“How long have you been an iPhone user? A year? Three years? Five years? Did you buy the original iPhone all the way back in 2007 like we did?” Zach Epstein reports for BGR. “Whatever the case, and however long you’ve been an iPhone user, we can promise you with absolute certainty that there are features buried in your smartphone that you had no idea were there. It’s completely unavoidable; there are so many features baked into iOS 10 these days, that it would be impossible to remember all of them.”
“Some of the lesser-known features in iOS 10 that you’re unaware of are probably useless to you, so it doesn’t matter if they stay hidden forever,” Epstein reports. “But other features you’re currently unaware of could completely change the way you use your iPhone, and that’s why we share hidden iOS features as often as we can here on BGR. Today, we came across a nifty little resource with some secret iPhone features that only power users know about for the most part, and we would be remiss if we didn’t share it with you.”
“Reddit user ‘slidescream2013’ took to the site on Wednesday to ask a simple question of the folks in the Apple subreddit. He or she recently purchased a new iPhone 7 Plus, and while it’s unclear if a jump was made from another platform, the user was looking for good examples of ‘little features or tweaks that aren’t super obvious or featured,'” Epstein reports. “The resulting tips were a good mix of key iPhone features that less savvy users are typically unaware of, and lesser-known features that only power users typically know about.”
More info and link to the Reddit thread in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There are some good ones in there, so check it out.
We’ve explained how to invoke trackpad mode in iOS so many times that we’ve lost count. (Touch two fingers down on the keyboard on non-3D Touch devices; press firmly on the keyboard on 3D Touch iPhones.)
A few gems here, but one has to sort through a lot of stuff to get there. Also needless to say not all features work on all hardware.
So my question is, why does learning the features of an Apple device have to be so complicated?
It would be helpful if some entity actually published a complete guide for Apple products so one actually could learn all the features for his particular model. I wonder, who could possibly be the right one to do it? MDN? Reddit? No and no. APPLE needs to get off its increasingly fat duff and publish useful guides, help menus, and tutorials. The fact that 3rd parties are publishing lists of stuff nobody knows about shows just how lazy Apple has gotten in training people to get the most out of its products.
Part of my disenchantment with Apple is that 20 years ago, Apple products came with a start guide, the help menu was pretty good, and the Knowledge Base had answers for deep questions. Easy peasy. Go to the Apple website today and finding answers is harder than ever.
Oh, I know Apple still publishes guides. Let’s look at the iPhone for one example: https://help.apple.com/iphone/9
So let’s say you want to learn how to use 3D touch to adjust the intensity of the flashlight. Ha! Good luck. Search for “flashlight” and one result appears: “Take photos and videos”. Nothing at all about the functionality of Apple’s flashlight.
So where does the user go for questions, to the Apple support forums? Tons of problems and exasperated people, but very little official Apple documentation or support.
It seems Apple wants you to buy AppleCare now. That’s what’s different about Apple. Today it’s all about the money. Every new OS release, every time Apple shaves another millimeter off its hardware, the value to the user doesn’t increase. But the complexity and problems do.
👍👍
Agree. Where are the David Pogue manuals? David, are you out there?
Apple is not lazy as you claim. They do not provide documentation because they believe in the concept ‘it’s so easy to use, one does not need a manual”. But I do share in your frustration of lacking documentation for the many features that are not obvious.
Well Apple’s productivity isn’t impressing me. There is no excuse for Apple to not list all of its product features in its manuals, and proactively provide those manuals to users who purchase their products. Forcing people to spend hours searching on the internet is poor customer service.
Hate to admit it, but there is an awful lot of truth to what you said.
Apple used to be about making the best products, and a great user experience.
It does seem to be more about the money now. Which is a shame.
Go to the iBooks app –> iBooks store –> search for “iPhone”. You’ll find a free iBook on how to use your iPhone — just be sure to pick the current iOS version.
Mike has a point. The Apple manuals are far from complete.
Trackpad mode doesn’t work with 3rd party keyboards.
One useful thing I found out that can be a substitute for Night Shift for users of iPhone 5 and below: Color filter can do nearly the same thing, and once set, you can toggle it on/off through the triple-Home list of Accessibility options.
Trackpad available now on Gboard for iOS. Do a web search to find out if the statement you want to make is still true, or not.
In this case your info about no track pad on third party keyboards is completely and utterly out of date.
At least for Gboard
My statement is still 100%, completely and utterly true. Even for GBoard.
I said “Trackpad mode doesn’t work with 3rd party keyboards.” Meaning there’s no Trackpad mode API accessible to 3rd party keyboards. Just like there’s apparently no voice dictation API accessible to 3rd party keyboards.
I did NOT say “3rd party keyboards can’t mimic Trackpad mode”, which is what Google has done with GBoard.
The very first clue was that GBoard’s trackpad wouldn’t let the cursor go up or down whole lines of text, only back and forth. It’ll eventually get to where you want it to go, and it’s not a bad implementation, but that doesn’t matter, I am right and you are wrong.