iPhone’s may not be as easily customization, but when it comes to features, they are at-standard with their Android counterparts. With each new iOS update, Apple pushes out a group of awesome new features and tricks, some of which they show off at their Keynote, and others, they leave for the users to find all alone. So, if you’re searching for some unknown iPhone features to help you use your device better.
1.Pin Screen and Disable Access to Specific Parts of an App
Much like the screen pinning that we see on Android devices, iPhone’s come with their own Guided Access, that you can use to pin a specific app on the iPhone’s screen. This is mainly useful, when you want to give your iPhone to another person, to take a look at some app, and you don’t need them to be able to look into other data on your phone. To use Guided Access, simply follow the steps below:
• First, enable Guided Access by going to “Settings -> General -> Accessibility“.
• Here, scroll down and tap on “Guided Access“, and toggle the Guided Access switch to ON. You should also set up a Pass code for Guided Access.
• Go to the app that you want to pin to the screen. Now, triple click the home button on your iPhone to start Guided Access.
• To disable access to specific parts of the app, you can simply draw circles, or boxes around the UI elements that you don’t want the person to be able to tap on, and they will show up with a mask.
[ad type=”banner”] • You can also tap on “Options” in the Guided Access screen, to allow (or not) the person to use the sleep/wake button, volume keys, touch, and a lot more.
If you need to give your phone to another person let them see something in an app, you can use Guided Access to not allow them to use any other apps on your phone, or to browse through your personal data.
2. Use 3D Touch to Prioritize App Downloads
This feature comes in extremely convenient while downloading multiple apps at the same time. You can use this to prioritize a particular app to download first, so that it is ready to use faster. To do this, simply 3D Touch on the downloading app, and select “Prioritize Download“.
The iPhone makes downloading that particular app, so it downloads faster than the other apps. This can come in very convenient if you’ve reset your iPhone, and are downloading all of your apps again.
3. Have Siri Announce Caller Names
This feature very useful, especially while you are driving. With this feature enabled, whenever you get a call, Siri will read out the name of the caller, and you don’t have to take the phone out of your pocket, just to check if it’s an important call. To enable this useful feature, just follow the steps below:
• Go to “Settings -> Phone“. Here, tap on “Announce Calls“
• Now, you can choose when you want Siri to announce the caller’s name.
4. Use Custom Numeric/Alphanumeric Pass codes
Recently Apple switched the default pass code length to 6 digits. Clearly, this adds a bit more security to your pass code, but it may still not be enough. Also, you may need to revert back to the old 4-digit pass code that you were previously familiar to using.
To do this, just follow the steps below:
• Go to Settings -> Touch ID & Pass code. Enter your current pass code, and then tap on “Change Pass code“
• Enter your current pass code again, and in the next screen, instead of entering a 6 digit pin, tap on “Pass code Options“
• You will now get three options. You can select “Custom Alphanumeric Code” if you need to set a pass code that is a combination of letters and numbers. You can choose “Custom Numeric Code“, if you need to set a pass code of a different length, then the default 6 digits. You can additionally tap on “4-Digit Numeric Code“, if you want to revert back to the old standard 4-digit pass code that you’re probably familiar to.
Alphanumeric pass codes are much more secure than numeric pass codes, as the number of possible combinations increases vastly.
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5. Use the iPhone Camera as a Magnifying Glass
Already You may be using the “zoom” feature that iOS comes with. It is an accessible feature that you can use to expand anything on your iPhone screen, and read it easily, without using glasses. With magnifier, you can use your iPhone’s camera as a magnifying glass. This will allow to read those extremely small writings on the back of product cartons, and etc.,
To use the magnifier, just follow the steps given below:
• Go to Settings -> General. Here, tap on “Accessibility“.
• Then, tap on “Magnifier“.Simply toggle the switch to on.
Now you can triple click on the home button, and you will be taken to a camera interface with a slider on the bottom that you can adjust to change the level of zoom. You can even click pictures in this interface, adjust the white balance, and much more.
6. Automatically Mark your Parking Location
iOS 10 is smart enough to know when you park your car, and automatically mark it with a pin on the map. This makes it easier for you to find your car when you’re trying to locate it, later. To be able to use this feature, you need a Car Play enabled car, or a car whose stereo supports Bluetooth. Enabling the feature is easy:
• Go to Settings -> Maps. Here, scroll down to the end, and enable the toggle next to “Show Parked Location “.
Now your iPhone will automatically remember where you parked your car, and you can see the marked location in Apple Maps. Unfortunately, you cannot use other map services, such as Google Maps.
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7. Hide Apps Using Restrictions
If you need to hide apps on your iPhone, you must have noticed that there’s no real option to do this. However, you can use this trick to hide apps on your iPhone. If you need to hide stock apps, you can really just delete them right off your iPhone, as iOS 10 doesn’t really delete them, as such, but only hides them away. You can get them back from the App Store, even if you’re offline.
If you want to hide third party apps, that’s more of a challenge, because there is no approach to hide specific apps. However, you can restrict apps by age, which will make your iPhone hide the apps that are not in the allowed age range. For example, if you want to hide Tinder on your iPhone, you can do this by following the steps below:
• First, go to the App Store, and look for Tinder. In the App Store listing, you will be able to see the age rating for the app. Tinder is rated 17+.
• Now, go to Settings -> General -> Restrictions.
• Here, tap on “Apps”, and tap on “12+“. This will hide apps that are rated 17+, which includes Tinder.
Go back to your home screen, and you will see that Tinder is no longer visible there. The catch with using this trick, is that if you have multiple apps that are rated 17+, they will all be hidden, even if you only wanted to hide just one of them.
8. Export Webpages to PDFs in Safari
There is a hidden option in Safari, that can gives chance you to export webpages to PDF files. This feature comes with accessible in a lot of situations where you want to save a particular webpage as a PDF file on your iPhone.
To enable this feature, just follow the below steps:
• Open the webpage you want to save as PDF in Safari. Tap on the “share” option, and select “Print” from the bottom row of options.
• In the Printer Options, pinch out on the page, and then tap on the “share” icon again.
• Here, you can select “Add To i Cloud Drive“, or on “Import with i Books” to save the PDF file on i Cloud Drive, or to directly add it to i Books.
9. Emergency SOS
This feature enabled on your iPhone, you can quickly click the sleep/wake button on your iPhone three times to automatically call emergency services, and send a message to your emergency contacts telling them your location.
To enable this feature, just follow the steps below:
• Go to Settings -> General -> Emergency SOS
• Enable the toggle next to “Click Sleep/Wake to Auto Call“, and choose whether you want to use three clicks, or five, to enable Emergency SOS.
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10. Create and Set Custom Vibrations for Contacts
You must have noted that your iPhone vibrates when you get a call. However, if you need to, you can change this vibration pattern for individual contacts. This can let you easily figure out who’s calling, simply from the way your phone vibrates. If you need to assign custom vibration patterns to specific contacts, simply follow the steps below:
• Go to Contacts, and select the contact you want to edit the vibration pattern for. Here, tap on “Edit”.
• Tap on “Ringtone “, and then on “Vibration “.
• Here you can select from some standard vibration patterns, or you can tap on “Create New Vibration“, to create your own vibration pattern. In the next screen, you can tap to create vibration patterns. Short taps register as short vibrations, and longer taps register as longer vibrations.
• Once you’re done, simply tap on “Save“, to save the vibration with a custom name, and that pattern will automatically be assigned to the contact.
