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iPhone: iOS Tips

Here are known tricks to make your life bit easier.

  • Insert an Email Attachment:
    Most people don't realize they can access additional options hidden within the Mail app. When composing an email, if you tap and hold the empty content area, a set of options will pop up. If you press with t arrrow pointing right in the options bar, it will give you two additional options: to insert a photo or video, or to increase or decrease the email quote level. To insert a photo or video, simply tap on the option, and it will take you to the Photo app. Note that, in order to email document attachments like PDFs, you will need to email them from iBooks or any other program that can open that type of doc.

    Email Attachment

  • Speak:
    When Siri talk back, it mostly says whatever it wants to say. Did you know you can make Siri say whatever you want it to say? This feature is under the Accessibility menu, and you can activate it by opening Settings → General → Accessibility → Speak Selection and turning it On. You can evern set the speaking speed, along with the type of English dialect, such as British, Autralian, Irish, or South African.

  • Tweet From the Notification Center:
    If you are not yet using Twitter, this little feature might ease you into it. Once you have signed up for Twitter, open Settings → Twitter and tap Add Account. Adding your Twitter account will make it show up as an option in your Notification Center. To Tweet, open the Notification Center by swiping down from the top of the Home screen, and tap on the field that says, 'Tap to Tweet'. If you have added more than one account, you can switch users by ping the From field. If you are a fan of the Notification Center, this feature could get you tweeting in no time.

    Tweet from Notification Center

  • Create Events Faster:
    The Calendar app is essential for keeping track of my day-to-day activities. I can schedule events with a few quick taps and see what is coming up in the day, week, or month at a glance. Customizing events always felt cumbersome to me. Once you are in the Calendar app, flip your iPhone or iPad to landscape mode to open the weekly view. To create an event, simply tap and hold anywhere on the screen until the prompt comes up to name the event. Then, tap and hold to modify the date and time, and drag the event to the day and time you want.

  • Reverse Panorama:
    You probably know that you can take panoramic photos from left to right, but dod you know your can also take them from right to left? We don't exactly know when this could come in handy-perhaps while taking pix of a marathon where you see runners sprinting from right to left? Regardless, it is a little feature most would have missed. To activate it, open Camera → Options → Panorama and tap the arrow in the middle of the screen to reverse panorama.

    Reverse Panorama

  • Maps app and Google Maps:
    Both Apple's built-in Maps app and Google Maps have nifty features that let you pinch and zoom your way to a virtual air tour of any city in the world. Unfortunately, sometimes the spinning and flying can get disorienting, and before you know it, you don't know which way is up. To quickly reset your North, simply tap the small compass on the upper-right corner of the screen, and it will reset the screen so that North reassuringly points up once again.

  • Save Online Photos:
    If you are browsing the web with Safari and want to save a phto from article or webpage, simply tap and hold the photo and select Save images, it will save directly to your Camera Roll.

  • Using Siri to Get Directions from Google Maps:
    When you ask Siri for directions, it will automatically use Apple Maps as the default app for turn-by-turn directions. If you want to use Google Maps or some other navigation app instead, you can cleverly bypass Apple's default by adding the phrase "via transit" to your query. For example, if you say "Siri, give me directions to Washington," Siri will pull up Apple Maps and start guiding you. But if you say, "Give me directions to Washington City via transit," Siri will pupp up a list of apps that include transit directions to the location mentioned, and if you have already downloaded Google Maps, it will show up at the top of the pile.

    Siri to Get Directions