iOS Tips & Tricks For iPhone & iPad General Tips & Tricks Notification Center: Swipe down from the top to open the Notification Center. In the iOS 7 update, the notifications are broken up into today, all and missed. Today pulls information from your calendar to give you a daily briefing on the day's activities, and Missed gives you access to missed calls. Control Center: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen from anywhere in iOS and you get the phone's quick settings panel. There are five buttons that allow you to put your device in airplane mode, disable Wi-Fi, disable Bluetooth, turn on/off Do Not Disturb and adjust portrait lock. Brightness settings can be toggled with a slider, followed by the ability to control your music by skipping songs, pressing play/pause and adjusting the volume. AirDrop and AirPlay are found underneath. Apple has also added a torch (flashlight) and next to that is the quick button to the alarm clock, calendar and camera buttons. Spotlight Search: Just swipe down in the middle of any home page and you’ll find Spotlight Search is ready to go. Use it to find whatever you need on your iPhone. It’s a good way to quick launch an app, find an email, or a contact, but it no longer searches the Web. You can swipe up or tap twice to get rid of the search. Swipe to Go Back: You can just swipe from the left side of the screen in a supported app to jump back to what you were doing. No button press required. Closing Apps: Double tap the Home button or four-finger swipe up on the iPad, to get a look at what you have on the go. See an app you want to close - just flick it up and the app will close. Level: Want to measure how “level” a surface is? Open the compass app and swipe to the left and you’ve got a level that will help you get everything straight. Increase/Decrease Size of Text: To change the text size of all apps that support Dynamic Type go to Settings > General > Text Size and slide the bar to where you want it to be. Messages Time Stamp and Delete: To find out what time you sent a message swipe from right to left in the message stream and a time will appear next to each message. To delete a message, swipe from right to left in the Messages hub and you can quickly delete a conversation. Text Message Response: "In a meeting, what can I do for you?" Maybe you are more of a "Yo dawg, what's happen?" kind of dude. If you are, go to Settings > Phone > Respond with Text and start making up your replies. Searching in Mail: Drag down in your inbox to reveal a search box. You can now search your entire inbox for a keyword rather than just To, From, Subject. You can also limit your search to All mailboxes or the current mailbox you are in. Furthermore you can also limit it to conversation threads. Do Not Disturb: You can schedule your iPhone or iPad to go into to Do Not Disturb mode. Go to Settings > Do Not Disturb and then schedule in a time. If you are worried that you might miss an important call you can set the phone to allow calls from Favorites or repeated calls if someone is calling more than once in a three-minute window. You can now in iOS 7 set it so the Do Not Disturb works only when you've got the phone locked or all the time regardless of what you are doing. Handy if you are in the middle of a presentation. AirDrop: AirDrop is an easy way to share files with other Apple devices by using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (both need to be enabled for it to work). You’ll find it in the Control Center when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Tap on the AirDrop section at the bottom left and you can make your device discoverable for Contacts Only or Everyone; you can also just turn it off completely in here. When you choose someone to share with, or they choose you, there’s a notification and preview giving the option to deny or accept the file. Safari Search: You can now type searches in the address bar in Safari and it will return results in real time (like Chrome), both from Google and from your own Bookmarks and History. You can also head into Settings in Safari to change various things, such as your default search engine. You could also turn on Do Not Track for a little extra privacy while browsing. Bookmark, Add to Reading List, Add to Home Screen, etc.: From the page you want to bookmark, add to home screen, etc., tap the action button, action you would like to complete. at the top, then tap the Camera & Photos Camera Mode: To access different modes on an iPad (video, photo, square), slide up or down. To access the modes on an iPhone, swipe left or right. Burst Mode: Users can snap photos in Burst mode by either holding their finger on the shutter or on the volume key to take a burst of photos as the action happens. Photos: The Photos app is now sorted by years, collections, and moments. These are smart groupings of your photos and videos based on time and place. Sharing Moments: You can now share a complete moment with people by clicking on the Share button above a collection of photos you've take. Pressing the word Share takes you through to the option to "Share this moment" or "Share some photos". Pressing the one you want lets you share it via Message, Mail, iCloud, Facebook, and Flickr, or copy the images. Save Your Battery Turn off Air Drop: If you don't plan on using the new Airdrop feature in iOS 7 then turn it off. It will save you battery life looking for interested parties (other iPhones) all the time. To turn it off, pull up the Control Centre and double tap on AirDrop logo. Here turn it off. Turn off Background App Refresh: If you are trying to save battery life visit this pane in Settings. It determines what apps can refresh their content when on Wi-Fi or a mobile network, or use Location Services. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and select whether you want apps to work in the background or not. You can turn it off completely or limit it by app. Reduce Motion: Apple spent months adding new features and you just want to turn them off to save power so you can play Candy Crush on the last train home. That lovely Parallax effect whereby you move your phone and the wallpaper shifts slightly to give you a 3D effect, well it might drain your battery and you can turn it off. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion. Sources and More Information Digital Trends, 30 Helpful Tips and Tricks for iOS7 Pocket-lint, iOS7 tips and tricks: Here’s what your iPone or iPad can do now iOS 7 camera tips and tricks: Getting the most out of the iPhone camera iOS 7 battery tips and tricks: How to improve your battery on your phone What’s New in iOS7