iOS 15 Tips & Tricks (iPhone Edition)

As someone that is deep in the iOS / Apple ecosystem I often find tips and tricks that I use daily as things many folks don’t know about. Here are over 12 of some of my favorite iOS 15 Tips & Tricks (iPhone Edition), with a few old ones that weren’t added with iOS 15, thrown in as well

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Safari Tips & Tricks

Move Safari Bar Back To Top

Ok, this one got me. When the beta of iOS 15 was launched and I was testing it, this was one of the features Apple added that I just didn’t enjoy. Why oh why after so many years would you move that input field? Yes it’s easier for the user to reach with one hand usage, but man the muscle memory here was deep set.

Steps:

1. Open Settings App
2. Scroll down and open Safari
3. Scroll down to Tabs and select ”Single Tab”
4. Done

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Custom Safari Background

This one is more fun than anything. The tip / trick here is giving you the ability to get a bit more custom.

Steps:

1. Open Safari
2. Select ”Edit”
3. Turn on Background Image
4. Select from Apple’s options or use your own.

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Safari Extensions

This is a new feature within iOS that holds TONS of power and is wildly useful. If you’ve grown accustomed to extensions on your desktop such as Honey or 1Password, well now you can have them on mobile Safari!

Steps:

1. The quick way to browse, open the App store and search ”Extensions” to get the list of available extensions and download.
2. In the searchbar tap on the ”puzzle” icon
3. Select Manage Extensions
4. Here you can enable and disable extensions

Note: Some extensions will present themselves automatically when needed. For example, Honey does a pretty good job of knowing you’re on a cart page and prompts you to apply coupons.

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Tap To Top

While on the note of Safari, one of my all time favorite tricks is using tap to top. You can tap around the top of the screen (think status bar) and no matter how far down a page you’ve scrolled, this will jump you all the way back to the top. This can also be done within most apps (not all, some developers don’t allow it).

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Quick Webpage Refresh

On Safari, when at the top of the webpage simply pull down. You’ll see the page come down and a spinner pops, release the screen and it will refresh!

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Home Screen Tips & Tricks

Notification Summaries

This isn’t a ”tip or trick” but more of a new feature that is very useful, especially for those that get TONS of notifications throughout any given day.

Steps:

1. Open Settings App
2. Notifications
3. Scheduled Summary
4. Turn On
5. Under Apps within Summary, select the apps that you want to include in your notification summary
6. Under Schedule, tap the + Add Summary button to add a new schedule or the – button to remove schedules

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Delete & Rearrange Home Screens

At the bottom of your Home Screen, if you tap and hold the dots you’ll see a new view pop open that allows you to make adjustments to entire home screens. You can delete and reorder them. This really makes things so much easier, compared to how it used to be 😀

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Focus Modes

This frankly deserves it’s own post, there is SO much you can do with Focus Modes. This will just introduce you to them.

Steps:

1. Open Settings App
2. Focus
3. Tap a provide Focus option such as “Work” or “Do Not Disturb”
4. After you select a Focus you can select options such as: Allow Notifications, Time Sensitive Notifications, Status, People, Apps, Home Screen, etc. (Enjoy exploring and customizing)
5. If you make your Focus an automated one, your job is done.
6. If it’s manual you can turn it on / off in two ways. 1: within the settings location we just covered. 2: In the control center you should see a “Focus” button

I highly suggest you “Share Across Devices” as this makes Focus Modes just that much better.

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Widgets!

Listen, if you aren’t using Home Screen widgets yet, it’s time! They are pretty simple to add and can really make your Home Screen experience a lot more useful.

Steps:

1. Tap and Hold on the Home Screen
2. Tap the + in the top left
3. Select a widget
4. If the widget offers multiple sizes or features swipe through and select one
5. Tap “+ Add Widget”
6. Done

Just like apps on your Home Screen you can move them around and customize the experience. You can also create “Stacks” or “Smart Stacks” these can be similar sized widgets stacked on top of one another so you don’t take up tons of space on your Home Screen. The Smart Stack will introduce widgets that Siri thinks will help you based on how you use your phone.

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App Specific Tips & Tricks

Weather Prediction Alerts

This comes off the heals of Apple purchasing the Dark Sky weather app, but it’s super helpful nevertheless. This will give you alerts about upcoming weather such as rain or snow in the next hour, high wind, etc.

Steps:

1. Open the Weather App
2. Tap the list icon in the bottom right
3. Tap the 3 dots icon in the top right
4. Select Notifications
5. Continue
6. Allow (if prompted)
7. Select “My Location” and any other location you may want
8. Done

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Delete an input in the calculator

I’m sad to say I didn’t know about this one for a while, but it’s super helpful. If you type a digit that was by accident you can simply swipe on the top numbers from left to right. This will “undo” inputs one at a time.

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PIN Shared content in Messages

Messages app has really grown in recent iOS releases and one item I really like is the ability to PIN content that’s been shared with me.

Steps:

1. Tap and Hold on the shared content
2. Options will pop open
3. Select PIN
4. Done

Pinned content can be found in the details of your chat (check the next tip if you haven’t seen a chat’s details).

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Details of a Message – Quick Tip

Another ever growing feature within Messages. In a chat with someone, tap on their face / icon at the top. This will open a new widow that you can scroll. Here you will find lots of useful items that will save you from scrolling through the whole chat thread. Enjoy

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Copy All Open Safari Tabs

I like to keep my tabs to a minimum but sometimes I have a few links I want to copy at once to share, so here you go.

Steps:

1. In Safari tap on the tab view at the bottom right icon
2. When in tab view tap the bottom center “# Tabs”
3. Tap Edit
4. Tap the 3 dot icon (it should have just appeared)
5. Copy Links
6. Done!

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FaceTime with Android (or Windows) Users

Now with iOS 15 you can FaceTime with EVERYONE! It’s no longer a walled garden that only works with other iOS devices.

Steps:

1. Open FaceTime
2. Tap Create Link
3. Add a Name for the FaceTime if you’d like
4. Select an option to share the link: Email, Messages, Twitter, Etc (typical share sheet options)
5. Done!
6. Join the call yourself by tapping the name and selecting Join.

Scan A Document

There are tons of apps out there that do this very well, but sometimes it’s just easiest to do it with what comes on the phone, Notes App!

Steps:

1. Open Notes App
2. Start A Note (or open one)
3. Tap the Camera icon at the bottom
4. Select Scan Document (or use the Auto feature)
5. Done

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Live text in Photos!

Along the lines of scanning the doc, have you used live text within a photo or the camera app?

Steps (In Live Camera View):

1. Open Camera App
2. With text in view, in the bottom right of the image you’ll see a new icon, tap it.
3. This will highlight the text and present options to Copy, Select All, Look Up, Translate, and Share
4. Done

Steps (Within Photo from Photos App):

1. Open Photos
2. Find a Photo with text
3. The ”Live Text” icon will show up in the bottom right if text is detected
4. Tap it
5. The text should select within the image.
6. You can highlight the section you want to take action on
7. The same actions will be present: Copy, Select All, Look Up, Translate, and Share
8. Done

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Collaborate in Notes (@ Mentions)

This one is pretty straight forward but for let’s say a family, it’s very useful. My wife and I use a number of Notes docs to collaborate on lists for a variety of things. This may include shopping lists, home improvement projects, etc. So needless to say this little feature is pretty awesome.

Steps:

1. Start and Share a Note
2. Now within the Note using the ”@“ and typing the other persons name tag them. You can also tag yourself if it’s something for you to focus on.
3. You and the other person will receive notifications anytime your name is mentioned.

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That’s It…

Well kinda, there are TONS of useful tips and tricks when it comes to iOS and iPadOS. These here just scratch the surface. Are there any that I missed that you think are a MUST ADD? If so let me know, hit me up on Twitter. To that point, I may add to this list over time, but I’ll post if I update. Thanks as always.