Ios tips

iOS 14 lets you insert a Smart Stack of widgets from the widgets gallery. But did you know that you could also build your very own Smart Stack from scratch? Simply drag a similarly-sized widget over another to start building one. Just like the standard Smart Stack, it will also rotate automatically based on usage patterns. You can build as many Smart Stacks as you want.

Have apps that you hardly ever use? Rather than deleting or tucking them away into a folder, just hide them within the App Library instead. Long-press the app that you want to hide, tap Remove App, and then tap Move to App Library. You can access hidden apps easily via the App Library (swipe to the right from the last Home screen page) or the iPhone’s Search functionality.

Apps aside, iOS 14 also lets you hide entire Home screen pages. Start jiggling the Home screen, tap the strip of dots that denotes the number of Home screen pages, and then uncheck the Home screen pages that you want to hide.

Forget holding down app icons for ages to jiggle them. In iOS 14, simply long-press (or 3D-press) any vacant area within the Home screen to get those apps dancing.

iOS 14 comes with a nifty accessibility setting dubbed Back Tap. It lets you bind various system-related features, gestures, and shortcuts, which you can then activate by tapping the back of the iPhone twice or thrice. Head over to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap to start binding actions. You don’t have to have the latest iPhone either — any iPhone that runs iOS 14 supports Back Tap.

In iOS 14, you gain access to a slew of privacy and security-related features. One such feature is the iPhone’s ability to notify an active camera or microphone in the form of green or orange-colored status indicators. If the indicators start lighting up for no obvious reason, bring up the Control Center to figure out the exact app that is using (or last used) the camera or microphone.

Hate seeing selfies flip the other way after shooting them? Turn on the Mirror Front Camera option via Settings > Camera, and you get to capture selfies exactly as they appear within the viewfinder.

iOS 14’s Messages app lets you pin conversations to the top of the screen — swipe any conversation to the right, and then tap the pin-shaped icon. You can do that to a total of nine conversations.

Hated having to dive into the Settings app whenever you wanted to adjust the camera’s video resolution? With iOS 14, you don’t have to anymore. Instead, just tap the video quality indicator to the upper-right corner of the Camera app (while in Video mode) to quickly cycle through supported capture resolutions.