iPhone - Page 5 of 8

What to do if your iPhone 12 charges slowly

Thursday July 28, 2022 3:57 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

If you’ve ordered a new iPhone 12, we know the anticipation of getting it in your hands must be killing you, but don’t forget that the iPhone 12 doesn’t come with a charger in the box. You’ll want the best iPhone 12 charger you can find for the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. The cable that does come with the phone will be a USB-C to Lightning cable and you’ll also want a USB-C charger to go with it. If your iPhone 12 Pro charges slowly, don’t worry! There are tons of great charging options already out for the iPhone 12 and the best iPhone 12 chargers will have a USB-C port that will let you take advantage of fast charging.

iPhone 12 charging slowly? Fix

If your iPhone 12 is taking a long time to charge, get any of the following chargers.

Small, but mighty

:

Anker Nano iPhone Charger

Anker’s newest wall charger is specifically made with the iPhone 12 in mind. Its 20W of power will give your iPhone 12 the fastest charge it can handle, all while remaining in a small footprint, which means you can carry it anywhere you need to go.
$20 at Amazon

Keep it compact

:

AUKEY Omnia Mini 20W USB-C Charger

If you want to keep your chargers as small as possible, the Omnia Mini 20W USB-C Charger is the perfect fit. It’s just a tiny little cube that delivers lots of power (20W), meaning you can quickly charge your new iPhone 12, with a charger not much bigger than the standard 5W charger Apple used to ship.
From $15 at Amazon

Apple’s solution

:

20W USB-C Power Adapter

Apple obviously launched its own 20W charger for the launch of the iPhone 12. If you want to stick with Apple because you feel like it’s the safest bet, this is the USB-C charger to get for your iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro.
$19 at Apple

Over-powered for multiple devices

:

AUKEY Focus USB-C Charger

With a 30W USB-C port — which is more powerful than you really need — and a 12W USB-A port, the AUKEY Focus USB-C Charger is perfect for charging two devicessimultaneously. Charge your iPhone 12 really fast with the USB-C port, and then charge your Apple Watch with the USB-A port. It’s a win-win.
$16 at Amazon

Plenty of power x2

:

Anker 30W 2-Port Fast Charger

They say two ports are better than one, and when one port is a 30W USB-C, and the other is an 18W USB-A, it’s hard to disagree. If your iPhone 12 Pro charges slowly, the USB-C port on the Anker 30W 2-port fast charger is more than capable of juicing up your phone quickly, and the 18 W USB-A means your Apple Watch, iPad, or any other device will charge up fast as well.
$23 at Amazon
$24 at Walmart

Two fast-charging ports

:

RAVPower 30W 2-Port Fast Charger

If your iPhone 12 pro Max charges slowly and want lots of power, the RAVPower 30W 2-Port Fast Charger is a great option. Not only is the 30W USB-C port more than enough juice to quickly charge your iPhone 12, but the 18W USB-A port is plenty of power to charge other devices you may have!
$14 at Amazon

A little less power

:

CHOETECH 18W PD Fast Charger

Although it’s only 18W of power, you likely won’t notice much of a difference in charging speed, even though it’s a little less powerful than a 20W. If your iPhone 12 Pro charges slowly, the CHOETECH 18W PD Fast Charger is a great option if you’re looking for a USB-C charger for your iPhone 12.
From $14 at Amazon

Great for traveling

:

Native Union Smart Charger

The Native Union Smart Charger will sit flat against the wall when it’s plugged into a socket, making it perfect for tight space behind desks or hotel room tables. Its USB-A and USB-C ports both put out 18W, so your iPhone 12 will charge up quickly. Plus, it includes a UK and EU wall adapter, making it perfect for trips overseas.
$40 at Amazon
$40 at Walmart

Power is the key to fast-charging

Apple states that all models of the iPhone 12 can take advantage of fast charging, citing that each model can achieve a 50% charge in about 30 minutes. So if your iPhone 12 charges slowly, you need to make sure that the charger is 20W or more. Any less and fast charging doesn’t appear to work — although there is more than meets the eye to that situation. The best iPhone 12 chargers will give you that 20W power and let you charge up your phone regardless of which iPhone 12 case you choose to slap on your phone.

What about charging with MagSafe?

The MagSafe charger is a neat little Qi wireless charger that snaps nicely on the back of your iPhone 12; however, to use it to its full ability, you will want to pair it with a 20W charger.

The MagSafe charger can charge your iPhone 12 with 15W of power if you pair it with a 20W USB-C charger. Wireless charging is always a little less efficient than charging directly via the lightning port, but 15W charging through a wireless charger like MagSafe is pretty dang fast.

You’ll only get these speeds using a 20W charger, any less, and MagSafe will charge much, much slower.

So why even mention 18W chargers?

Officially, the iPhone 12 models can only fast charge connected to a 20W charger; however, in our own testing, and 18W charger had pretty similar results.

Our initial testing of charging an iPhone 12 using an 18W charger instead of a 20W charger shows that you can charge an iPhone 12 from 2% to 59% in about half an hour. This was using the 18W charger with a USB-C to Lightning cable directly plugged into the Lightning port on the iPhone 12.

So, while you may not be able to use MagSafe to its full potential, an 18W charger will likely yield similar results to a 20W when charging your iPhone 12 directly via the cable. There are many great 18W chargers out there, which is why we’ve chosen some for this list.

Bottom line: If your iPhone 12 charges slowly and want to make sure that you have the fastest charging speeds, no matter what on the iPhone 12, get a 20W charger — especially for MagSafe. But, if you’re going to charging your iPhone directly via a cable most of the time, an 18W charger likely won’t leave you waiting for much extra time.

Our recommendations

Our favorite iPhone 12 charger is the Anker Nano iPhone Charger. Due to its 20W power output, you’ll get the fast charging Apple is talking about, and its small design makes it easy to carry around in your bag, purse, or jacket pocket.

If you often travel, you may want to take a look at the Native Union Smart Charger. It comes with both U.S. and EU (and the U.K.) plugs, meaning you can charge up using USB-C in many more countries. Yes, it only puts out 18W of power, which means it won’t fast-charge the iPhone 12; however, it is will be faster than chargers with less output.

Lastly, it’s hard not to recommend the RAVPower 30W 2-Port Fast Charger due to just how useful and powerful it is. The 30W USB-C port is more power than you need to charge up your iPhone 12 as fast as possible, but the 18W USB-A port offers incredible charging speeds to other devices as well. If you want a charger to pull double duty for you, this is the one.

Tags: Battery, iPhone Tips

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iPhone 12 Pro Max Battery Drain Fast? Fix

Thursday July 28, 2022 3:57 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

This article explains how to fix iPhone 12 Pro Max battery drain issue and improve battery life.

iPhone 12 Pro Max is probably the best smartphone around in its price range. And there’s a good reason for it. If you just bought yourself a new iPhone 12 Pro Max, you may be wondering, “why is my iPhone 12 Pro Max battery draining so fast?”, “why is my iPhone 12 Pro Max dying so fast?”, or even wondering, “should i return the device and ask for a refund?” Before you start searching for the best iPhone charger and battery case on the internet, learn how to improve battery life on your iPhone 12 Pro Max.

How to fix iPhone 12 Pro Max battery drain issue

If you’re wondering, “why is my iPhone 12 Pro Max battery draining so fast?” the first thing you want to do is figure out whether or not you’re using your device differently. That could account for some of your iPhone 12 Pro Max battery problems, but if you’re confident it’s more than that, we’ll help you fix the new update problems and save that battery life. If you bought the iPhone 12 Pro Max and your battery is dying fast, read on to learn about 18 great tips to fix iPhone 12 Pro Max battery drain issues.

Without any further ado, let’s find out why your new iPhone 12 Pro Max is dying so fast and how to fix the issue!

1. Limit When and How Often Apps Access Your Location

The first thing you should do is to check your location settings to limit apps accessing your location for privacy reasons, but it can also be beneficial to your battery health. Follow these steps to access your Location Services settings:

Start the Settings app.
Tap Privacy.
Choose Location Services.
Review the list and edit settings by tapping on the name of each app in the list.

You have 4 possible choices for location settings for each app thanks to some updates introduced in iOS 13, though not all four choices will always be available for every app depending on what it does. You can select the following: Never, Ask Next Time, While Using the App, and Always.

Never will prevent an app from ever accessing your location, and unless there’s a specific need for an app to know where you are, such as a mapping app, setting location access to Never is the best choice.
Ask Next Time will prompt an app to ask you with a popup the next time that it wants your location, so you can temporarily approve it. With this setting, location access is off until expressly allowed via the popup.
While Using the App, as the name suggests, allows the app to detect your location only when the app is open and being actively used. If you close the app or switch over to another app, location access ends.
Always allows an app to have access to your location at all times, regardless of whether it’s open or closed. This will result in the most battery drain and should be limited to only the apps that you need the most.

Many apps will ask for location information that don’t really need it to function (for example, a banking app might want location access to show nearby ATMs, which is also available through entering a zip code), so clearing the cruft here will ensure no apps are accessing your location without express permission.

You can also turn off Location Services all together, but most people probably aren’t going to want to do so because it can interfere with apps like Maps.

2. Limit Apps Using Bluetooth

iOS offers a feature that lets you know when apps have requested Bluetooth access, and there are a surprising number of apps that want to use Bluetooth for things like location tracking with Bluetooth beacons or scanning for Chromecast devices.

This is a good list to review to make sure you don’t have a sneaky app in the background connecting to Bluetooth sources without your permission as that can strain battery. It’s totally fine to allow Bluetooth access to apps that need it for Bluetooth-enabled accessories, but nixing access for retail stores is probably a good idea. Follow these steps to access Bluetooth settings:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Privacy.
Choose Bluetooth.
From this list, shut off any app that doesn’t require a Bluetooth connection to work. It’s best to be liberal with the toggling off — if you disable access and then a feature within an app stops functioning properly, you can just turn Bluetooth back on.

Bluetooth can also be turned off completely, which can perhaps save a bit of battery life, but it’s not convenient for most users because Bluetooth is used for AirPods, Apple Watches, and other accessories.

3. Turn on Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode has been around for a few years now, and it’s the number one best setting to enable if you’re concerned about battery life. It cuts down on background activity like behind the scenes downloads and it lowers the brightness of your display after inactivity more quickly.

A popup to enable Low Power Mode will appear when battery life on the iPhone is at 20 percent, but you can enable it at any time through Control Center by tapping on the battery icon or ask Siri to turn it on. Alternatively, it’s available in the Settings app:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Battery.
Enable the Low Power Mode toggle.

With Low Power Mode turned on, your battery icon at the top of your iPhone will turn yellow, which lets you know when it’s active. Some people like to keep Low Power Mode on at all times, but know that it does need to be enabled regularly because it automatically turns off when the iPhone is charged.

4. Use WiFi Whenever Possible

WiFi uses less power than a cellular connection, so to maximize battery life, Apple recommends connecting to WiFi whenever possible. At home or work, for example, WiFi should be activated, saving cellular data and battery life.

5. Activate Airplane Mode in Low Signal Areas

When you’re in an area with no cellular coverage or a low signal, your iPhone is draining battery looking for a signal or trying to connect. If you’re experiencing poor cellular coverage, it’s a good idea to activate Airplane Mode since you probably can’t do much with low signal anyway.

Airplane Mode will prevent your iPhone from endlessly searching for a signal, saving the battery until you can get to a place with a solid connection.

6. Turn on optimized battery charging

To make sure your iPhone battery stays healthy longer, it’s recommended to turn on Optimized Battery Charging under the Battery Health section. Optimized Battery Charging allows the iPhone to learn your charging schedule so it can wait until you need it to charge past 80 percent.

For example, if you put your phone on the charger at night, the Optimized Battery Charging setting might hold the iPhone at an 80 percent charge, filling it up close to when you wake up to reduce battery aging.

Apple also recommends avoiding extreme temperatures to prevent permanent battery damage due to heat or cold, as well as removing certain cases when charging. If your iPhone gets warm while charging, it’s best to take off the case to keep your battery healthy for a longer period of time.

You can turn on optimize Battery Charging by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Battery.
Tap on Battery Health.
Turn on the switch next to Optimised Battery Charging

In the Battery Health section, there’s a listing for “Maximum Capacity,” which is a measurement of battery capacity relative to when it was new.

If the capacity is under 80 percent, it may be worth seeking out a battery replacement. Apple will replace a battery that is below 80 percent capacity under the one-year warranty plan or under AppleCare+ for free.

Otherwise, replacing the battery will cost between $49 and $69 depending on which iPhone you have.

7. Manage Apps That Are Draining Battery

If you find your iPhone battery maximum capacity dropping, you should check your apps. The iPhone tells you which apps are eating up the most battery so you can make sure nothing is secretly draining your battery without your knowledge. You can check your battery usage statistics by opening up the Settings app and tapping on the Battery section.

There are charts here that displays your battery level over the course of the last 24 hours or the last 10 days, as well as the apps that have consumed the most battery life. If there’s any app that you don’t need that seems to be consuming an excessive amount of battery, you can delete it.

For apps you do need, you can moderate how often you’re using the app to cut down on battery drain.

This section will also show you how much time apps spend using Background App Refresh.

8. Limit Background Activity

Apps, both inbuilt and third-party, use background app refreshing features to update even when they’re not open to do things like load mail messages and download updates so they’re ready to use at all times.

Background App Refresh can impact battery life, so turning it off can help make your battery last longer. You can turn off Background App Refresh all together or choose which apps can refresh in the background.

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Background App Refresh.
From here, you can tap the Background App Refresh option again to turn Background App Refresh off all together or choose to have it activate only when connected to WiFi, which doesn’t drain battery as much as downloading over cellular.

You can also choose to turn Background App Refresh on just for your most used apps by tapping on the toggle next to each app in the list.

9. Adjust Mail Fetch Settings

On top of turning off Background Refresh, adjusting when and how often the Mail app checks for new emails can save some battery life.

Start the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap Mail
Tap Accounts
Scroll down and tap “Fetch New Data”
From here, you can turn off Push (which lets you know immediately you receive a new email message and adjust Fetch settings on a per account basis for accounts that don’t support Push (like Gmail accounts).

Adjusting the Fetch settings to have longer intervals before checking for new messages can help save battery life, as can turning off Fetch all together in favor of manual checks that will download new messages only when the Mail app is opened.

You can choose the following settings: Automatically, Manually, Hourly, Every 30 Minutes, and Every 15 Minutes.

10. Limit Notifications

Cutting down on the number of notifications that apps are sending is a good way to save a little bit of battery life. If you have apps inundating you with notifications, it’s going to drain battery every time your screen illuminates and your iPhone makes a connection, plus a glut of notifications is just plain annoying.

Follow these steps to adjust your notification settings in the Settings app:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Notifications.
Go through each app and adjust whether or not an app can send you notifications by tapping on the toggle.

If you do allow notifications, you can choose to allow apps to show on the Lock screen, in the Notification Center, as banners, or all three.

Apple also has this nifty feature that allows you to modify your notification settings right from the notification itself on the Lock screen. Just long press on a notification and then tap the three dots (…) to get to options that include Deliver Quietly or Turn Off.
Deliver Quietly allows notifications to appear in Notification Center but not the Lock screen, while Turn Off lets you turn off notifications for that app entirely.

11. Disable Automatic Downloads

and App Updates

If you’re often low on battery, you may not want your iPhone doing things that you’re not explicitly initiating, such as automatically downloading apps downloaded on other devices and downloading software and app updates.

Apple has a feature that is designed to sync apps between all of your devices by downloading apps that were downloaded on one device on the other devices as well. So if you download an app on an iPad, for example, Automatic Download will also download the app on your iPhone.

If that’s a feature you need, leave that enabled, but if it’s not, you can disable it by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Tap on your name
Tap on iTunes & App Store.
Toggle off Music, Apps, and Books & Audiobooks.

If you also don’t want apps to update on their own, make sure to toggle off App Updates as well. Leaving this on allows iPhone apps to update automatically when new updates are released in the App Store.

You can also turn off automatic iOS updates if desired by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Software Update.
Tap Automatic Updates.
Tap the toggle to turn updates off.

12. Activate Dark Mode

Apple in iOS 13 implemented a long awaited Dark Mode feature, which is available across the operating system, including Apple’s built-in apps and third-party apps as most have implemented support.

On devices with an OLED display like the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, 11 Pro,, 11 Pro Max, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max, Dark Mode can save a bit of battery life, so it’s worth enabling. Here’s how:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Display & Brightness.
Tap the “Dark” option.
If you tap on the toggle for “Automatic,” Dark Mode will turn on or off with the sunset and the sunrise each day, allowing you to toggle between dark and light mode.

Dark Mode can be toggled on through the Control Center too, which is a convenient way to activate it if your device isn’t in automatic mode.

13. Turn Down Device Brightness

If you’re in a bright room or direct sun, you probably can’t help but have screen brightness turned all the way up, but if you don’t need a super bright display, dimming it down can save battery life.

You can Control brightness through the Control Center on the iPhone using the brightness toggle or through the Display & Brightness section of the Settings app. It’s a good idea to turn on the auto-brightness setting to make sure your screen isn’t overly bright in darker rooms by default, but some manual adjustment may be necessary in brighter rooms and in the sun.

14. Adjust Auto-Lock and Turn Off Raise to Wake

It’s a good idea to set the Auto-Lock on the display as low as you can tolerate, which will cause the iPhone’s display to turn off after a short period of inactivity.

You can choose options from 30 seconds to never, but the lower end of the spectrum will help preserve battery life by cutting the display when it’s not needed.

If you really want to save battery, turning off Raise to Wake can help, though it may make features like Face ID less convenient. Raise to Wake is a rather convenient option, so this should be a last resort.

15. Make Sure Everything’s Up to Date

If you’re running iOS 14, make sure you have the latest version installed because Apple has been making improvements and refinements to the operating system since it was released. Here’s how to check:

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Software Update.

From here, the iPhone will let you know if your software is up to date or if there’s a new version available.

You should also make sure all of your apps are up to date, which you can do in the App Store.

Go to the App Store.
Tap on your profile located in the upper right.
Swipe downwards to refresh everything.
Tap on Update All.

The update section of the App Store is also a great way to cull apps. If you see an update for an app you don’t use often, swipe to the left on it and you can delete it right then and there.

16. Don’t Close Apps

Many battery life guides will suggest manually closing apps by using the App Switcher to prevent them from running in the background, but this doesn’t save battery life and can in fact drain more battery.

Apps in the background are paused when not in active use and aren’t using battery life. Closing out an app purges it from the iPhone’s RAM, requiring a reload when it reopens, which can have a bigger impact on battery.

17. Restart

Sometimes an app can act up or a background process can go wonky, and the best solution is to simply restart your iPhone. Follow these steps to restart:

Hold down the Volume Down button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
Continue holding until the screen turns dark and you see the Apple logo on the display.
Release the button.
After the Apple logo appears, it will take a minute or so for the iPhone to start back up.

18. Restore as New

If you’re at your wits’ end and nothing is helping to improve iPhone 12 Pro Max battery life, you can try restoring your iPhone and setting it up as new to eliminate any potential behind-the-scenes problems. This should be a last resort, as starting from scratch can be a hassle.

First and foremost, make sure you have an iCloud backup.

On a Mac running Catalina, open Finder. On a Mac running Mojave or earlier, launch iTunes. On a Windows PC, launch iTunes.
Build a connection between your iPhone and your computer.
If you’re asked to enter a device passcode or to click a Trust This Computer prompt, do so.
Select your device from the side bar in Finder or the side bar in iTunes.
Click on the Restore open. If you’re signed into Find My, you’ll be prompted to sign out.
Click Restore again to confirm.

After restoring, you can set your device up as if it was a new device. You can restore from the iCloud backup that you created prior to the restore, but you might want to try starting fresh to prevent any possible problems.

Other Tips

There are a lot of tips for how to keep iPhone battery health at 100 on the internet, and there were some other questionable tips that people recommended that may or may not improve much battery health. It’s difficult to tell, but it’s not terrible idea to consider some of these options if they’re features you don’t use.

These tips should be employed judiciously and after the tips above because turning off every feature on the iPhone may not be the most desirable way to improve battery health.

Disable “Hey Siri” so the iPhone isn’t listening for the wake word.
Turn off Siri entirely.
Turn off Screen Time.
Turn off Siri Suggestions.
Turn off motion effects.
Turn off AirDrop.
Turn off vibrate.
Use Safari content blockers.
Don’t use Live or Dynamic wallpapers.
Turn down volume.
Turn down the brightness level of the Flashlight feature in Control Center.

Know of a great tips for how to fix iPhone 12 Pro Max battery drain that we left or, have questions about iPhone 12 Pro Max battery life or want to offer feedback on this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tag: Battery

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iPhone Battery Health Dropping Fast? Fix!

Saturday January 14, 2023 2:05 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

is your iPhone battery health dropping fast? You are not alone. iPhone battery health drops due to the huge battery consumption of the application. If you notice your iPhone battery maximum capacity dropping, you have come to the right place. In this article, I’ll show you exactly how to keep iPhone battery health at 100.

In most cases, your iPhone battery health will never drop below 80 percent unless ur charge cycle has surpassed 500 cycles. However, sometimes your iPhone battery health percentage goes down fast and you don’t know what to do. The good news is that there are steps you can take to maximize your iPhone battery health and cut down on hidden sources that might be causing excess drainage.

Note: information in this article apply to iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 12,, iPhone 11, iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, iPhone six, and iPhone SE.

Fix iPhone battery health dropping fast

1. Limit When and How Often Apps Access Your Location

The first thing you should do is to check your location settings to limit apps accessing your location for privacy reasons, but it can also be beneficial to your battery health. Follow these steps to access your Location Services settings:

Start the Settings app.
Tap Privacy & Security.
Choose Location Services.
Review the list and edit settings by tapping on the name of each app in the list.

You have 4 possible choices for location settings for each app thanks to some updates introduced in iOS 13, though not all four choices will always be available for every app depending on what it does. You can select the following: Never, Ask Next Time, While Using the App, and Always.

Never will prevent an app from ever accessing your location, and unless there’s a specific need for an app to know where you are, such as a mapping app, setting location access to Never is the best choice.
Ask Next Time will prompt an app to ask you with a popup the next time that it wants your location, so you can temporarily approve it. With this setting, location access is off until expressly allowed via the popup.
While Using the App, as the name suggests, allows the app to detect your location only when the app is open and being actively used. If you close the app or switch over to another app, location access ends.
Always allows an app to have access to your location at all times, regardless of whether it’s open or closed. This will result in the most battery drain and should be limited to only the apps that you need the most.

Many apps will ask for location information that don’t really need it to function (for example, a banking app might want location access to show nearby ATMs, which is also available through entering a zip code), so clearing the cruft here will ensure no apps are accessing your location without express permission.

You can also turn off Location Services all together, but most people probably aren’t going to want to do so because it can interfere with apps like Maps.

2. Limit Apps Using Bluetooth

iOS offers a feature that lets you know when apps have requested Bluetooth access, and there are a surprising number of apps that want to use Bluetooth for things like location tracking with Bluetooth beacons or scanning for Chromecast devices.

This is a good list to review to make sure you don’t have a sneaky app in the background connecting to Bluetooth sources without your permission as that can strain battery. It’s totally fine to allow Bluetooth access to apps that need it for Bluetooth-enabled accessories, but nixing access for retail stores is probably a good idea. Follow these steps to access Bluetooth settings:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Privacy & Security.
Choose Bluetooth.
From this list, shut off any app that doesn’t require a Bluetooth connection to work. It’s best to be liberal with the toggling off — if you disable access and then a feature within an app stops functioning properly, you can just turn Bluetooth back on.

Bluetooth can also be turned off completely, which can perhaps save a bit of battery life, but it’s not convenient for most users because Bluetooth is used for AirPods, Apple Watches, and other accessories.

3. Turn on Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode has been around for a few years now, and it’s the number one best setting to enable if you’re concerned about battery life. It cuts down on background activity like behind the scenes downloads and it lowers the brightness of your display after inactivity more quickly.

A popup to enable Low Power Mode will appear when battery life on the iPhone is at 20 percent, but you can enable it at any time through Control Center by tapping on the battery icon or ask Siri to turn it on. Alternatively, it’s available in the Settings app:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Battery.
Enable the Low Power Mode toggle.

With Low Power Mode turned on, your battery icon at the top of your iPhone will turn yellow, which lets you know when it’s active. Some people like to keep Low Power Mode on at all times, but know that it does need to be enabled regularly because it automatically turns off when the iPhone is charged.

4. Use WiFi Whenever Possible

WiFi uses less power than a cellular connection, so to maximize battery life, Apple recommends connecting to WiFi whenever possible. At home or work, for example, WiFi should be activated, saving cellular data and battery life.

5. Activate Airplane Mode in Low Signal Areas

When you’re in an area with no cellular coverage or a low signal, your iPhone is draining battery looking for a signal or trying to connect. If you’re experiencing poor cellular coverage, it’s a good idea to activate Airplane Mode since you probably can’t do much with low signal anyway.

Airplane Mode will prevent your iPhone from endlessly searching for a signal, saving the battery until you can get to a place with a solid connection.

6. Turn on optimized battery charging

To make sure your iPhone battery stays healthy longer, it’s recommended to turn on Optimized Battery Charging under the Battery Health section. Optimized Battery Charging allows the iPhone to learn your charging schedule so it can wait until you need it to charge past 80 percent.

For example, if you put your phone on the charger at night, the Optimized Battery Charging setting might hold the iPhone at an 80 percent charge, filling it up close to when you wake up to reduce battery aging.

Apple also recommends avoiding extreme temperatures to prevent permanent battery damage due to heat or cold, as well as removing certain cases when charging. If your iPhone gets warm while charging, it’s best to take off the case to keep your battery healthy for a longer period of time.

You can turn on optimize Battery Charging by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Battery.
Tap on Battery Health & Charging.
Turn on the switch next to Optimised Battery Charging

In the Battery Health section, there’s a listing for “Maximum Capacity,” which is a measurement of battery capacity relative to when it was new.

If the capacity is under 80 percent, it may be worth seeking out a battery replacement. Apple will replace a battery that is below 80 percent capacity under the one-year warranty plan or under AppleCare+ for free.

Otherwise, replacing the battery will cost between $49 and $69 depending on which iPhone you have.

7. Manage Apps That Are Draining Battery

If you find your iPhone battery maximum capacity dropping, you should check your apps. The iPhone tells you which apps are eating up the most battery so you can make sure nothing is secretly draining your battery without your knowledge. You can check your battery usage statistics by opening up the Settings app and tapping on the Battery section.

There are charts here that displays your battery level over the course of the last 24 hours or the last 10 days, as well as the apps that have consumed the most battery life. If there’s any app that you don’t need that seems to be consuming an excessive amount of battery, you can delete it.

For apps you do need, you can moderate how often you’re using the app to cut down on battery drain.

This section will also show you how much time apps spend using Background App Refresh.

8. Limit Background Activity

Apps, both inbuilt and third-party, use background app refreshing features to update even when they’re not open to do things like load mail messages and download updates so they’re ready to use at all times.

Background App Refresh can impact battery life, so turning it off can help make your battery last longer. You can turn off Background App Refresh all together or choose which apps can refresh in the background.

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Background App Refresh.
From here, you can tap the Background App Refresh option again to turn Background App Refresh off all together or choose to have it activate only when connected to WiFi, which doesn’t drain battery as much as downloading over cellular.

You can also choose to turn Background App Refresh on just for your most used apps by tapping on the toggle next to each app in the list.

9. Adjust Mail Fetch Settings

On top of turning off Background Refresh, adjusting when and how often the Mail app checks for new emails can save some battery life.

Start the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap Mail
Tap Accounts
Scroll down and tap “Fetch New Data”
From here, you can turn off Push (which lets you know immediately you receive a new email message and adjust Fetch settings on a per account basis for accounts that don’t support Push (like Gmail accounts).

Adjusting the Fetch settings to have longer intervals before checking for new messages can help save battery life, as can turning off Fetch all together in favor of manual checks that will download new messages only when the Mail app is opened.

You can choose the following settings: Automatically, Manually, Hourly, Every 30 Minutes, and Every 15 Minutes.

10. Limit Notifications

Cutting down on the number of notifications that apps are sending is a good way to save a little bit of battery life. If you have apps inundating you with notifications, it’s going to drain battery every time your screen illuminates and your iPhone makes a connection, plus a glut of notifications is just plain annoying.

Follow these steps to adjust your notification settings in the Settings app:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Notifications.
Go through each app and adjust whether or not an app can send you notifications by tapping on the toggle.

If you do allow notifications, you can choose to allow apps to show on the Lock screen, in the Notification Center, as banners, or all three.

Apple also has this nifty feature that allows you to modify your notification settings right from the notification itself on the Lock screen. Just long press on a notification and then tap the three dots (…) to get to options that include Deliver Quietly or Turn Off.
Deliver Quietly allows notifications to appear in Notification Center but not the Lock screen, while Turn Off lets you turn off notifications for that app entirely.

11. Disable Automatic Downloads

and App Updates

If you’re often low on battery, you may not want your iPhone doing things that you’re not explicitly initiating, such as automatically downloading apps downloaded on other devices and downloading software and app updates.

Apple has a feature that is designed to sync apps between all of your devices by downloading apps that were downloaded on one device on the other devices as well. So if you download an app on an iPad, for example, Automatic Download will also download the app on your iPhone.

If that’s a feature you need, leave that enabled, but if it’s not, you can disable it by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Tap on App Store
Toggle off Apps.

If you also don’t want apps to update on their own, make sure to toggle off App Updates as well. Leaving this on allows iPhone apps to update automatically when new updates are released in the App Store.

You can also turn off automatic iOS updates if desired by following these steps:

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Software Update.
Tap Automatic Updates.
Tap the toggle to turn updates off.

12. Activate Dark Mode

Apple in iOS 13 implemented a long awaited Dark Mode feature, which is available across the operating system, including Apple’s built-in apps and third-party apps as most have implemented support.

On devices with an OLED display like the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, 11 Pro,, 11 Pro Max, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 and iPhone 14, Dark Mode can save a bit of battery life, so it’s worth enabling. Here’s how:

Start the Settings app.
Go to Display & Brightness.
Tap the “Dark” option.
If you tap on the toggle for “Automatic,” Dark Mode will turn on or off with the sunset and the sunrise each day, allowing you to toggle between dark and light mode.

Dark Mode can be toggled on through the Control Center too, which is a convenient way to activate it if your device isn’t in automatic mode.

13. Turn Down Device Brightness

If you’re in a bright room or direct sun, you probably can’t help but have screen brightness turned all the way up, but if you don’t need a super bright display, dimming it down can save battery life.

You can Control brightness through the Control Center on the iPhone using the brightness toggle or through the Display & Brightness section of the Settings app. It’s a good idea to turn on the auto-brightness setting to make sure your screen isn’t overly bright in darker rooms by default, but some manual adjustment may be necessary in brighter rooms and in the sun.

14. Adjust Auto-Lock and Turn Off Raise to Wake

It’s a good idea to set the Auto-Lock on the display as low as you can tolerate, which will cause the iPhone’s display to turn off after a short period of inactivity.

You can choose options from 30 seconds to never, but the lower end of the spectrum will help preserve battery life by cutting the display when it’s not needed.

If you really want to save battery, turning off Raise to Wake can help, though it may make features like Face ID less convenient. Raise to Wake is a rather convenient option, so this should be a last resort.

15. Make Sure Everything’s Up to Date

If you’re running iOS 14, make sure you have the latest version installed because Apple has been making improvements and refinements to the operating system since it was released. Here’s how to check:

Start the Settings app.
Go to General.
Tap Software Update.

From here, the iPhone will let you know if your software is up to date or if there’s a new version available.

You should also make sure all of your apps are up to date, which you can do in the App Store.

Go to the App Store.
Tap on your profile located in the upper right.
Swipe downwards to refresh everything.
Tap on Update All.

The update section of the App Store is also a great way to cull apps. If you see an update for an app you don’t use often, swipe to the left on it and you can delete it right then and there.

16. Don’t Close Apps

Many battery life guides will suggest manually closing apps by using the App Switcher to prevent them from running in the background, but this doesn’t save battery life and can in fact drain more battery.

Apps in the background are paused when not in active use and aren’t using battery life. Closing out an app purges it from the iPhone’s RAM, requiring a reload when it reopens, which can have a bigger impact on battery.

17. Restart

Sometimes an app can act up or a background process can go wonky, and the best solution is to simply restart your iPhone. If you have an iPhone 8 or later, follow these steps:

Quickly press and release the Volume Up button.
Quickly press and release the Volume Down button.
Press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears, and then release the Side button.

If you have an iPhone 7 or earlier, follow these steps to restart:

Hold down the Volume Down button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
Continue holding until the screen turns dark and you see the Apple logo on the display.
Release the button.
After the Apple logo appears, it will take a minute or so for the iPhone to start back up.

18. Restore as New

If you’re at your wits’ end and nothing is helping to improve significant iPhone battery health drop, you can try restoring your iPhone and setting it up as new to eliminate any potential behind-the-scenes problems. This should be a last resort, as starting from scratch can be a hassle.

First and foremost, make sure you have an iCloud backup.

On a Mac running Catalina, open Finder. On a Mac running Mojave or earlier, launch iTunes. On a Windows PC, launch iTunes.
Build a connection between your iPhone and your computer.
If you’re asked to enter a device passcode or to click a Trust This Computer prompt, do so.
Select your device from the side bar in Finder or the side bar in iTunes.
Click on the Restore open. If you’re signed into Find My, you’ll be prompted to sign out.
Click Restore again to confirm.

After restoring, you can set your device up as if it was a new device. You can restore from the iCloud backup that you created prior to the restore, but you might want to try starting fresh to prevent any possible problems.

Other Tips

There are a lot of tips for how to keep iPhone battery health at 100 on the internet, and there were some other questionable tips that people recommended that may or may not improve much battery health. It’s difficult to tell, but it’s not terrible idea to consider some of these options if they’re features you don’t use.

These tips should be employed judiciously and after the tips above because turning off every feature on the iPhone may not be the most desirable way to improve battery health.

Disable “Hey Siri” so the iPhone isn’t listening for the wake word.
Turn off Siri entirely.
Turn off Screen Time.
Turn off Siri Suggestions.
Turn off motion effects.
Turn off AirDrop.
Turn off vibrate.
Use Safari content blockers.
Don’t use Live or Dynamic wallpapers.
Turn down volume.
Turn down the brightness level of the Flashlight feature in Control Center.

Know of a great tips for how to increase maximum capacity of iPhone battery that we left or, have questions about iPhone battery health percentage or want to offer feedback on this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tag: Battery

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Apple iPhone 12 Long-Term Review: Knockout Design, Camera & Battery

Thursday July 28, 2022 3:59 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

The iPhone 12 sports a gorgeous new design, full 5G support, great cameras and even better performance. However, the lack of a charger in box and limited base storage are drawbacks, especially with the iPhone 13’s arrival.

Outward appearance

What draws you to investing in a new mobile phone? After all, this is something that is going to be accompanying you around wherever you go, allowing you to access everything you could need to tap into your communication and reference sources, not to mention providing an excellent and reliable camera. So, as well as containing the latest in streamlined software, it’s going to have to be compact and look sleek and professional whenever you flip it from your pocket.

The iPhone 12 doesn’t disappoint on the design front. Apple has always gone out of their way to combine functionality with supreme design considerations. Can you think of any of their products, from iPods to iPads, MacBook Air laptops to Apple watches, that have looked anything other than lustrous and attractive? This high bar was certainly achieved as far back as the universally-acclaimed iPhone 4, and this latest upgrade has taken that stunning design and added polished stainless still to give it a contemporary feel, not to mention a third camera on the back of the device.

Retailing at around the £999 mark, the iPhone 12 Pro sits in the middle of three impressive devices, the smaller iPhone 12 Mini (£699) and the iPhone Pro Max, due for release imminently (just over £1,099). The latter will benefit from having a much more powerful camera. The iPhone 12 Pro is of an equal size to the iPhone 12, the most obvious difference being the Pro has a stainless-steel body with highly-polished sides, as opposed to aluminum sides.

Specification

So much for its appearance. Here’s how this gadget has been put together in terms of the functionality offered to its user.

Dimensions: 71.5 x 146.7 x 7.4m in size, weight 187g.

The iPhone 12 Pro weighs in at 187g. The screen is 6.1 inches, offering a ‘Super Retina XDR’ lens, using organic light-emitting diode technology. It is capable of producing razor-sharp HD images, at 460 pixels-per-inch (the industry average for prints is 300 PPI).

The iPhone 12 features sturdier drop-resistant ceramic shield, and also has the MagSafe charging/accessory system built into its back.

It is powered by an Apple A14 Bionic processor, offering 6GB RAM, and awesome storage of 128, 256, or 512 GB. The Operating System is iOS14.

How about that camera? There are three 12MP rear cameras with lidar (light-detection and ranging for automatically sensing the optimum exposures for your snaps) as well as a 12MP front-facing lens.

Connectivity? LTE (long-term evolution) for Wi-Fi, lightning ultra-wideband and GPS, and Bluetooth 5.

The phone is water-resistant to the depth of six meters for up to 30 minutes.

Overall functionality

So how does this equate to performance? In a word – excellent. This slick device is super-fast when it comes to processing your photos, uploading them to your social media, and you’ll notice the difference when playing games, watching videos, streaming movies, or accessing your playlist.

5G access is similar to iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, matching any competitor.

Battery life is similarly top-of-the-range, with charges lasting for up to 40 hours, even if you’ve been using screen time to watch videos or access apps. It only takes half an hour to charge the phone to 50% capability; two hours for the full 40-hour boost. Note that the power adaptor is separate.

Overall, the iPhone 12 has only the hottest and newest features, making it easy and satisfying to use. So, if you’re thinking about whether to buy it or not, rest assured – you have no reasons to hesitate! With a high response speed of applications, it’s easier and faster than ever to scroll your Insta, open Spotify for a new Discover Weekly playlist.

Tag: iPhone Tips

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Is an iPhone 12 worth buying in 2022? Here’s what to consider

Thursday July 28, 2022 3:59 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

Does buying an iPhone 12 make sense now that iPhone 13 is here? Some advice
In many cases, going with the iPhone 13 is the better choice. But, the iPhone 12 may still be a good option for some.

On October 13, 2020, Apple introduced its new list of iPhones: the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini, which provide robust features at a low cost. These iPhones resembles the high priced iPhone 12 pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
The 6.1 inch iPhone substitutes the iPhone 11, as the 5.4-inch is the newest size and presents as the smallest iPhone Apple has manufactured apart from the 2016 iPhone SE. Other than the screen and battery sizes, the two phones are practically similar. The iPhone 12 mini is small in size and perfect for people who like using an iPhone that can be manipulated with one hand. With all benefits of the new hot iPhone, you can keep pace with the fashion, take high-quality photos and videos, and respond in your dating chat in seconds.
iPhone versions in 2020 have Super Retina XDR OLED displays for the first time, plus an end-to-end design except for the Face ID feature and tiny bezels covering the edge. The display quality among the standard iPhone 12 models and the Pro design is the same.
The 5.4 –inch iPhone 12 mini incorporates a resolution of 2430 by 1080 with 476 pixels an inch, while the 6.-inch iPhone 12 provides a resolution of 2532 by 1170 and 460 pixels per inch. The displays provide HDR support with a brightness of 1200 nits peak, Wide color for details, real colors, sensitive touch for feedback, and actual tone to complement the environmental lighting screen’s color temperature for a better natural viewing incident.
Apple renovated the iPhone 12 selection style, initiating flat edges that are different from the round edges of the previous designs and are the same in layout as the iPad Pro. This iPhone’s forepart is guarded by a new ceramic shield cover that succeeds in the regular cover glass. According to Apple, the ceramic protection is saturated with nano-ceramic crystals and provides four times better drop presentation.
The iPhone’s rear is still made from glass, with the two halves of the phone interjecting an aerospace-grade aluminum enclosure that occurs in five colors: black, blue, green, white, and (PRODUCT) RED. Like the iPhone 12 Pro design, the iPhone 12 type provides IP68 dust and water resistance and can submerge in 6 meters deep for 30 minutes.
All iPhone 12 models support 5G connectivity for quicker downloads, high-quality video flow, better gaming, and high-portrait 1080p FaceTime calls. 5G network is available globally, but only iPhone 12 models sold in the US reinforces the mmWave 5G, which is the quickest 5G technology in the market. iPhone designs sold in other countries are restricted to slower and readily available Sub-6GHz connectivity. In America, 5G speeds can be as fast as 4Gbps, even in densely populated regions. Gigabit LTE is reinforced if 5G isn’t accessible, and to conserve battery life when using 5G, A Smart Data Mode returns to an LTE connection when you don’t require the 5G speeds.
The iPhone 12 and 12 mini embrace Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. They incorporate a U1 ULTRA Wideband chip for spatial awareness and convertibility with other gadgets with the UI feature like the HomePod mini.
These iPhone models have a new A14 chip on the inside, being the first chip in the smartphone field assembled on a 5-nanometer procedure for performance and effectiveness improvements. Apple outlines that the 6-core CPU and GPU IN THE a14 chip incorporate a 16-core Neutral Engine that provides an 80% rise in machine learning duties performance.
Both the iPhone 12 and 12 mini are the same as pro types in most features, but the camera is the primary differentiating element. As the pro designs encompass a triple-lens camera configured with a LiDAR Scanner and additional bells and whistles, the iPhone 12 and 12 mini have an uncomplicated and less technical dual-lens camera style. That said, there are outstanding camera improvements in the new iPhone 12 designs compared to the iPhone 11. It has an f/2.4 Ultra-Wide camera and a Wide camera with a new f/1.6 slot that allows in 27% extra lighting for quality performance in low-light surroundings and a 2x optical 5x digital zoom. With all these benefits of the new hot iPhone, you can keep pace with the fashion, take high-quality photos and videos. Same as the iPhone 12 pro types, the iPhone 12 designs can capture 30fps HDR video with Dolby Vision, allowing cinema-quality videos to be captured, edited, and shared on this device.
The iPhone 13 comes with a few brand-new features that the iPhone 12 lacks. The new iPhone is the first to boast a 120Hz display and an option for 1TB of storage for its Pro models. Right now the iPhone 12’s screen has a 60Hz refresh rate. The faster refresh rate will translate to smoother, snappier scrolling through apps and websites.

Apple gave the iPhone 13 an enhanced camera system. All four of the iPhone 13 models have an improved 12-megapixel main camera and a better ultrawide lens and sensor. The new hardware paired with the phone’s A15 Bionic chip means a handful of improvements and new features, including being able to capture 47% more light. The iPhone 13 also features a new cinematic mode to make your videos appear more filmlike, and the Pro and Pro Max models will gain the ability to capture ProRes videos later this year.

The iPhone 13 comes with a few brand-new features that the iPhone 12 lacks. The new iPhone is the first to boast a 120Hz display and an option for 1TB of storage for its Pro models. Right now the iPhone 12’s screen has a 60Hz refresh rate. The faster refresh rate will translate to smoother, snappier scrolling through apps and websites.

Should you buy an iPhone 12, or 13?

The answer varies depending on your current phone, what kinds of features you’re looking for and other factors like price.

New features for the iPhone 13

The iPhone 13 comes with a few brand-new features that the iPhone 12 lacks. The new iPhone is the first to boast a 120Hz display and an option for 1TB of storage for its Pro models. Right now the iPhone 12’s screen has a 60Hz refresh rate. The faster refresh rate will translate to smoother, snappier scrolling through apps and websites.

Apple gave the iPhone 13 an enhanced camera system. All four of the iPhone 13 models have an improved 12-megapixel main camera and a better ultrawide lens and sensor. The new hardware paired with the phone’s A15 Bionic chip means a handful of improvements and new features, including being able to capture 47% more light. The iPhone 13 also features a new cinematic mode to make your videos appear more filmlike, and the Pro and Pro Max models will gain the ability to capture ProRes videos later this year.

Price may be the deciding factor

As the saying goes, money talks. The standard base model of the iPhone 13 costs $799 for 128GB of storage, which is $100 more than the starting price of the standard base model of the iPhone 12 with 64GB of storage. But, if you compare the current price of the 128GB storage option for both phones, there’s only a $50 difference between the iPhone 13 and $749 iPhone 12 and the new features on the iPhone 13 seem to justify the increase in price.

Many carriers are offering substantial discounts on the iPhone 13, which means if you have a phone to trade in you’ll end up paying a lot less than the listed price. But, if you don’t qualify for any of the carrier offers on the iPhone 13, choosing the iPhone 12 could still be a great way to save a little bit of money.

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Keep Your iPhone Usage Private

Thursday July 28, 2022 4:01 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

These days we use our smartphones for everything. Gaming, shopping, browsing, and banking are all contained in a convenient package of tiny circuit boards and batteries. Our phones are set to become an even more significant part of our lives in the future, so how can you protect your personal data and information from being hacked, stolen, or tracked on your iPhone? By using the latest VPN software.

Keep your iPhone usage private

What is a VPN?

A VPN protects your iPhone by creating a Virtual Private Network that disguises your location. It conceals your private data when using the internet on your phone. A VPN masks your IP address and encrypts your information, which stops it from being seen by anyone who shouldn’t be seeing it.

Online Shopping

iPhones make it easy to shop online. Apps like eBay and Amazon are simple and convenient to use, so we can buy what we need at the touch of a button. When you are purchasing items online, your information is passed to the website to complete the transaction.
Your email address, password, and banking information are all inputted online and could be exposed to cybercriminals who could steal from you, blackmail you, or use it to commit identity theft. Your ISP could also be tracking your browsing habits and selling this information to advertisers, who will then target you with unsolicited marketing.

Protect Yourself from Cyber Criminals

As our phones get smarter, so do the cybercriminals meaning we must do everything we can to protect ourselves. Cybercrime is on the rise, and keeping your devices safe needs to be a priority. Installing a VPN is one of the best ways to keep your iPhone safe. These threats are real, and a VPN can help protect you before anything happens.
A VPN will protect your iPhone from:

Scammers
Hackers
Government tracking
ISP surveillance
Identity theft
Exposure when file-sharing/peer to peer torrenting

Gaming

Gaming is a big part of owning an iPhone for most users, and a VPN can help with this, too. It can speed up your connection by preventing your ISP from data throttling, speeding up download times, and stopping annoying lags. If you make in-game purchases, a VPN will protect your banking information and make it invisible to everyone. By connecting to a server in a different country, a VPN will allow you to download games early, access games that aren’t available in your country, and purchase games at a lower price. VPNs also protect against DDoS or swatting attacks by masking your devices’ IP addresses.

Browsing

Browsing on our phones is a day to day occurrence for most of us. Scrolling through social media, checking the football scores, and streaming TV shows is quick and easy on an iPhone. But your activity and browsing habits are at risk without a VPN. Hackers and scammers can see exactly what you’re doing and could gain access to your social media accounts or online banking easily. A VPN will also mask your location, so you can protect your identity and keep yourself anonymous online.
A VPN will also open up a world of content, giving you access to streaming libraries from around the world. Simply connect to a server from your chosen country, and you will be able to watch TV shows and films that are usually geo-restricted. Log in to your Netflix, Amazon, or BBC iPlayer account to watch your favorite shows for free.

Public Wi-Fi

We use our phones anywhere and everywhere. Public Wi-Fi has made it easy to browse in public places without using your data allowance, even if it does sometimes disconnect. You find public Wi-Fi in places like the shopping mall, on the bus, and at the local coffee shop. But have you ever stopped to think about how secure the connection is? Most public Wi-Fi connections don’t need a password, and even if they do, they have very poor security.
Public Wi-Fi is a hot-spot for cybercriminals, who take advantage of the lack of privacy to spy on the activity of those using it. If you are accessing private documents, online shopping, or banking using public Wi-Fi, you are exposing yourself to a potential cybercrime attack. If you install a VPN on your iPhone, you can browse the internet freely anywhere without the fear of unwanted observation.

Protect your devices and private information by installing a VPN today.

Tag: iPhone Tips

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iPhone 14 Pro Won’t Turn On? Here’s The Fix!

Monday October 24, 2022 1:29 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

Your iPhone 14 Pro isn’t turning on and you don’t know why. No matter what you try, you can’t seem to reboot your phone. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll explain what to do when your iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on so that you can fix the problem for Good!

Why Won’t My iPhone 14 Pro Turn On?

There are many reasons why your iPhone 14 Pro isn’t turning on. A lot of the time, the iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on because of a software crash. However, it’s also possible there’s a hardware problem with your iPhone.

Follow the step-by-step guide below to diagnose and fix the real reason your iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on. We’ll start with simple troubleshooting steps, and get more advanced as we go.

Note: information in this article apply to iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Fix iPhone 14 Pro not turning on

Hard Reset Your iPhone

A hard reset forces your iPhone to abruptly turn off and back on again. It’s possible your iPhone 14 Pro just looks like it won’t turn on, when really it’s frozen on a black screen.

Press and quickly release the Volume Up button.
Press and quickly release the Volume Down button.
Press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple Logo.

It’s important to keep in mind that a hard reset does not fix the underlying software problem that caused your iPhone to crash. Even if your iPhone 14 Pro is turning on again, we recommend reading the rest of the steps below.

Check Your Lightning Cable And Your Charger

It’s a good idea to inspect your charging cable and charger for damage. It’s possible your iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on because it’s out of battery life and not charging.

There have been occasions even the smartest of people have not identified that the issue is because of a faulty charger cable, adapter, or even a wall socket. So make sure you try a different lightening cable, different power adapter (if you have one), and another power outlet in your home before you know you can definitely blame your phone.

Make Sure It’s Not Just The Display

If your iPhone 14 Pro still won’t turn on, plug your iPhone into your computer and open iTunes (Macs running macOS 10.14 or older and PCs) or Finder (Macs running macOS 10.15 or newer). Check to see if your computer recognizes your iPhone 14 Pro.

If your computer recognizes your iPhone, it usually means there’s a hardware problem with the display. We recommend backing up your iPhone immediately if it is recognized by your computer, as it could be your last chance to do so.

After backing up your iPhone, try performing another hard reset while your iPhone is connected to your computer.

Check For Physical Or Liquid Damage

This is one of the most common reasons an iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on. If you’ve recently dropped your phone or it has gotten wet, you might have some issues.

To put things succinctly, if you dropped your iPhone 14 Pro in water and it won’t turn on, you’re going to need to take it in for repair as you most likely have a hardware problem or a damaged display.

Reach Out To Apple

If you’ve completed all the steps above, and your iPhone 14 Pro still won’t turn on, it’s time to get in touch with Apple support. There’s a very good chance your iPhone 14 Pro has a hardware problem that needs to be repaired. Visit Apple’s support website to get help online, over-the-phone, or through-the-mail.

iPhone 14 Pro won’t Turn On: Fixed!

You’ve fixed the problem and your iPhone is turning on again! Next time your iPhone 14 Pro won’t turn on, you’ll know exactly how to fix the problem. Leave a comment below if you have any unanswered questions about your iPhone.

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Found a Lost or Stolen iPhone? Do These Things

Thursday July 28, 2022 4:09 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

Even with the best of intentions, you might find it difficult to know how to proceed when you find a lost or stolen iPhone. Thankfully, there are a few simple steps you can take to help return the device to its rightful owner.

There’s no exception when it comes to other people’s property, so holding onto something that isn’t yours could be theft. Plus, all modern iPhone models are useless thanks to the Activation Lock feature. So here’s what to do if you’ve found a lost iPhone.

1. Is the Lost iPhone Charged?

What to do: Purchase or borrow a charger and keep the device switched on and charging.

Modern smartphone batteries don’t last for long, so in most cases, a lost device has a day (at best) before it runs out of battery. If there’s no charge, try Pressing down the power button (a single button on the right-hand side) to see what happens.

If the iPhone is off, you’ll first need to charge it. If you are not an iPhone user, you’ll either need to borrow or purchase a new Lightning cable.

2. Does It Have a Passcode Lock?

What to do: Check for a passcode, but don’t try to brute-force it. Check the call log and registered Apple ID for contact details if you can access them.

Once the iPhone boots up, a lock screen will appear. Pressing the Home button or swiping up at the bottom of the screen—depending on which iPhone model you’ve found—will probably ask you for a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID.

But there’s a slight chance the phone will unlock. This may happen if the owner didn’t set a passcode, which is recommended for all iPhone owners.

If by chance the iPhone does unlock, there are two options to get more information. The first is to go to Settings > iTunes & App Store to see what the owner’s registered Apple ID email address is. You can then send an email to the owner, letting them know that you found their iPhone.

The second is to go to Phone > Recent and check the call log. You should be able to determine an appropriate contact to call so you can let them them that you’ve found this iPhone. You should also be able to find the owner’s name listed at the top of the Contacts list in the Phone app.

3. Look to Medical ID for More Information

What to do: Access the Medical ID feature, even with a locked iPhone.

If you’re still searching for the owner of a lost iPhone, give the Medical ID feature a try. While its core use is to provide important medical information to first responders in case of an emergency, it can also give you additional hints about the identity of the owner.

To reveal the Medical ID function, access the lock screen on any iPhone and then tap on Emergency button located at the bottom-left hand of the display. A number pad on the screen will appear. On the bottom-left of that screen, tap on Medical ID.

If the owner has configured the feature, their name and more information about them will become available. With any luck, that will help you trace the owner.

4. Is the Phone in Lost Mode?

What to do: Look for a message and make contact using the provided details.

Someone else’s iPhone is unusable to anyone other than the owner, so long as Find My iPhone is turned on. A feature called Activation Lock prevents the iPhone from being used even after a software reset, and the same feature allows the rightful owner to locate lost devices.

If the iPhone has been put into
Lost Mode,
the owner has signed into iCloud.com and marked the device as lost. You should see a message letting you of this, accompanied by a message left by the owner. This should include a contact number or email address you can use to get in touch with the owner.

If the iPhone connects to the internet, the owner will receive its location through iCloud. It’s always a good idea to have Find My iPhone enabled on your own device under Settings > [Name] > Find My. Make sure to take a closer look at
our explanation of the Find My app
and everything you need to know about it.

5. Try Asking Siri

What to do: Command Siri to provide you with information to locate the owner.

As long as the iPhone is online, Siri can perform numerous tasks even if the device is locked. This will only be possible if the phone was turned on when you found it, though.

After a restart, Siri is deactivated until you first unlock it. Pressing and holding the home button will activate Siri, which then gives you a chance to ask a question to help find the owner.

You could try asking the following:

“Call my wife”—Or husband, mum, daddy, boss, etc.
“Read my call log”—This may show you a recent call, so you can then ask Siri to call the contact (by name).
“Read my last message”—This will provide the contact’s name plus the message contents.
“Who owns this iPhone?”—This will give you the name stored in the owner’s contact entry.
“What is my email address?”—You could also try phone number, Twitter handle, and so on.

Apparently, Siri has a boundary on the amount of information disclosed before requiring a passcode. As such, asking Siri to read the call log, then calling any contacts you find, might be the best action you can take.

6. Take a Photo

What to do: capture a photo of your contact details that will sync online.

Most iPhone users have iCloud Photos enabled. That feature backs up every photo and video taken by devices using your Apple ID to iCloud. This lets you access your pictures on any iOS device, or a Mac, with the same Apple ID. That can come in handy when trying to find an owner of a lost iPhone.

The iPhone doesn’t have to be unlocked to capture a photo or video. On the lock screen, select the camera icon or swipe from right to left to reveal the camera. You can then capture a photo. The best idea would be to snap a photo of your contact details.

Hopefully, the photo will be backed up to the iCloud Photos account of the owner and they’ll see it on another device they use.

Found an iPhone? Make Contact or Hand It In

Note: if you find a lost iPhone, Activation Lock will inhibit you from using it if the Find My iPhone feature is enabled. It’s essentially a paperweight for as long as you have it in your possession. So don’t expect to use an iPhone you’ve found.

If none of the above methods work, you may need to eject the owner’s Sim Card and note their carrier and the number written on the SIM card. You can then contact the carrier, give them the number, and they might be able to assist contact the owner of the device.

If you’ve tried all the above possibilities with no luck, your last option is to take it to the police station that’s closest to where you found the iPhone. Explain that you’ve found the iPhone and you’ve tried making contact to no avail.

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30+ Best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Tips and Tricks

Thursday July 28, 2022 4:09 am EAT by GeeksModo Staff

Have you purchased a brand new iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro and wants to get most of it? Here are the best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks that will help you to get the most out of your new device.

From setting up focus modes to using Siri offline, we’ve got an assortment of iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks you probably didn’t know your iOS device could do. These iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks will have you showing off your abilities to your friends and having them ask you where you learned it all – you can link them here and share the knowledge, of course!

Without any further ado, here are the best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks you should try first.

Best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks

Here is a list of the Best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Tips and Tricks:

1. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Set up Focus Modes

Focus creates a distract-free environment around you and disables irrelevant notifications from apps and users. Based on your activity and preference, you can customize a focus profile and select specific apps and contacts to send messages and notifications. It’s like Do Not Disturb mode on steroids. And thankfully, the focus profiles aren’t limited to Apple’s choice only. You can create a custom focus profile for different activities such as Writing, Yoga, Running, Driving, and more. In short, this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick enables you to set up several profiles for different scenarios that give you more control over how you interact with your iPhone. On vacation? You can block notifications from your work apps and email. Sneaking out for a workout during lunch? Same thing, except you can opt to allow messages from Slack in case something urgent comes up. You can even create custom home screens that only show you the apps you want to see for a particular scenario.

You can set up Focus profiles by heading to Settings > Focus. You’ll find preset modes for generic Do Not Disturb, along with Sleep (formerly Bedtime), Personal and Work, with the latter two ready to be set up. Tap on either and follow the on-screen instructions to customize the focus mode, and once complete, you can activate it via the Control Centre. Focus profiles are extremely customizable, so you can really go ham experimenting on what works best for you.

2. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Schedule Your Notifications

Scheduled Summary collects notifications that aren’t time sensitive and displays them at a certain time in the morning and evening. Or, you can add more summaries and control at what time they appear.

Using on-device machine learning, notifications are arranged by priority based on your interactions with apps. Notifications that the device deems more important are displayed at the top of the summary. Important messages will be immediately delivered.

To set it up, head to Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary and toggle it on. You’ll then be prompted to set up the system, adding the apps you’d like to contribute to the notification summary, and set the time(s) you’d like it to appear.
You can choose up to 12 summaries per day, and there are other configurable options including one that allows time-sensitive apps to break free from Notification Summary.

3. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Re-order Home Screen Pages

Moving multiple icons from one home page to another took a long time. Sure ability to move multiple icons at once helped, but that too had its complications.

This iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you re-order entire home screen pages. You can move the whole home screen page from first position to third position without having to individually moving icons.

The best thing about this hidden iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 trick is that all of your widgets and folders will also move along with the page, making it easier to quickly rearrange home screen.

You can move home screen pages by entering the wiggle mode and then tapping on the page dots located right below the home screen icon rows.

4. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: FaceTime Android and Windows users

This iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you enable anyone, even if they don’t have an Apple device, to join a FaceTime call with you by creating a link to a ‌FaceTime‌ conversation that can be shared anywhere.

Using this new link facility, friends and family members who do not have an Apple account can log into a ‌FaceTime‌ call with you using a web browser opened on any non-Apple device, whether that’s a Windows PC or an Android phone.
This effectively makes ‌FaceTime‌ a platform-agnostic video service, although you do need to be an iOS or Mac user to start the ‌FaceTime‌ call and send the link. Here’s how this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick work:

Start the FaceTime app on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro.
Tap on Create Link.
Give your ‌FaceTime‌ Link an identifiable name by tapping Add Name at the top of the Actions menu that appears.
Select a method of sharing your link from the Actions menu, e.g. over Messages or Mail.
Once you’ve sent the link and the recipient opens it, they’ll be directed to a web page where they can enter their name to join the conversation. Once they’ve joined the call, they’ll have the usual ‌FaceTime‌ options to mute their microphone, disable video, switch the camera view, and leave the call.

5. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Zoom in QuickTake videos

The next cool iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick involves QuickTake. You can zoom in while recording a QuickTake video. To zoom in all you have to do is swipe up or down while recording to zoom in or out.

6. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use built-in Authenticator

Gone are the days when you had to rely on third-party Authenticator apps like Google Authenticator or Authy, as now iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro features a built-in Authenticator feature that gives you the ability to quickly generate verification codes and enter them into your online accounts. You can set up authentication code generator on your device by going to Settings > Passwords.

Once you have set up this feature, your device will automatically generate new verification codes when required and autofill them into the website you are trying to log into.

7. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Organize Your Notes

If you’re a heavy Notes user, then you’ll be happy to try this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick. You can now add tags such as #Work #Grocery or #list to your notes to sort them under these tags.

8. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Enable iCloud Private Relay

iCloud Private Relay is a feature from Apple that is available on all iCloud subscription tiers. It lets you connect to virtually any network and browse through the Safari browser on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro with more security and a private environment.

With iCloud Private Relay all the traffic that leaves your device is not only encrypted but it is also sent through two separate internet relays. This means no one, which includes Apple is able to see your iPhone’s IP address, location or browsing activity. This stops data companies and advertisers from creating a detailed profile based on your browsing history.

You can enable the options from Settings > Profile > iCloud > Private Relay menu.

9. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Hide IP Address from All Websites

This iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you hide IP address from both the third-party trackers and websites. Start the Settings app on your iPhone and head to Safari > Privacy & Security > Hide IP Address and select Trackers and Websites from the following menu.

10. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use your iPhone’s camera to scan any text

Have you ever wished you could point your iPhone’s camera at a sign or piece of paper and have it automatically identify then copy the text into an email or a document?

That’s where Live Text comes in – this new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you scan and copy text from photos and your iPhone camera, even if it’s handwritten. And once you’ve pulled the text, you can paste it into any text field. It’s great for quickly sharing addresses, phone numbers, and anything else you don’t want to type out manually.

To use the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro new scan text feature, long-press inside a text field as if you are going to use the copy and paste prompt. Only, you’ll now see a Scan Text button. You may also see a button that uses just the scan icon, which looks like a piece of paper with brackets around it.

Tap the button, which will then replace your keyboard with your iPhone camera’s viewfinder. Point your camera at whatever you want to scan, and then follow the prompts on the screen. For instance, if you’re moving the camera too fast, you’ll see a “Slow Down” message flash on the screen.

As you’re lining up the camera and text just right, you’ll see a live preview of the text your iPhone is identifying and ready to place in your document. Tap the Insert button when you’re ready.

11. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Switch between tab bar and single bar in Safari

One of the best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks is the ability to switch between tab bar and single bar. With Tab bar option you can move the Safari address bar to the bottom of the screen, and add new swipe gestures for switching between opened tabs.

When Single Bar option is selected, you get the classic Safari look in which the address bar is moved towards the top of the screen, just like iOS 14 or earlier.

You can switch between the two types of Safari address bars by following these steps.

Go to Settings > Safari
Choose between Tab Bar or Single Bar options
Exit

12. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Get real-time precipitation alerts from the iPhone’s weather app

Another iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tip is that you can see real-time snow and rain alerts in the weather app. You can turn on the new precipitation alerts by opening the Weather app, then tapping the three-line icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Next, tap the circle icon with the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen followed by Notifications.

Slide the switch next to My Location to the On position and then tap Done. If you have more cities added to the Weather app, you can also turn on alerts for each one.

The next time rain or snow is getting close to you, your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro will alert you a few minutes before it’s going to start. You’ll also receive another alert when the rain is almost finished.

13. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Drag-and-drop between apps

One of the best iOS 15 tips and tricks most people don’t know about is the ability to drag and drop items between apps. You can grab an item like a photo, screenshot, text, phone number etc and then drop into into another application. The drag and drop feature works on a system level and works on both stock and third-party apps.

Here’s how to drag and drop files between apps on iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro:

Start the Photos app and view your recent photos. Don’t tap on a picture to open it full screen, instead place a finger on the photo and start to drag your finger across the screen. Don’t lift your finger when the thumbnail starts to float over the rest of the photos, then switch back to the messages app.

You’ll see a green circle with a sign in it show up on the thumbnail indicating that you can lift your finger and the photo will be placed in the text field, ready for you to send.

Pretty easy, right? You can use this same iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick to attach a document from the Files app to an email as well.

14. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Get more information about your photos

I’ve always had to use a third-party app if I wanted to view any of the finer details stored in the EXIF data about a photo I was sent or took myself. With this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick, whenever you’re viewing a photo in the Photos app, you can swipe up on it to open an information view that will detail where you saved the photo from, as well as all of the EXIF information such as shutter speed, location, the camera used and so on.

The added information is a welcome addition even if you don’t care about all of the finer details. At the very least, being able to see where you saved the picture from (including who sent it to you) is enough.

15. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: change your iPhone’s text size for a specific app

Next on out list of best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks is Per-App Settings feature. You can set and customize display and text settings on per-app basis.

Previously these settings could only be changed on system-level, so if you want to make text larger in one app you would have to make text large on all other apps as well.

With the new Per-App Settings, you can choose which apps you want to customize display and text settings for. You can change these settings for each individual apps, thus having more control over how your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro works.

To use this iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro trick, open the Settings app, then go to Control Center and scroll down until you find the option labeled Text Size by tapping on the green sign.

The next time you’re in an app and you want to adjust the size of the text, open Control Center (swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen on your iPhone and tap on the Text Size button. Slide the button at the bottom of the screen to the left side of the toggle to indicate you only want your changes applied to the app you’re currently using, and then adjust the font size up or down.

16. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Set background Sounds

Next up on our list of the best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 tips and tricks is Background Sounds. With this trick, you can mask unwanted environmental sounds by playing calming background sound on your iPhone. This hidden iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you minimize distractions and as a result can help you focusing on the task at hand or help you in getting calm and rest.

You get multiple background sounds including the following:

Balanced Noise
Bright Noise
Dark Noise
Ocean
Rain
Stream

To activate ‘Background Sounds’ on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro, head to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Background Sounds. From here, you can tap the toggle at the top to turn on the sound, set a volume level, etc.

17. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Watch Movies and TV Shows Together Using FaceTime

Officially called SharePlay, this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick lets you watch streamed movies and TV shows together. When you’re on a ‌‌FaceTime‌‌ call, everyone on the call will see the same synced playback and video controls.

The following steps explain how this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tip works. Note that both parties need to be using ‌FaceTime‌ on an Apple device that supports ‌iOS 15‌, ‌iPadOS 15‌ or MacOS Monterey, for SharePlay to work. SharePlay is not compatible with the browser version of ‌FaceTime‌ available to non-Apple device users.

Start the FaceTime app on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro and initiate a call.
When the call has connected, tap the SharePlay button at the top-right corner of the screen in the new control panel.
Tap Share My Screen in the dropdown. After a three-second countdown, screen sharing will initialize.
Now navigate to the TV app or another streaming app, select something to watch, then press Play.
Select SharePlay when the prompt asks you if you want to SharePlay content. Other people on the call will also be asked whether they want to join SharePlay with you.

That’s all there is to it. The video will stream to other people on the call. As you chat and watch the stream together in sync, the volume will automatically adjust so that you can hear everyone talking without missing the show, and if you fast forward or rewind the video, other people on the call will be notified.

Did you know that you can also listen to music together using SharePlay? Simply launch Apple Music and choose a song for everyone to hear it at the same time.

18. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Adjust the Date, Time, and Location of Your Photos

Up until this point, you had to use the Photos app on a Mac, or rely on third-party iOS apps, to edit the metadata for your iPhone photos.

But now, this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick offers a built-in way for changing these details right inside the Photos app on your iPhone. Here’s how:

Start the Photos app on your iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro.
Select any photo you want to edit the metadata for.
Tap the i icon at the bottom to view the image’s metadata. Alternatively, swipe up from any part of the image.
Select Adjust.
You should see the Adjust Date & Time page. Next, scroll through the calendar by swiping left or right and tap any date. Alternatively, you can also use the arrows to navigate. Remember, you can also choose a future date.
Once done, tap the original time under the calendar and choose your custom time using the spinner.
If you want to change the time zone, tap Time Zone and search for a city of your choice.
Tap Adjust to save all your changes.

19. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Track your iPhone with Find My, even if it’s turned OFF

Devices that have been turned off can still be tracked by the ‌Find My‌ network in ‌iOS 15‌. If a device was low on battery power or turned off by a thief, it can still be found when it’s close to another Apple device.

With this iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro trick, an iPhone that has been turned off will actually enter an ultra-low power state that keeps the Bluetooth beacon active, effectively turning your iPhone into an AirTag.

You’ll see a little “iPhone findable after power off” notice under the Slide to Power Off interface, too.

20. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Keep Night Mode off

For the most part, Night Mode in the Camera app on modern iPhones is a great thing. It can absolutely transform photos taken in very low light.

If the Camera app detects a dark scene, Night Mode is enabled automatically, but sometimes you want that dramatic dark effect, and it’s annoying to disable Night Mode to get it. You have to tap the Night Mode indicator and then slide the timer down to zero seconds.

If you wait a while before taking another photo, it will re-engage automatically.

With iOS 15, you can head to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings to find an option to preserve your Night Mode settings (among other things). With this enabled, Night Mode will remember when it has been turned off and won’t re-enable itself. If you want to take a Night Mode shot, you can manually tap the Night Mode indicator to enable it yourself.

21. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Adjust video playback speed

Apps like YouTube have had variable speed playback for some time now, but the default iPhone video player has not. In iOS 15, the default player (used for many web videos and by lots of apps) has playback speed controls.

When playing back a video, tap the overflow menu in the lower right (the three dots) and you’ll be able to select from up to five different playback speeds.

22. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Share things with Siri

Sometimes it’s a pain to share that cool thing you found online. You have to copy URLs or images, switch to Messages, hold down to paste, hope it works…

With this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick, you can finally just ask Siri. Simply say “Hey Siri, share this with [name]” (or something similar like “send this to [name]” and Siri will share the content on the screen to that person using Messages.

Items like images, web pages, Apple Music or Podcasts, Apple News stories, and Maps locations will share the actual content (or a link to it). For content Siri can’t share, it will warn you that it can only send a screenshot—but Siri will still automatically take that screenshot and drop it in a Message to that person.

It’s all very frictionless. Just ask Siri to share something, and Siri will prepare the item in a flash and ask “ready to send it?” Say yes, and you’re done. No finding and opening share menus, no copy/paste, no flipping back and forth to the Messages app.

23. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Translate anywhere

With this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tip, you can translate text just about anywhere. In almost any app where you can select text!

Just tap and hold on a block of text to show the text selection window and drag the start and end points—just as you would if you were going to copy/paste. You’ll notice the little popup menu has a new Translate option (in some apps you might have to hit the right arrow to see more options).

You’ll get a warning that the text is going to be sent to Apple to process the translation. Tap Continue and a pop-up card will show the translated text and give you options to copy the translation, change languages, and so on.

Want to do the translation without sending data to Apple? Open Settings, then Translate and enable On-Device Mode. You’ll have to also open up the Downloaded Languages menu and download the languages for which you want to enable offline translation.

24. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Keep an eye on app activity

Apple is always expanding privacy features, and with this iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro trick you have a powerful new tool to find out which apps are accessing your phone’s features and data.

Start the Settings app, then tap Privacy, and scroll to the bottom to Record App Activity. You’ll have to enable this at the top of the screen.

This will record a 7-day summary of exactly when and how often all your apps access things like your microphone or microphone, or which web domains they visit. Just come back to this screen a week later for a full report.

You can even tap Save App Activity to export a JSON file of all the data if you’re into that kind of thing.

25. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Set Recovery and Legacy Contacts

Your Apple ID and iCloud account get more important every year. It’s full of purchases, services, cloud data, photos…if you lost access, a lot of that stuff would be gone forever.

Apple has two welcome new tricks on iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro. Account Recovery Contacts are people you trust that Apple can contact to help you reset your passcode if you ever lose it. They can’t actually access your data, but if you initiate a password reset but are locked out of your own devices, the reset code can be sent to that contact.

To enable it, start the Settings app then tap on your profile at the top. Then choose Password & Security, then Account Recovery. You’ll see an option to Add Recovery Contact.

What about accessing all your content should you pass away? In the event of your untimely demise, a Digital Legacy Contact is a person who can request access to your data after you die. They’ll get access to Messages, Photos, Notes, Contacts, Calendar events, App purchases, and your device backup, but not your iCloud Keychain or licensed media purchases.

26. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use Spotlight from the lock screen

Spotlight search is the tool you get when you swipe down on the screen to search your iPhone. iOS 15 adds another way to access Spotlight Search to another, extremely convenient area: the lock screen.

To use this iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro trick, simply swipe down on the lock screen to pull down Spotlight Search. Your iPhone doesn’t even need to be unlocked first, so you can use this feature whether you’re holding your iPhone up or flat down on a desk. However, if you decide to tap on something, you will need to unlock your iPhone to continue.

27. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Temporary iCloud Storage For Transferring Data

Have you ever ran out of iCloud Storage when backing up your iPhone? This can make transferring to another iPhone very difficult as without a complete backup you run into the risk of losing data. One of the hidden iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks includes temporary iCloud Storage for transferring data.

Now when you buy a new iPhone and use iCloud backup to move data, iCloud will detect that you are low on cloud storage and grant you as much storage as you need to complete the backup proceed. The storage is provided temporarily though and will go away in 3 weeks, however this is enough to move your data, apps and settings to your new device.

28. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use the Wallet app to open your hotel room or house

Companies that make HomeKit-compatible locks can add support for a Wallet-based house key that can be used to tap to unlock HomeKit door locks.
Home keys will be available in the Wallet app and can be accessed on ‌iPhone‌ and Apple Watch.

Participating hotels that use digital keys can allow customers to add those keys to the Wallet app after making a reservation, allowing them to bypass the lobby.

The digital hotel key stored in the Wallet app can be used to unlock a hotel room. After checkout, the hotel room key is automatically archived.

29. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use Siri offline

Did you ever trigger Siri on your iPhone and got disappointed after being told that you must connect to the Internet to perform certain tasks? Bother not, you are not alone to have felt dejected for being unable to use Siri offline on your iPhone to perform common and repetitive tasks. No longer! Finally, it’s possible to use offline Siri in iOS 15 on iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro.

Here are some tasks that you can perform using Siri without an Internet connection:

Controlling system settings such as enabling dark/light mode, low power mode, AirPlane mode, activate Accessibility features, etc.
Playing the next or previous song in the Apple Music app.
Opening apps.
Setting and changing timers
Setting and changing alarms.

30. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Search the web by voice

Tap the Tab Bar at the bottom of the screen, and you’ll now see a microphone icon appear in the far right of the text field. Tap the mic and you can dictate your search term to Siri. The moment you’re done talking, the search takes place automatically, without you having to tap or type anything else. It’s very convenient.

31. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Identify animals, items and plants in photos

Your iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro can now identify and tell you more information about an animal, a landmark, a plant or an object, such as a book. An icon is available on top of photos in your gallery and, with a tap, it can identify a pet’s dog breed and show you more information, for example. Or it can name a flower with some background on the plant. The feature is similar to the one that’s been available on Android phones called Google Lens.

32. iPhone 13 tips and tricks: Use new Clothing Options For Memoji

If you love Memoji, then you are going to love the 40 new outfits that are available for Memoji. In addition to new outfits iOS 15 also brings three different colors for clothes, two different eye colors for right and left eye, new glasses, new stickers and multicolor headwear. All of the new goodies are available under the Memoji editor.

Your Favorite iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Tips and Tricks

So these were some of the best iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks you would love to try today. My favorite iPhone 13 tips and tricks include Focus,, FaceTime Links and Live Text. There’s surely plenty more hidden iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks to discover, so I’ll keep tapping, swiping and noting anything I find. Did we miss out on something important that needs to be added to the list? Which are your favorite iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro tips and tricks? Let me know in the comments section below.

Tag: iPhone Tips

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Why Do People Buy iPhones? Here’s The Truth

Tuesday January 14, 2025 6:21 pm EAT by Dave Johnson

Why do you buy what you buy? Why do you buy iPhones? Why do people buy iPhones? Do you ever stop to think about it? Do you ever stop to contemplate your reasons for buying something?

Why do i buy iPhones?

For the longest of time, I struggled to find the answer, even though i use iPhone for pretty much everything. It’s my wallet, my calendar, my notepad, my connection to work, and yes, the tool I use to get in touch with the world.

Let’s take this iPhone 16 Pro Max I’m using right now. Why did I buy it? Well, First of all, I truly needed it. Perfect, why else did I buy it? Is it because of what it does for me? Yes! Is this iPhone a device used to get things done? Yes! Is it for entertainment purposes? Yes! Is it a tool used to create entertainment? Yes! Is it to produce content? Yes! Is it to store and edit pictures? Yes! It is to stream music? Yes! Is it to handle my email? Sure! Yes. It handles all of these tasks. But those are the rational reasons why I buy iPhones. Let’s look at the far powerful, typically implicit, emotional reasons why i buy iPhones.

Far way back, before Apple totally and completely dominated the tech arena with the iPhone, iPad, new Macs, etc., Apple positioned itself as a brand for creators. It is practical to state that Steve Jobs created a cult, a Culture for Creators, by Creators, for people who take art, innovation and creativity seriously converging with nice, excellent design.

This philosophy was very specific. This philosophy was not for every person. This philosophy flew the black pirate flag over corporate headquarters in an act of disobedience
(yes, indeed). At the beginning, Jobs positioned Apple to care about art, innovation and creativity. Apple was — and still is — for people who care: People who care about innovation, people who care about the price, people who care about the quality, and most importantly, people who care about the customer.

Please keep in mind: Apple never was, nor is it currently, for every person. It is still for specific.

Because of this skillful positioning and completely careful attention paid to design through end user understanding, Apple enjoys “luxurious pricing” with very little discounting. Moreover, the company receives massive loyalty to the brand.

You know how some people gets thrilled when they land on Disney World in Orlando? As if they are finally seeing their childhood dream come true in front of them? Some people gets thrilled when they finally land on Cupertino, CA, to experience for themselves where it all started. And to see where the Real Magic gets created to this day. I belong to that group of people. (I’ll take the pilgrimage to Cupertino, not Orlando.)

Why do people buy iPhones?

We buy iPhones because of our profound emotional connection to the brand. Like loyalty to a beloved college football team, it is a resolute, inconspicuous connection, never to be broken. We buy the iPhone because it’s a phone that Apple built for enthusiasts. Using an iPhone is real enjoyment, real gratification, real pleasure. It is smart enough to know to get out of the user’s way and allow her to get to the significant job of productivity. This is a value that Android creators never got. They still don’t get it. And they never will.

That’s perfectly okay: it isn’t for them. iPhones are for people like us who do things like this. Apple knows exactly how to get the user experience aspect of their devices just right. The Cupertino company knows precisely what users want in a smartphone with regards to user interface and security.
Apple Bosses work very hard to ensure they don’t do anything to bungle this profound , emotional connection they and the brand has with tons and tons of people around the world. They are aware that they are in an extremely jealous business position with their luxury product pricing on consumer and professional goods.

The difference between Apple Bosses and bosses of other companies is Apple executives actually value what they do. They value music. They value art. They value bleeding-edge Tech. They value design. They value execution. They value the magic of small teams. They value building community around Apple Stores. They value emotions. They value people. They value legacy.

We buy iPhones because of emotional bond. We buy iPhones because of community. We buy iPhones because it makes us feel special associating with the brand. We buy iPhones because it is for Creators, by Creators. We buy iPhones because we want to make things better by making better things. And we want to look good while doing so.

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Tag: iPhone Products

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