30 Top iOS 7 Tips and Tricks!

The estimated reading time for this post is 11 minutes

iOS 7 is chock full of exciting new features and hidden gems designed to make your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch more powerful and efficient. With over 200 new features, you could spend quite a while discovering the best ones. Or you could save a lot of time and check out these top 30.

By now you’ve probably finished reading iOS 7 – What You Need to Know Before You Update and updating your iDevices. If you haven’t done that yet, well, Apple is giving you plenty of reasons to want to update.

iOS 7 is a free update for:

• iPhone 4 and later
• iPad 2 and later
• iPod Touch 5th generation

and comes pre-installed on the iPhone 5s and 5c.

New Features

Control Center

Please a finger on the bottom edge of your screen and swipe up to reveal Control Center. You can easily access flashlight, camera, timer and calculator from the bottom. You can also control audio, including volume, pause, play, fast forward and rewind. You can turn on and off Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb and Lock Rotation. You can also control the brightness of your screen.

Siri

Siri now has new powers. You can command Siri to open apps. Say, “Take a photo” to open the camera app. Say, “Open Facebook” to open the Facebook app. Say, “Make a reservation” and give details to use the OpenTable app. You can even command Siri to play a song from your iTunes collection or from iTunes Radio.

Press the ? icon at the bottom of Siri to find out examples of what it can do.

You can make Siri work better for you by adjusting your settings. Go to Settings => General => Siri. You can choose voices, language and other options.

iTunes Radio

Apple has a free streaming radio service for you tucked into your music app. Open the app and press the Radio icon in the lower left corner.

Voice Calls using FaceTime

FaceTime allows us to make video calls to others using iDevices and Mac computers. With iOS 7 you can use FaceTime to make audio calls as well. This comes in very handy when you want to save your voice minutes and when you are connected to Wi-Fi but don’t have good cell phone reception. You can also use this for free international calls.

During my tests of this feature, FaceTime voice calls have been very clear and easy to hear.

New Sounds and Ringtones

If you’re tired for reaching for your phone when you hear that universal text tone, only to find it was coming from another phone, take a minute to set a more unique ringtone. Apple now gives you many more choices so the chances of you having the same tones as someone else are greatly reduced. Go to Settings => Sounds and choose your new ringtones and alert tones. You can choose from one of the new ones or pick Classic to reveal the ones from previous versions of iOS.

Automatic App Updates

If you don’t want to be bothered with manually updating your apps, this feature will be a big bonus for you. You can now have your device update apps automatically and control whether they update using cellular data.

Go to Settings => iTunes & App Store and choose Updates under Automatic Downloads. Under that you can toggle Use Cellular Data on or off.

Unlimited Apps in Folders

If you organize your apps into folders, you’ll be pleased to know that you can now have unlimited apps in a folder. Perhaps you can’t get enough of puzzle games and have dozens of different puzzle apps on your phone. Good news! You can place them all into one folder, freeing up your screen for other apps and make your apps funny easier to find.

See, How to Create App Folders for Your iPhone and iPad to learn how to organize your apps into folders.

See Where You’ve Been (or Not)

Your iPhone can keep track of your favorite places:

Go to Settings => Privacy => Location Services and scroll to System Services at the bottom and tap it. Find Frequent Locations at the bottom and tap it. You can see a history of your most frequent locations and turn that feature off if you’re not using it.

Control Which Apps Use Cellular Data

If you have monthly data limits, you may not want every app to be able to use cellular data. You can restrict some of your apps to access the Internet only when you’re connected to Wi-Fi. Go to Settings => Cellular and scroll down to Use Cellular Data For: and turn off any apps you don’t want to be a data hog.

Block People

If you get annoying text message or phone calls from people you’d rather not hear from ever again, you can now block them. Go to your Phone app => Contacts and find their entry. Scroll down to Block this Caller and press it. You will be asked to confirm your choice and reminded that you will not receive phone calls, messages or FaceTime from people on your block list.

Note that people must be in your Contacts list for you to block them.

Correction: you can block people who are not in your Contacts List from Recent Calls. Open your Phone app and go to Recent Calls. Find the phone number you want to block and press the i icon on the right. Scroll down to Block this Caller. This works for outgoing and incoming calls.

Thanks to Rob at Today in iOS for this information in his most recent podcast Episode 0285 Feeling a little askew.

AirDrop

With AirDrop you can send photos, video and more to others around you. Open Control Center and press AirDrop. You can adjust your settings so that you can be discovered by everyone or only your contacts. To save battery power, turn AirDrop off until you need it.

On the Level

The new Compass app is very cool and comes free with iOS 7. Hidden in this app is a free level. Swipe the compass to the left to reveal the level. Go ahead, check your floors. I’ll wait.

If you find your floors aren’t quite level, don’t panic yet. Note that some iPhone 5s models are having issues with the level. A fix is promised in a future update to iOS 7.

Make Your Phone Kid-Friendly

You can now restrict use of your iDevice to kid-friendly content.

Go to Settings => General => Restrictions and scroll down to Allowed Content and choose which restrictions you would like. You can set your password protection so this setting can’t be changed without entering a password.

Kids Apps

iTunes now has a kids’ section for apps. In the App Store app, click on Categories in the upper left corner and scroll down to Kids.

Near Me

Check out the Near Me section to find apps that are popular in your area. This can be especially handy when you travel to a new area to discover apps that are helpful.

Sort Your Mail

The native mail app can now sort your mail. You can sort by VIP, flagged, unread, etc. Go to your Mail app => Mailboxes and tap on Edit. Check any categories you want to appear in your search page.

Text Message Time Stamps

Swipe your text messages to the left to reveal a time stamp for when you received the message.

Settings

Turn Off Movement

Is the Parallax wallpaper making you queasy? Good news, you can turn off that feature.

Go to Settings => General => Accessibility => Reduce Motion => On.

Make Text Easier to Read

Many people have difficulty seeing the slim font of iOS 7. To make text easier to read, enable bold text.

Go to Settings => General => Accessibility and toggle Bold Text to On.

This will involve resetting your phone but when it turns back on you will have a much easier time reading text.

Also see, Fixing Your Font Size! for instructions on how to make the text size larger on your iDevice.

Notifications

Notifications on Lock Screen

Now when you receive a Notification on your lock screen, you can swipe that notification to the right to open the app that notified you. You can also swipe up to close that notification.

You can control which apps appear in Notifications by going to Settings => Notification Center. Scroll down to Include and select how you wish to be notified for each app.

Notification Center

Swipe down from the top edge of any screen to reveal Notification Center. Your notifications have three tabs: Today, All and Missed. You can control what information appears in Notifications Center by going to Settings => Notification Center and adjusting your settings.

Swipe Away Notifications

No more do you have to wait patiently for a notification to fade away at the top of your screen. When one appears you can swipe it up to remove it from your screen.

New Functions

Safari

Now you can search and enter web addresses in a unified bar at the top of your screen.

Your open web pages appear in a Rolodex carousel you can spin through to browse. Tap the icon in the bottom right corner to see your open pages. Close a page by tapping on the X or swiping the page left.

Closing Apps

In Close Your Apps! you can find out how important closing apps can be to the performance and battery life of your device. With iOS 7, the method of closing your apps has changed.

Double tap the Home button (that part hasn’t changed) and you will see a row of icons at the bottom of your screen showing the apps you have open (that part hasn’t changed either). You will also see screens of each app which you can swipe up to close the app or tap to open the app (that’s the big change).

You can close multiple apps at once by swiping up apps with multiple fingers to close them.

Swipe to Go Back

If you’re missing a Back button on iOS, you’ll appreciate this new feature. On apps that have this feature enabled, you can swipe to the right to go back.

Spotlight Search

Instead of swiping all the way to the left, you now access Spotlight Search by swiping down on your home page. Don’t start from the top of the screen, that opens Notification Center. Start swiping from the middle of the screen to reveal Spotlight Search.

My full review of Spotlight Search: How to Use Spotlight Search on iPhone and iPad.

Blue Dots

After you download a new app, a blue dot will appear next to the icon.

Camera/Photos

Camera Burst Mode

Take multiple shots with Burst Mode. Hold down the Volume Up button when you’re taking a picture using the Camera app and multiple images will be taken. The photos will be combined to create the best shot automatically.

You can also choose the best one by going to Photos and selecting the photo. “Choose Favorites” will appear at the bottom. Press that to be taken to the photos that were combined. You can choose which one(s) you want to appear on your Photo Roll by pressing them to reveal a check mark.

Camera Filters

No longer do you have to deal with reality when you’re taking a photo. Press the filter icon in the lower right corner of the camera app and then choose from nine different filters.

Photo Gallery Moments

Your Photo Roll is now conveniently sorted into Moments, according to place and time, making it easier for you to find your pictures. You can share entire Moments with others in addition to sharing individual pictures.

Perfect Parallax Wallpapers

Love the parallax effect? You can use your own images. You can resize your images to make them work for you:

iPhone 5/5c/5s   1536 x 1040 pixels
iPhone 4S     1360 x 1040 pixels
iPad 3 and iPad 4    2448 x 2448 pixels
iPad 2 and iPad Mini     1424 x 1424 pixels

Not sure how to resize images? Check out PicMonkey – Make the Most of Your Pictures

Note that the colors of your wallpaper show through on several apps and on Control Center. Be sure to pick wallpaper with colors you enjoy because you’ll be seeing a lot of them!

Your Thoughts

Which new features of iOS 7 are you finding the most useful? Do you have any tips and tricks to share with us? Have you enjoyed using iOS 7? Let us know in the Comments section below!

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Verizon Wireless Same Day Delivery

Verizon Wireless is now offering same day delivery of wireless devices in the Philadelphia area. Verizon is piloting this program in the Philadelphia area. From Verizon:

“Anyone in the Philadelphia area (covering 169 zip codes) who orders devices – with or without accessories – on www.verizonwireless.com by 10 a.m. Monday through Friday may choose same-day delivery, with delivery guaranteed by 7 p.m. The cost is $19.99, compared with the priority overnight delivery fee of $14.99.”

Verizon plans to expand Same Day Delivery to New York City, Dallas, San Francisco and Pittsburgh in the near future.

Here is more information about Verizon’s Same Day Delivery program:

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More Wonder of Tech

Many thanks to Kyle of Rather-Be-Shopping for featuring me today at his site. Be sure to check out Blog Spotlight: 10 Questions With Carolyn of The Wonder of Tech.com.

For my review of Rather-Be-Shopping, check out Rather Be Shopping: Your Personal Site for Savings!