19 Useful iPhone Tips and Tricks You Probably Didn't Know About

We've compiled a little list of iPhone tips and tricks that are guaranteed to save you a ton of time.

Many of us use our phones without even realizing all the great features that they come with. Some are easy to find whilst others require you to watch an instruction video or two. In the following list, we've compiled 19 great iPhone tips and tricks that you might find useful, we certainly have. Obviously, this list is far from exhaustive and in no particular order.

1. Three finger zoom

• First up on our list of iPhone tips and tricks will definitely come in handy. Buried deep within your iPhone's Settings is a nifty little feature to help you zoom in on your screen.
• This is usually disabled by default and we doubt you've been told about it. Once activated you can double tap the screen with three fingers to zoom in.
• If you also activate the Zoom and Show Controller option you'll get a handy little pan tool to help navigate around your zoomed in screen.
• To activate these features go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Zoom.

2. Calculator Trick

• Next on our list of iPhone tips and tricks will save you a lot of time using the calculator.
• We are all prone to making simple mistakes when using calculators, especially on our phone. Did you know that you don't actually need to hit C whenever you mistype a number? Instead of resetting the entire sum you can simply delete the last number entered.
• To do this just swipe left or right on the calculator display panel to delete the last number. 

3. Call right back trick

• Next up on our list of iPhone tips and tricks will help you repeat that last call. If you need to redial the last number you rang there is actually a built-in shortcut to do so.
• Launch the phone app, this is the green phone picture on your handset. Next, instead of tapping the 'Recents' tab (The clock face one), just tap the green call button on the main keypad.
• This will instantly let you call the last number you dialed.

4. iPhone spirit level

• This is definitely an example of iPhone tips and tricks we were not aware of. Did you know your iPhone has a handy in-built spirit level? Now you can use your iPhone to help you level that shelf your partner has been bugging you to put up for years.
• Instead of downloading yet another app just use iOS's built-in function. You'll find it by opening the standard Compass app and swiping left to reveal the spirit level! Very handy indeed. But it doesn't end there. You can orientate the phone edge or by lying flat to provide different spirit level displays.

5. Snap a photo whilst shooting a video

• Yes, you read that correctly. iPhones let you record video and take a photo at the same time. This example of iPhone tips and tricks is easy to miss.
• If you want to do this it's actually very obvious once you have been shown it. Whilst recording a video you'll see another button beside the record button. Simply tap this to take a quick snap without interrupting your video recording. Very useful indeed.

6. Figure out who's calling just by listening

• You might have already figured this one out but this example of iPhone tips and tricks is pretty handy.
• If your phone is buried in your bag you can, nonetheless, figure out who is calling you with this tip. Go to Contacts, select a friend or family member and tap edit. From here select Ringtone and tap on the word default. From here you can assign them their own ringtone or indeed set your phone to vibrate.
• This nifty setting will let you easily and quickly personalize how your phone reacts to a particular contact. Just make sure you remember which ones you've assigned or you might not realize it is your phone ringing!

7. Keep some photos private

• Of course, generally speaking, your photos are private so long as you control who has access to your phone. But what about those times you want to show off your holiday snaps but don't your friends and family to see certain images? This great example of iPhone tips and tricks will save you some embarrassment.
• To do this head over to your Photos app. Select the pictures you want to hide, tap Share (the small square with an up arrow) and then select Hide. You'll then be able to access these photos in you hidden folder within Albums.

8. Do not disturb feature for driving

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• As authorities are ramping up punishments for using phones whilst driving, not that you'd be doing that of course, every little helps to avoid them.
• iOS does indeed have an app for that too and its helpfully called Do Not Disturb While Driving. This, as the name suggests, is especially useful to prevent you from being distracted should you receive a message or a call.
• This app suppresses notifications, texts etc from interrupting you whilst you're behind the wheel. You can also automatically send customized messages to senders you specify. To activate it simply go to Settings > Do Not Disturb.

9. Sleep with some tunes

• This is a great example of iPhone tips and tricks. Why not start up your favorite playlist that turns itself off automatically after a set period of time?
• This'll be perfect for those who like to fall to sleep using music. To do this go to the Clock app and press Timer. Now tap the "When Timer Ends" button and choose "Stop Playing". You can now set the timer for the desired length of time and then start playing your tunes.

10. Teach Siri how to say things

• Siri is a very useful little app but she is far from infallible. This is especially true when it comes to pronouncing things, especially names. This can grate at times.
• You can help Siri out by teaching her how to pronounce those less common names. To do this simply activate Siri and then ask her "Can I teach you how to pronounce XXXX's name". She will then guide you through the process. Quite a handy iPhone tip.

11. Find the best signal

• If you ever find yourself in a place with a less than great signal strength you can have your phone help you out with this example of iPhone tips and tricks.
• Trigger your phone's inbuilt "field test mode" to help you find the best place to make a call or send a text. To do this go to the phone dialer and type in *3001#12345#* and press the call button.
• This will actually tell you your phone's true signal strength. You'll be greeted with a set of tiny numbers in the top left corner of your phone. These are always negative but the closer to zero the stronger the signal.

12. Make custom replies for missed calls

• If you are driving, in a meeting or simply far too busy to deal with calls, why not set up some pre-written text responses for missed calls?This is one of the most useful iPhone tips and tricks on the list and one you might not know exists.
• Setting it up is actually very easy. Simply go to Settings > Phone > Respond with text and then create your very own response. You can now type your very own responses instead of relying on the standard defaults.

13. Inbuilt magnifier

• Did you know that iPhone's have an inbuilt magnifier feature? This one will come in handy for reading all those terms and conditions you need to read day in, day out.
• Instead of turning on your phone's camera, that keeps losing focus, you can instead activate the iOS function to help you out. To find it simply go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Magnifier and then toggle it on. You can now activate it by triple-clicking the home button. This is a great example of iPhone tips and tricks.

14. Shortcut for web browser suffixes

• This is one of the lazier iPhone tips and tricks but a useful one nonetheless. Instead of laboriously typing out web addresses you can save yourself some hassle by getting a shortcut for the website suffixes.
• This is a standard feature on your iPhone and you won't need to activate anything on some hidden options somewhere. On your web browser simply press and hold the " . " button and this will pull up the shortcuts list for your convenience. This will now display ".com", ".net", ".org" etc.

15. Faster than normal charging

• Although iPhone 8 and X models both allow for faster charging as standard, for those with older models there is still a nifty way of doing this.
• A great little iPhone tip is to put your phone into flight mode whilst charging to drastically reduce the charging time of your device.
• To do this, if you are not aware, swipe on your home screen to open the control center. Then locate and activate the airplane icon. This will promptly put your phone into flight mode and allow your phone to charge about 5 minutes quicker.

16. Close multiple apps at once

• You probably, we hope, know how to close applications on your iPhone but did you know you can close up to three at a time? Although this might take some practice to pull off the first few times you do it, mastering it will you save some effort in future.
• Like force closing individual apps double click on your home button, press and hold up to three open apps and swipe upwards to close.
• Granted this may look a bit odd to any surrounding third parties you will get to fell smug showing off this great example of iPhone tips and tricks. You can, of course, try this.

17. Quickly close flashlight

• Perhaps you weren't aware your iPhone has a flashlight in the first place? In which case you can consider this a two-for-one tip.
• You can activate your iPhone's flashlight from the same menu as flight mode above. Most people probably repeat the process to deactivate it but this can be more hassle than it's worth. You can, however, quickly shut it off by using the camera shortcut on your lock screen.
• Now that is what we call a handy example of Phone tips and tricks. 

18. Lock focus and exposure when taking a photo

• This is a great example of iPhone tips and tricks that will save you from a lot of frustration when taking photos. Save yourself the annoyance of losing focus and exposure when the camera moves with this tip.
• You can actually lock the focus and exposure by tapping and holding the screen until a yellow "AE/AF Lock" message appears. Even if you change you composition the focus and exposure will not be affected. Fantastic.

19. Unlock the power of long press

• And finally on our list of iPhone tips and tricks is one you might only stumble upon by accident.
• Hidden deep beneath the innocuously looking iOS keyboard is a world of many symbols. Some of these can only be accessed using long-press.
• For example, you can gain access to many global currency symbols by long pressing the dollar sign. you can also access em and en dashes by long-pressing the dash key or get the degree symbol by long-pressing the 0 key. 

So there you go, 19 iPhone tips and tricks you might not be aware of. Some of them you might have stumbled upon by pure luck, others, we hope, are news to you.

If you have any great tips or tricks you'd like to share please feel free to add them in the comments below. Otherwise we'd be interested to hear if you'll start to use any of these.