6 Expert iPhone Hacks

4 Min Read Published: Jun 18th, 2015

Updated: Feb 26th, 2016

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Although the iPhone interface is already easy enough to use as is, most people don’t realize the full power of their iPhone. These tips go beyond just customizing your background or inverting your iPhone colors. These tips will give you an even better iOS experience that will make your iPhone more useful. Check out these iPhone hacks that not even some experts know about.

Sleep Timer

If you are listening to music on your iPhone or iPad as you are falling asleep, you can actually set a sleep timer to turn off the music after a certain period of time. This feature is hard to find and is not even an option in the Music app. To access this Timer..

Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to display the Control Center.
Just tap the Timer app (this looks like a stop watch near the camera).
On the iPhone tap “When timer End’s” and on the iPad tap the musical note underneath the big circle.
For both devices, choose “Stop Playing” and choose how long you want the countdown to be and hit start.
Go back to your Music app and hit play.
When the timer runs out your iPhone or iPad will shut off the music automatically. This will work on anything with sound or video as well.

Use Siri to Identify Music

Shazam is a wonderful app for figuring out what music is playing, however Siri is a great alternative for those who don’t have the Shazam app. Simply hold down the home button to get Siri started and ask “What song is this?” or “What is currently playing?” (Several different commands are likely to work here.) After Siri listens for a few seconds, she will display a link to the song, artist, and cover art. You even have the option buy the track on iTunes if you would like.

Customize How You Share

Sharing via iOS can be tiring since Apple has complete control of the operating system. However, there is a way to make it slightly easier to share content. In an app where you can share content…

Just tap the share button, and options including the default apps will appear. For example, the default apps for sharing are usually Mail, Message, Twitter, and Facebook.
You can change the order of these by pressing and holding down.
You can also hide the apps you don’t want to share on by pressing, holding, releasing and then tapping “Hide.”
You can also scroll across and tap more in order to add different share functions.

Figure Out What is Draining Your Battery

It’s easy to assume that some apps and systems will use more battery than others. If you want to find out which apps are using the most battery, you can use a hidden setting that will tell you exactly what is using the most battery. This way you can find out which apps to use less, turn off, or even delete. To look this up go to…

Settings
General Usage
Battery Usage, and you will see a list of exactly how long your iOS 8 device has been on and how much battery has been used in the last 24 hours.

Shake to Undo (and Redo)

Perhaps you have done this on accident once or twice, but you can actually shake your iPhone to undo a mistake. If you make a typo, delete an important email, or send something to the wrong folder, don’t worry, you can quickly correct this. Just shake your device and you will get a pop-up asking if you want to undo the last action you made. This will work across most apps in the system (however not all of them do). This is similar to CTRL-Z on a Windows Desktop or command-Z on a Mac. So next time you make a small error just shake your device.

Apple Maps and Addresses

If you regularly plan trips from your house to your work, you may want to put your home and work addresses in your Apple Maps database to make getting back to these common locations easier.

First, go open your contacts and search for your name. If you haven’t set this up yet you must create one and fill out your address information.
When you are done with this, go to Settings, General, and then Siri.
Tap on “My Info” and select your name from the list of contacts. Now go back into Apple Maps and when you search for “home” or “work” your details will come up. Even easier, ask Siri to “take me home” and directions to your house will appear.

Learn More: 10 Tricks to Double Your iPhone’s Battery Life