Your Apple device can do far more than you probably give it credit for. Beneath the intuitive surfaces of macOS and iOS lurks a plethora of hidden features that only reveal themselves to those curious enough to delve. Here we run you through our favourite secret features and time-saving tricks across Mac and iOS to help you get more out of your Apple products. For some of these to be effective, you must ensure that you are signed into the same Apple ID on all of your devices and are running the latest version of the operating system where possible.
01
Charge your iPhone quicker
If you think that your iPhone battery charge is insufficient for your needs then activate your Control Centre and tap on the icon in the top-left corner to initiate Airplane mode. In this state, your iPhone will use less battery power and can be charged quicker. A quick top-up can make all the difference.
02 Use Spotlight as a calculator
Macs, as we know, have a built-in Calculator app, but if you want to save a little time, just bring up your Mac’s Spotlight (cmd+spacebar) and type your sum straight into the search field. The answer will appear as the main search result. As you will discover, you can use Spotlight for much more, too…
03 Shake to undo
There is a handy way to undo typos instantly in iOS. Just go to Settings>Accessibility>Touch and turn on ‘Shake to Undo’ then, whenever you make a mistake when typing, just shake your device to undo it.
04
Create custom vibrations
Make it easy to tell exactly who is calling you without looking at your iPhone by opening Contacts and tapping on a name. Scroll down to ‘Ringtone’ and set a custom tone for that person, but you can also go one step further by tapping Vibration>Create New Vibration and then tapping out a custom vibration pattern. Once done, you will be able to tell who is calling, even if your phone is set to silent.
05 Switch apps using 3D Touch
Rather than double-tapping the Home button to bring up your iOS app switcher, simply press down on the left side of your screen and swipe to the right. By doing this you will be able to quickly cycle through your various open apps one at a time. Press and release the left side to access your app switcher.
06 Get help with entering URLs
If you would like to save time typing web addresses into Safari on your iPhone or iPad then don’t bother typing the second-level domain name (.com, .co.uk, etc). Just hold down the ‘.’ full stop button on the iOS keyboard and you will be presented with a menu of the most popular domain extensions.
07
Turn on Reachability
To make your iPhone easier to use one-handed, go to Settings> Accessibility>Touch and then turn on ‘Reachability’. Particularly useful if you have a large iPhone and/or small hands, Reachability brings the content at top of the display to within easy reach at the bottom of the screen. To activate it, just lightly tap the Home button twice and everything will instantly shift downwards. To do this on an iPhone X, swipe down on the gesture bar at the bottom of the screen.
08 Access Level
Open the Measure app on your iPhone and tap ‘Level’ to access a handy spirit level that you can use to put up shelves, or something.
09 Turn your iOS keyboard into a trackpad
If you want to jump to a specific part of a typed document, web address, etc, on your iOS device then you can turn the keyboard into a neat trackpad to make repositioning your cursor easy. Just press and hold on the keyboard and then slide your finger around.
10 Calculate exchange rates
Back to your Mac’s Spotlight, you can also use this to quickly work out the current exchange rates - ideal if you are planning a holiday. Simply type in the currency value that you would like converted (eg: $100 or 100USD) and then the currency you would like it converted into, eg: ‘£50 in USD’.
11
Fill out online forms easier
When filling in forms and entering details into webpages on your Mac, you can use the tab key to cycle through the input boxes. However, this often skips dropdown menus such as date selections and suchlike. To get around this, go to System Preferences>Keyboard>Shortcuts and then place a tick in the box marked ‘Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls’.
CAPTURING YOUR SCREEN ON iOS
12 Taking screenshots
To take a screenshot on or iPad, press the Home and Side buttons simultaneously. On an iPhone X or later, you can take a screenshot by pressing the Volume Up and Side button simultaneously. You will hear a shutter sound to confirm.
13 Instantly mark up screenshots
Whenever you take a on iOS, a small thumbnail of the screen will appear in the lower-left corner. Tap on this thumbnail and you will instantly enter Markup mode whereby you can make notes and annotations before sharing the image.
14 Hide the thumbnails