29 iPhone Hacks I Just Learned In 2024 That Made My Life WAYYYY Easier
1.First off, with the new iOS 18, you can now change your app icons to their "dark mode" versions, and even set them to change automatically at night.
Just long-press your home screen, then tap "Edit" in the top-left corner, and select "Customize." You'll also have the option to change to large app icons that don't show the app's name underneath (as you can see in this screenshot).
2.If that doesn't do it for you — or if you want more of an ~aesthetic~ — you can also tint your app icons to a customizable color of your choosing! Of course, this helps create a vibe, but it could also potentially make you less hooked on your phone by removing the colorful notifications that compel you to click.
You'll find this option in the same place as the other home screen customizations. Just tap on "tinted."
3.If you use your phone a lot at night, try the "reduce white point" setting to reduce the contrast and make things appear even less bright than the lowest brightness setting.
This keeps your phone brightness at the same level, but it makes the whites and highlights less bright. You'd be surprised how much nicer it is on your eyes!
4.Did you know that your phone is a white noise machine? No need to stream white noise...you can just go into Accessibility --> Audio & Visual --> Background Sounds. You can even change the type of sound you want!
Ocean, fire, rain, and nighttime sounds are just a few of the options, in addition to your usual white noise.
5.If you don't like how your pages are arranged, you can long-press the home screen, tap "Edit Pages," and drag them around to rearrange them (or delete them completely). It's wayyyy quicker than moving apps around individually.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
6.Set a sleep timer so you can listen to music while you fall asleep.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
If you like listening to podcasts or music while you fall asleep but want it to shut off after a while, all you need to do is set a timer (through the Clock app) and scroll down to the bottom of the When Timer Ends menu. Select Stop Playing, and your music will shut off when the timer expires.
7.Oh, and if you like to use YouTube but don't have Premium, you know that turning your screen off will make the YouTube app stop playing. To get around this, play your YouTube videos in browsers like Firefox, Brave, or Safari in desktop mode. When you minimize the app, it'll play in picture-in-picture mode, and you'll still hear the audio when your screen turns off.
Supposedly you can also get around it in the YouTube app by following these instructions (but I haven't tested them, so your mileage may vary):
"1. Play a YouTube video in the app
2. Switch to picture-in-picture floating window (minimize app)
3. Pause video
4. Turn off phone screen
5. Using AirPods Pro (not sure if it works with other earphones with a play/pause button) squeeze the stem to play
6. Video audio plays with screen off"
8.This is less a "hack" and more a new feature, but you can now tap-back emojis and stickers in iMessage. This opens up a whole world of tap-backs, where before you were limited to just thumbs-up, thumbs-down, heart, "ha ha," double exclamation marks, and a question mark.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
Sometimes you need an emoji to properly convey your reaction, ya know? By the way, you can easily make stickers from your own photos now by long-pressing on the subject of the photo and then tapping to create a sticker.
9.Use a scientific calculator and get more functions.
All you have to do is turn your phone sideways and you'll get many more options, like square roots and logarithms. Make sure your screen orientation isn't locked!
10.Or, just type your math problems into the Notes app, and it'll solve expressions automatically.
11.Also, your calculator can now convert currencies! Just tap on the calculator button in the lower left corner and turn on "convert" to bring up the option.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
You can also convert currencies in Notes the same way you can do math!
12.Speaking of the Notes app, if you want to make a PDF of something, just use Notes. Create a new note, then click the paperclip "attachment" icon. That'll give you the option to scan documents using your camera, and Notes will straighten it out and level it for you!
13.If you do a lot of one-handed texting, you can shift your keyboard over to the left or right to make it easier on yourself! Just long-press the globe icon at the bottom-left to bring up the keyboard options, and then use the buttons at the bottom to shift.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
14.If you live in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, or Ohio, you can add your driver's license or state ID to Apple Wallet.
15.You can customize your lock screen and add widgets — like Weather, Stocks, and Calendar appointments — as well as change the font and color of the text. Just long-press on your lock screen to get started.
If you want your lock screen to change automatically, you can select the "photo shuffle" option and select a set of photos that will shuffle into your lock screen. You can choose which people in your camera roll you want to show up, and you can select how often you want the lock screen to change.
16.Make your speakers louder.
Go to Settings > Music > EQ, and check "Late Night." That'll give your iPhone's speakers a little extra punch. Try it with music playing and hear the difference for yourself!
17.Search your photos based on the objects that are in the photos. The Photos app has a search icon at the top that lets you search through your photos based on who — or what — is in them. Try it; it's like magic.
This is also super helpful for finding things like photos you took of documents or notes.
18.Use text replacement shortcuts to make filling out forms wayyyy easier.
If you go to Settings --> General --> Keyboards --> Text Replacement, you can add as many text shortcuts as you like. So, you could make it so that anytime you need to fill out a form, all you have to do is type a few characters and autocorrect will type out your whole email address. In the above example, typing "qqq" would autocorrect to "youremail@gmail.com."
19.Use your phone as a level to hang pictures.
When you're in the Measure app, you'll see an option to use your phone as a level, which is great because you can never find your actual level when you're trying to hang something.
20.Add a "home button" back in.
Andy Golder / BuzzFeed
Remember back in the day, when we used to have a Home button? I still miss it sometimes. By going to Settings --> Accessibility --> Touch and turning on AssistiveTouch, you can get a small circle on your screen that you can tap to bring up a shortcut menu to various options. You can also assign different functions (like taking a screenshot or locking your screen rotation) to different presses of that button, like double tapping or long pressing.
This can be useful if you don't want to have to swipe down to bring up certain options, too.
21.Use the keyboard as a track pad to move the cursor while typing.
Y'know when you make a typo while texting and it's, like, impossible to tap on the right spot to place the typing cursor? Well, you can just tap and hold anywhere on the keyboard, and then you can slide your finger left and right to slide the cursor around.
22.Use Google Maps when you're offline.
If you're traveling overseas or somewhere else where you won't have access to data, you can often download Google Maps for the area in advance. Just tap on a location, then tap on the menu (it looks like three dots in the upper-right corner) and tap Download offline map.
23.Reach apps at the top of your screen more easily.
If you have one of the larger iPhone models, it can be tough to reach the top of the screen with your thumb. There's a simple solution: Swipe down at the very bottom of the screen (if you still have a home button, double-tap it without clicking) to shift all your apps down a bit so you can reach the ones at the top.
24.Or turn off Reachability so you don't accidentally do it.
Under Settings --> Accessibility --> Touch, you can toggle Reachability on or off. You might want it off if you (like me) find yourself accidentally brushing the bottom of your screen with your thumb all the time.
25.Turn on your Do Not Disturb during a movie and have it turn off automatically.
If you press and hold the Do Not Disturb button in your Control Center, it'll give you these options. You could schedule it out, or you can select "Until I leave this location," and your Do Not Disturb will turn off automatically when you leave the theater.
26.Quickly text someone your location.
Instead of sending your friend an address to let them know where you are, all you have to do is type in "I'm at," and (if you have Location Services on) your phone's autocorrect will provide your current location.
27.Customize your Control Center for easy access to the stuff you change often.
Your Control Center (the menu that shows up when you swipe down from the top right) has some very useful stuff by default, like buttons for Airplane Mode and controls for your brightness and music. But you can also add buttons for settings and Apple apps that you use often, like your Wallet or calculator. You can also set shortcuts for things like your alarms, or add a button to toggle Low Power Mode.
28.Change the brightness of your flashlight.
Your phone's flashlight is super bright by default, but if you tap and hold the icon, you can choose lower brightness levels. It's especially helpful if you need to get up during the night and don't want to wake yourself up with a too-bright light.
29.Make custom vibrations for alerts.
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To make a custom vibration, head into Settings and tap Sounds & Haptics. Once you're in there, select the Sound and Vibration Patterns you want to change. For this example, we'll go with Ringtone. At the top, you'll see Vibration.
Toward the bottom, you'll see under Custom the Create New Vibration option. Follow the onscreen instructions, and you can create a vibration pattern of your choosing.
