatically created a special “Screenshots” album for you. It has been neatly filing away every single screenshot you’ve ever taken, keeping them separate from your precious memories. It’s a brilliant piece of automatic organization that most people never even notice is there.
I’m just going to say it: The Tips app from Apple is actually worth looking at when you get a new iPhone.
The Official Owner’s Manual You Should Actually Read
Most of us treat the Tips app like the boring, black-and-white owner’s manual that comes with a new appliance—we immediately throw it in a drawer and never look at it again. But this is a mistake. The Tips app is more like a beautifully designed, colorful, and interactive guidebook to a new city. It offers a curated tour of the most interesting and useful features, many of which are hidden gems. Taking ten minutes to browse through it when you get a new phone is the fastest way to learn its secrets.
The reason you can’t find that article again is because you didn’t add it to your Safari Reading List.
The Personal Magazine for Your Pocket
When you stumble upon an interesting article online, it’s like seeing a magazine in a shop that you want to read, but you’re in a hurry. Your Reading List is like a magical bag where you can instantly tuck that magazine away to read later. It saves a clean, ad-free version of the article for you. The best part? It’s like the bag has its own internet connection, so you can pull out your “magazine” and read it on a plane or a subway, even when you have no signal.
If you’re still typing “.com,” you’re losing seconds by not just holding down the period key for other domain options.
The Secret Compartment on the Period Key
Typing out “.com” at the end of every web address is a small but constant friction. The period key on your keyboard is not just a simple button; it’s a secret menu. If you press and hold the period key, a hidden compartment will pop up, offering you a list of common domain endings like .net, .org, .edu, and, of course, .com. It’s a simple, elegant shortcut that shaves a few precious seconds and a few extra taps off of every single web address you type.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the Control Center is just for basic toggles.
The Tip of the Iceberg for Your Controls
The Control Center looks like a simple dashboard with a few basic buttons for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This is the tip of the iceberg. The real power is hidden underneath. Almost every single button on that screen is also a “long-press” button that reveals a whole new level of control. Long-pressing the Wi-Fi icon lets you choose a network. Long-pressing the brightness slider reveals the Dark Mode and True Tone buttons. It is a dense, layered, and powerful control panel, not a simple set of switches.
I wish I knew that I could record a video and take still photos at the same time.
The Two Cameras in One
We’ve all been there: you’re recording a video of a perfect moment, like your child blowing out their birthday candles, and you desperately wish you could also take a beautiful, high-quality photograph at that exact same instant. You can. While you are recording a video, a small, white shutter button will appear on the screen. Tapping that button will silently capture a full-resolution still photo without interrupting your video recording at all. It’s like having a separate photographer standing next to your videographer, capturing the best of both worlds.
99% of users have never used the “drag to select multiple items” gesture in apps like Photos and Files.
The Fishing Net for Your Files
Normally, to select multiple photos, you have to tap, tap, tap on each one individually. It’s like trying to catch fish with your bare hands. There’s a hidden, faster way. In many apps, you can tap the “Select” button, and then, instead of tapping, you can just drag your finger across the screen. This creates an invisible “fishing net” that will select every single item your finger touches. It’s a much faster and more satisfying way to select a large batch of items in a grid.
This one small action of enabling the one-handed keyboard will make typing while holding a coffee much easier.
The Keyboard That Scooches Over
Trying to type on a large iPhone with one hand while holding a coffee or a bag in the other is a clumsy, thumb-stretching exercise in frustration. The one-handed keyboard is a brilliant, hidden solution. If you long-press the little globe or emoji icon on your keyboard, you can choose to have the entire keyboard “scooch” over to the left or the right side of the screen. This brings all the keys within the comfortable, easy reach of a single thumb, making one-handed typing feel natural and effortless again.
Use Siri to change settings like “turn on dark mode,” not just for asking about the weather.
The Butler Who Can Flip the Switches
Most people treat Siri like a simple conversationalist, good for asking about the weather or a sports score. But Siri is also a powerful, hands-free butler who has access to the master control panel of your entire house. You can give her direct commands to change the settings. You can say, “Turn on dark mode,” “Turn off Wi-Fi,” or “Increase the brightness.” It’s a much faster and more efficient way to control your device when your hands are busy, or when you just don’t want to dig through the Settings menu.
Stop trying to remember where you parked. Do let Apple Maps automatically drop a pin for your parked car instead.
The Automatic ‘Breadcrumb’ for Your Car
Forgetting where you parked your car in a giant parking lot is a universal frustration. Apple Maps has a secret, automatic solution. If your phone is connected to your car’s Bluetooth, it has a moment of intelligence when that connection is broken. It assumes, “This person has just gotten out of their car.” It will then automatically and silently drop a “breadcrumb,” a small pin on your map, marking the exact spot where you parked. It’s a brilliant, set-it-and-forget-it feature that solves a problem you didn’t even know could be automated.
Stop just using your volume buttons for volume. Do use them as a shutter button in the Camera app.
The ‘Real’ Camera Button
Tapping the on-screen shutter button to take a photo can be a bit clumsy and can cause you to shake the phone at the last second. The volume buttons are a secret, much more satisfying “real” camera button. When you have the Camera app open, pressing either the volume up or volume down button will act as a physical shutter release. It gives you a firm, tactile, and deeply satisfying “click” that feels like you’re using a traditional point-and-shoot camera, often resulting in a steadier, sharper shot.
The #1 hack for privacy is using the App Privacy Report to see which apps are accessing your data.
The Private Investigator for Your Phone
The App Privacy Report is like hiring a discreet private investigator to follow your apps around and give you a detailed report. This report will show you, in plain English, which apps have been accessing your location, your camera, and your microphone. More importantly, it shows you which shadowy, third-party “data brokers” those apps have been secretly talking to in the middle of the night. It is the single most powerful tool for shining a bright, revealing light on the often-invisible world of app tracking.
I’m just going to say it: The Voice Memos app is an underrated tool for journalists, students, and musicians.
The High-Fidelity Notebook
The Voice Memos app is not just for leaving yourself a quick reminder. It’s a surprisingly powerful, high-fidelity audio recorder that is hiding in plain sight. It records uncompressed, broadcast-quality audio that is perfect for recording a lecture you can review later, capturing an interview for an article, or even laying down a quick musical idea for a new song. With its built-in editing and transcription features, it’s a professional-grade tool that is far more than just a simple dictaphone.
The reason you have so many duplicate contacts is because you haven’t used the “Merge Duplicates” feature.
The Digital Declutterer for Your Address Book
Over the years, your address book can become a messy closet filled with duplicate and triplicate entries for the same person. The Contacts app has a magical, one-tap “declutter” button. At the top of your contacts list, it will tell you if it has found any duplicates. Tapping this button will allow it to intelligently find all the separate cards for a single person and merge them into one single, clean, and complete contact card. It’s a deeply satisfying way to instantly bring order to your digital address book.
If you’re still waking up to a jarring alarm, you’re losing the gentle wake-up of the “Bedtime” feature with its pleasant sounds.
The Gentle Sunrise vs. The Blaring Fire Alarm
Setting a standard, blaring alarm is like being woken up by a sudden fire drill every single morning. It’s a stressful and unpleasant way to start your day. The “Bedtime” or “Sleep” schedule feature is like having a gentle, simulated sunrise in your bedroom. It can slowly bring you out of sleep with a collection of beautiful, melodic sounds that gradually increase in volume. It transforms the jarring act of waking up from a daily shock into a peaceful and much more civilized ritual.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the iPhone lacks “pro” features.
The Hidden Professional Toolshed
The iPhone’s simple appearance leads to the lie that it’s a “basic” device. This is like looking at a beautifully designed, minimalist house and assuming it doesn’t have a professional-grade workshop in the basement. Hidden within the iPhone is a powerful toolshed of “pro” features: it can shoot in a professional RAW photo format, it can record in the Dolby Vision HDR video standard used by Hollywood, and it has a studio-quality audio recorder. The tools are there; they are just elegantly integrated, not boastfully displayed.
I wish I knew I could “lock” a note in the Notes app to protect sensitive information.
The Safe Inside Your Filing Cabinet
Your Notes app is like a great filing cabinet for your life. But some of the files in that cabinet are much more sensitive than others—things like passwords, financial information, or private journal entries. You can “lock” an individual note. This is like taking one of those sensitive files and putting it inside a small, heavy-duty safe within the filing cabinet. The note can only be opened with your Face ID or a separate password, keeping your most valuable secrets protected even if someone gets access to your unlocked phone.
99% of users don’t know they can turn a Live Photo into a long exposure shot.
The Silky Waterfall in Your Pocket
A long exposure photograph is a beautiful, artistic effect that can turn a raging waterfall into a silky, ethereal blur. This used to require a big, expensive camera and a tripod. But it’s secretly built into your iPhone. If you take a “Live Photo” of moving water or moving traffic, you can swipe up on the photo and choose the “Long Exposure” effect. Your phone will intelligently analyze the tiny video clip and magically blend it into a single, stunning, and professional-looking long exposure shot.
This one small action of swiping down on a photo will reveal all of its metadata, including where it was taken.
The Story on the Back of the Photograph
In the old days, a photograph was just an image. Now, every photo you take has a rich, invisible story written on its back. This is “metadata.” By simply swiping up (or tapping the ‘i’ icon) on any photo in your library, you can reveal this story. You can see the exact date, time, and location on a map where it was taken. You can also see the camera settings that were used, like the aperture and shutter speed. It’s a fascinating look behind the curtain of every single one of your memories.
Use Screen Sharing via FaceTime to help your parents troubleshoot their iPhone from anywhere.
The ‘Let Me Drive’ Button for Your Parents’ Phone
Trying to troubleshoot a tech problem with a family member over the phone is a special kind of nightmare. Screen Sharing on FaceTime is the ultimate “peace-keeping” tool. While on a FaceTime call, they can tap a button that lets you see their screen, live, on your phone. You can then guide them, “Okay, now tap on the green button in the top corner,” because you can see exactly what they are seeing. It’s an incredibly useful feature that can turn a frustrating, hour-long ordeal into a simple, two-minute fix.
Stop calling customer service numbers. Do use the Business Chat feature in Messages when available.
The Text Thread vs. The On-Hold Music
Calling a customer service number is like being put in a waiting room with terrible, repetitive hold music. Business Chat in iMessage is a quiet, asynchronous text message thread with a customer service agent. You can send your message, put your phone down, and go about your day. When the agent replies, you’ll get a notification, and you can reply at your convenience. It turns a frustrating, time-wasting, real-time phone call into a calm and efficient conversation that respects your time.
Stop sending boring text. Do use the screen effects like “send with lasers” in iMessage.
The Greeting Card vs. The Post-it Note
Sending a plain text message is like leaving a simple Post-it note. It gets the information across, but it’s bland and has no personality. iMessage effects are like turning that Post-it into a full-blown greeting card. By long-pressing the send button, you can choose to send your message with a shower of confetti, a burst of balloons, or even a full-screen laser light show. It transforms a simple message from a flat piece of information into a fun, memorable, and visually delightful experience for the person receiving it.
The #1 secret for finding a lost note is that you can browse your “Recently Deleted” notes folder.
The Digital ‘Recycle Bin’ for Your Thoughts
Accidentally deleting an important note can be a moment of pure panic. But your Notes app has a secret safety net. It’s like a digital “recycle bin” or a “lost and found” for your thoughts. When you delete a note, it isn’t gone forever right away. It’s moved to a special “Recently Deleted” folder where it will sit for 30 days before it’s permanently erased. This gives you a generous window of time to go into that folder and rescue a brilliant idea you thought was lost forever.
I’m just going to say it: You can use your AirPods as a remote microphone with the “Live Listen” feature.
The Secret Agent’s Listening Device
The “Live Listen” feature is a powerful accessibility tool that is straight out of a spy movie. You can turn it on, place your iPhone somewhere in a room, and then walk into another room with your AirPods in. Your iPhone will act as a powerful, remote microphone, streaming the audio of what it’s hearing directly and wirelessly to your ears. While it’s designed to help people hear conversations in a noisy room, it is, for all intents and purposes, a secret agent’s listening device that is hidden in your phone.
The reason your apps are updating over cellular is because you haven’t disabled that option in the App Store settings.
The Leaky Faucet on Your Data Plan
Automatic app updates are great, but if they are happening over your cellular connection, it’s like having a small, invisible leaky faucet that is constantly dripping away your expensive monthly data allowance. In your App Store settings, you can find the master valve for this faucet. By telling your phone to only perform these large updates when it’s connected to the free, unlimited water supply of Wi-Fi, you can fix the leak and ensure that your precious cellular data is saved for when you actually need it.
If you’re still manually entering flight information into your calendar, you’re losing the automatic detection in Mail.
The Butler Who Reads Your Itinerary
Manually typing your flight number, departure time, and confirmation code into your calendar is a tedious chore. Your iPhone has an intelligent butler built into its Mail app. When an airline sends you a confirmation email, the butler will read it, understand that it’s a flight itinerary, and then proactively suggest, “Sir, shall I add this to your calendar?” With a single tap, it will create a perfect, detailed calendar event for you, complete with flight numbers and airport information. It’s a moment of pure, time-saving automation.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you know your iPhone inside and out.
The Tourist in a City You’ve Lived in for Years
Thinking you know your iPhone completely is like being a tourist who has only ever visited the main square of a huge, ancient city. You might know the famous landmarks very well, but you are completely unaware of the thousands of hidden alleyways, secret gardens, and amazing local restaurants that are just waiting to be discovered off the beaten path. No matter how long you’ve “lived” with your iPhone, there are always new, surprising, and delightful secrets to uncover if you’re just willing to explore.
I wish I knew about the “Smart Invert” colors feature for a dark mode experience in apps that don’t support it.
The ‘Dark Mode’ for the Whole World
Smart Invert is the clever older brother of the chaotic “Classic Invert.” It’s a powerful accessibility tool that acts like a universal dark mode. When you turn it on, it reverses the colors of the interface, turning white backgrounds black and black text white. But here’s the smart part: it’s intelligent enough to not invert things like images, media, and apps that already have a dark mode. It’s a fantastic way to get a comfortable, dark-mode-like experience across your entire phone, even in apps that haven’t been updated yet.
99% of users don’t know they can copy the subject of a photo (like a person or pet) and paste it as a sticker in Messages.
The Magical, Digital Scissors
This feature is like having a pair of magical, intelligent scissors built into your Photos app. You can open any picture, and then simply press and hold on the main subject—like your friend, your dog, or a statue. The phone will instantly and perfectly “cut out” the subject from its background. You can then drag this perfect, background-free cutout and drop it into a message, where it becomes a custom, personal sticker. It’s a stunningly powerful and fun editing tool that most people have no idea exists.
This one small habit of using the search bar in Messages will save you from endless scrolling.
The Personal Archivist for Your Chats
A long message thread is like a massive, unorganized archive of your relationship with someone. Trying to find that one address or link they sent you six months ago is like digging through thousands of dusty boxes. The search bar within each conversation is like having a personal archivist. You can simply type a keyword—”address,” “password,” or “restaurant”—and the archivist will instantly sift through years of history and present you with every single message that contains that word. It turns your chaotic chat history into a perfectly searchable database.
Use the Health app to track your medications, not just your steps.
The Smart Pillbox for Your Pocket
The Health app is not just a fitness tracker; it’s a powerful and private health companion. Its medication tracking feature is like a brilliant, smart pillbox. You can enter all your medications and supplements, and it will send you a discreet, private reminder when it’s time to take each one. It will also warn you about any potentially dangerous interactions between them. It’s a serious, powerful, and potentially life-saving tool for managing your health that is hiding in an app you probably thought was just for counting your steps.
Stop struggling to select text. Do a double tap to select a word and a triple tap to select a paragraph.
The Secret Handshake for Selecting Text
Trying to precisely select a word or a paragraph with the little drag handles is a clumsy and frustrating experience. There is a secret, much faster handshake. A quick double-tap on any word will instantly and perfectly select just that word. A quick triple-tap will instantly select the entire paragraph it’s in. It’s a simple, reliable, and lightning-fast set of gestures that will completely change the way you interact with text, turning a frustrating chore into an effortless action.
Stop ignoring the “Shared with You” sections in apps like Photos and Music. Do use them to find what your friends have sent you.
The Personal ‘Best Of’ Playlist from Your Friends
When friends send you links to songs, articles, and photos through Messages, they often get buried and forgotten in the conversation. The “Shared with You” feature is like a personal assistant who gathers all these recommendations and organizes them for you. It creates a special “playlist” in your Music app of all the songs your friends have sent you, and a special “album” in your Photos app. It’s a brilliant way to ensure that you never lose a great recommendation in the endless scroll of a chat.
The #1 hack for a quiet environment is using the noise detection feature on your Apple Watch.
The Sound Meter on Your Wrist
Your Apple Watch is not just listening for your voice; it’s listening to the world around you. The Noise app is like a sophisticated sound level meter that is constantly, silently monitoring your environment. If the noise level around you—at a concert, a construction site, or a loud bar—reaches a level that could be damaging to your hearing over time, your watch will give you a gentle, discreet tap on the wrist. It’s a powerful, proactive health feature that acts as a silent guardian for one of your most precious senses.
I’m just going to say it: The built-in password manager in iOS is good enough for most people.
The Bank’s Free, Secure Safe Deposit Box
Dedicated password managers are like hiring a high-security Brinks truck to manage your valuables. They are powerful and have lots of features. The built-in iCloud Keychain is like the free, incredibly secure, and perfectly convenient safe deposit box that comes with your bank account. For 99% of people, that bank vault is more than secure enough. It seamlessly integrates with your devices, it’s protected by your Face ID, and it does the fundamental job of creating and remembering strong, unique passwords with flawless, simple execution.
The reason your Safari has so many tabs open is because you haven’t set them to close automatically.
The Self-Cleaning Kitchen
Leaving your Safari tabs open forever is like leaving every single dish you’ve ever used out on the kitchen counter. It becomes a cluttered, overwhelming mess. In your Safari settings, there is a magical “self-cleaning” mode. You can tell your phone to automatically wash and put away any “dishes” (tabs) that you haven’t used in a day, a week, or a month. It’s a brilliant, set-it-and-forget-it feature that keeps your digital workspace clean and tidy without you ever having to think about it.
If you’re still using a third-party app to identify music, you’re not using the built-in Shazam feature.
The Music Expert Who Lives in Your House
Using a separate app like Shazam to identify music is like having to call a music expert on the phone every time you hear a song you like. It works, but it’s an extra step. Apple has bought Shazam and built that expert directly into your house’s intercom system. By adding the Shazam button to your Control Center, you have instant, one-tap access to that expert’s brain. You don’t need to call anyone; the expert is already there, living silently and efficiently inside your phone, waiting to be asked.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that hidden features are just gimmicks.
The Secret Tool in the Swiss Army Knife
A hidden feature is not a gimmick; it’s a specialized tool. A Swiss Army knife is full of them. You might not use the tiny screwdriver or the can opener every single day, but when you are in a situation where you need that specific tool, it is not a gimmick; it is a lifesaver. The iPhone is the ultimate Swiss Army knife. Features like the document scanner or the background sounds are not gimmicks; they are powerful, specialized tools that, in the right moment, can be the perfect solution to a real-world problem.
I wish I knew I could use my iPhone to check the battery level of connected Bluetooth devices.
The Fuel Gauge for All Your Gadgets
Your iPhone can act as a universal fuel gauge for almost any modern Bluetooth device you connect to it. If you add the Batteries widget to your Today View or Home Screen, it will not only show you the charge of your iPhone and your AirPods, but it will also often show you the remaining battery life of your connected Bluetooth speaker, your headphones, or even your game controller. It’s a fantastic, centralized dashboard that lets you see when any of your connected gadgets need to be refueled.
99% of users don’t know they can tap the time at the top of the screen in any app to instantly scroll to the top.
The Elevator to the Top Floor
Scrolling all the way back to the top of a long webpage or social media feed is like taking the stairs in a skyscraper. It’s a long, tedious journey for your thumb. Tapping the very top of your screen, right on the clock, is like stepping into a high-speed elevator that takes you directly to the top floor in less than a second. It’s a simple, elegant shortcut that has been a core part of the iPhone since the beginning, saving you from endless, repetitive swiping and instantly returning you to the beginning.
This one small action of setting up your Medical ID will provide life-saving information to first responders.
The Emergency Bracelet on Your Wrist
If you had a serious medical condition, you might wear a bracelet that lists your allergies or emergency contacts. This lets paramedics help you even if you’re unable to speak. Your iPhone’s Medical ID is a digital version of that bracelet. First responders are trained to look for it on your lock screen. They can see your vital health information and who to call without needing your passcode. Setting it up takes two minutes, but it could be the most important information on your phone in a crisis, providing a voice for you when you need it most.
Use the “Print to PDF” feature in the share sheet, not a third-party app, to create a PDF from anything.
The Universal ‘Save as File’ Button
On a computer, you can “print” almost anything to a PDF file. The share sheet on your iPhone has a hidden version of this power. Imagine you’re looking at a webpage, an email, or a photo. You tap the Share button, and among the options is one that looks like a “Print” button. If you select it and then “pinch out” or long-press on the preview, the entire item instantly transforms into a clean, shareable PDF. It’s a universal “Save as PDF” button that’s been hiding in plain sight, ready to capture anything.
Stop forwarding calls to voicemail. Do use the “Remind Me Later” feature when you decline a call.
The Butler vs. The Answering Machine
Sending a call straight to voicemail is like telling your answering machine to take a message. You might forget to check it. When you decline a call, you get a “Remind Me Later” option. This is like telling your personal butler, “Jeeves, I can’t talk to this person right now, but please do remind me to call them back in an hour.” Your phone will then create a proper, unmissable reminder for you, ensuring that you never let an important call fall through the cracks. It’s a proactive assistant, not a passive machine.
Stop trying to remember what that icon in the status bar means. Do look it up on Apple’s support site.
The ‘Dashboard Light’ Manual for Your Phone
When a strange, unfamiliar warning light illuminates on your car’s dashboard, you don’t just guess what it means. You pull out the owner’s manual. Your iPhone’s status bar is its dashboard, full of symbols for things like Focus Modes, network activity, and location services. Apple’s support website is the official, easy-to-read owner’s manual. A quick search for “iPhone status icons” will give you a perfect, visual guide that explains what every single symbol means, demystifying the secret language of your phone’s dashboard.
The #1 secret for sharing screenshots is to tap the thumbnail, mark it up, and send it without ever saving it to your photos.
The Disposable Polaroid
After you take a screenshot, the small thumbnail that appears in the corner is a disposable, in-the-moment Polaroid. If you tap it, you can instantly mark it up—draw an arrow, circle something, or add text—and then immediately share it. The secret is the “Done” button. After you send it, you can choose “Delete Screenshot.” This entire workflow—capture, edit, share, and delete—happens in seconds, without the screenshot ever being saved to your camera roll. It prevents your beautiful photo library from being cluttered with one-time-use images.
I’m just going to say it: The ability to search for text within your photos is one of the most powerful features Apple has ever released.
The Librarian Who Can Read Pictures
Imagine your photo library is a vast collection of books, but some of them are just pictures of pages, not actual text. The search bar in the Photos app is like a magical librarian who has learned to read the content of those pictures. You can search for the word “Caution,” and it will find a photo you took of a street sign. You can search for “Flour,” and it will find a picture of a recipe in a cookbook. It transforms your photo library from a simple collection of images into a powerful, searchable database of your visual life.
The reason you can’t hear your podcasts clearly is because you haven’t enabled the “Spoken Word” EQ setting.
The ‘Talk Radio’ Button on Your Stereo
Your car’s stereo often has a special button or setting for “talk radio.” When you press it, it dials down the booming bass and boosts the frequencies of the human voice, making conversations crystal clear. Your iPhone has this exact same secret button, but for your headphones. In your Music EQ settings, there is a “Spoken Word” option. Turning this on when you listen to podcasts or audiobooks will make the host’s voice dramatically clearer, crisper, and easier to understand, especially in a noisy environment.
If you’re still typing “happy birthday” on a contact’s card, you’re losing the automatic calendar event creation.
The Butler Who Reads Your Address Book
Manually adding a friend’s birthday to your calendar is a chore. There’s a smarter way. If you edit your friend’s contact card and add their birthday there, it’s like writing it in a special, magical address book. Your digital butler (Siri and the Calendar) will automatically read this address book every single year and create a recurring, all-day event on your calendar for that person’s birthday. It’s a simple, set-it-once-and-forget-it feature that ensures you never miss an important day again.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that Apple doesn’t innovate anymore.
The Silent, Invisible Engine Upgrades
People who say Apple doesn’t innovate anymore are like car critics who only look at the paint job. They are looking for flashy, cosmetic redesigns. But the most profound innovation often happens under the hood, silently and invisibly. The custom-designed silicon chips that power the iPhone are years ahead of the competition. The constant, massive leaps in camera science, the development of the Taptic Engine, the intricate privacy architecture—these are not flashy paint jobs; they are fundamental, revolutionary upgrades to the very engine of personal computing.
I wish I knew that holding the camera button would start recording a QuickTake video.
The ‘Record’ Button Hiding in Plain Sight
You’re taking photos of a perfect, fleeting moment, and you suddenly wish you were recording a video instead. By the time you switch modes, the moment is gone. The camera’s shutter button has a secret, second function. If you press and hold it, it will instantly start recording a video, without you ever having to switch modes. When you let go, it stops. It’s a brilliant feature that lets you seamlessly transition from photographer to videographer, ensuring you capture the perfect memory, no matter how it unfolds.
99% of users don’t know they can use the Files app to connect to a server at their work or home.
The Secret Tunnel to Your Office Computer
The Files app is not just for iCloud; it’s like a secret tunneling machine. It has a hidden feature that allows you to connect directly to an SMB server, which is the type of shared network drive that is common in many office environments or on a home network. This means you can be sitting in a coffee shop and have full access to the shared files on your work computer, right from your iPhone. It’s a powerful, pro-level feature that turns your phone into a true mobile workstation.
This one small action of exploring the Accessibility settings will reveal a treasure trove of powerful, hidden features.
The Secret ‘Treasure Chest’ in the Castle
The Accessibility menu in Settings is not just for people with disabilities. It is a secret, unlocked treasure chest in the middle of the Apple castle, but most people walk right past it, thinking it’s not for them. Inside this chest is a dazzling collection of powerful, magical items that can make the iPhone better for everyone: a sound machine, a magnifying glass, a secret button on the back of the phone, and dozens of other powerful customization tools. It is the single most underrated and feature-rich part of the entire operating system.
Use your iPhone to its full potential, not just as a device for social media and texting.
The Supercomputer You Use as a Calculator
Your iPhone is a literal supercomputer. It has more processing power than the machines that sent astronauts to the moon. Using it only for social media and texting is like owning the world’s most advanced, powerful supercomputer and using it only as a simple, four-function calculator. You are ignoring 99% of its incredible potential. By exploring its hidden features, its creative capabilities, and its powerful productivity tools, you can transform it from a simple communication device into a genuine tool for learning, creating, and improving your life.