4 Ways to Get More out of Your iPhone in 2017

The iPhone birthed an entire industry surrounding app development by streamlining the process for finding, purchasing and installing apps through the Apple App Store — something we widely take for granted these days. Just think of all the applications and processes you rely on: from checking and responding to emails, to the applications you use to stay organized, alarm clocks, social media, even entertainment and personal media.

Life in the palm of your hand can be wonderfully convenient, but the cost of the crown is heavy. A lot happens in our lives, and with the connection of our entire lives to our phones (transactions, communication and more), using an iPhone can start to feel chaotic.

If you’re looking for a more effective way to use your iPhone and stay organized in 2017— i.e, managing masses of emails and never missing calendar reminders about important meetings —- we’ve gathered a few important tips and tools to help.

1. Organize your phone into files

We certainly do this with our files on our computer (segmenting them into folders) but it’s rare that we apply that same logic to our iPhones. Having easy, organized access to your files and apps at all times helps you regain some logic about where everything is in your iPhone, and get more productive in the process.

There are also some hard limitations to the data storage your phone has space for (which you already knew about, in purchasing it), but there are also constraints on how long your files will be accessible for you in Apple’s iCloud.

Instead of paying for a subscription you’d have to renew, after already committing to top dollar for your iPhone itself, consider a powerful third-party cloud storage subscription like the pCloud Premium Cloud Storage: Lifetime Subscription.

This secure web storage space provides an easily accessible location for your work files, photos, videos, music, media and more — up to 500GB of cloud storage and 500GB of download link traffic, without taking up any space on your computer, and freeing up space on your phone. You can back up all your files, without worrying about how you’ll find them later. Plus, this solution employs 256-bit TLS/SSL connection, for complete security.

You can find it here for $59.99, or 87% off the original price.

2. Use a virtual personal assistant

And no, we’re not talking about Siri — the truth is that Siri still needs significant work and tends to just add one more complexity to using your iPhone. Since the goal here is to streamline and make your workflows more effective, try using a virtual assistant whose goal is to actually help manage you.

Applications like EasilyDo proactively present information you’d usually forget — whether that’s checking a travel itinerary or remembering to pick up a package.

This app will even let you know what emails are waiting on a response, and sets alerts for emails and auto-forwarding. It’s the closest thing to having an actual personal assistant, and is an application that helps make all those calendar reminders and notifications actionable. And action is, of course, key to being more productive.

Buy it here for $19 — 90% off the original price of $200.

3. Tame your inbox

Email is probably the greatest culprit in terms of taking both time and resources out of your day (and iPhone) — with the rise of mobile devices also came the rise of working out of pocket. These days, expedient email responses aren’t just expected, they’re necessary. Many of us work in organizations where email is the primary form of communication, and that’s outside of the daily tasks, bills, reminders, personal notes and more that are sent to us via this medium.

Start to organize your inbox and make sense of the chaos with an application that (much like EasilyDo), helps develop tasks out of your email. ActiveInbox: The Ultimate Gmail Task Manager is an amazing example of an application that transforms your inbox into a workflow organizer.

ActiveInbox gives emails deadlines and due dates, and helps you notate emails as tasks that you can add to your CRM or calendar. It even helps highlight the most relevant points in emails, gives you separate folders for projects and works seamlessly between your iPhone and your browser — so you won’t be seeing two entirely different things when you look at your email inbox. It even schedules emails for you to send later, meaning there’s less of a chance of you forgetting to send it yourself.

Get ActiveInbox for $24.95 — that’s 37% off.

4. Proactively secure your data

The last thing you need to worry about is how safe your data is on your phone — everything, including sensitive personal information and work files, probably live somewhere in your iPhone. We already wrote about how essential it is for iPhone users to use a VPN, but just in case you missed it, VPNs add an extra (and much-needed) sense of peace of mind and security to Apple’s robust iOS.

Your own VPN solution will help protect you against the risk of your personal information being hacked, but it may also be a workplace security issue (particularly in the realm of healthcare, education, law or government). A VPN like VPN Unlimited: Lifetime Subscription, protects your iPhone regardless of whether you’re on a public Wi-Fi connection (like airports or coffee shops) or in your own home, by encrypting your IP address and location.

This is essential for securing your online identity, and gives you the freedom to work out of pocket, wherever you are — without worrying if your files will be compromised.

Get VPN Unlimited for $29.99, or 94% off the original price of $499.99 — for a lifetime of protection.

What tools do you currently use to get more out of your iPhone?
Let us know in the comments below!