Features10 Clever iPhone Tricks

10 Clever iPhone Tricks

iPhone Hidden TricksThe iPhone truly is a great smartphone in terms of looks and functionality. It’s easy to use and lasts for years as long as you treat it with a little care.

But Apple keeps adding so many features with every new iOS update, it takes time to find all the shortcuts in order to use the iPhone like a pro.

This year’s iOS 16 update offers a ton of hidden tricks and secret iPhone features that make life easier.

So here is a look at everything useful it offers from locking recently deleted or hidden photos to fake eye contact in video chats to “undoing” sent messages to sharing browser tabs to setting tap gestures for specific functions.

But before you go through these iPhone tips and tricks you probably haven’t discovered yet, make sure you’re on the latest version of iOS.

Trust us, you don’t need the current iPhone 14 series to make the best of your phone in 2023.

Personalize your home screen:

Personalize iPhone Home ScreenOne of the top design features Apple added in iOS 16 was the ability to personalize your home screen.

You can change the size and shape of all the icons on your home screen — from a stretched horizontal badge to a small square badge to a large square badge.

The small square widget/badge takes up four icons’ worth of space, as you can see from the image above.

To personalize your home screen:

  • Long-press anywhere on the display till you get the shaky icons with a minus sign above each one. (If you happen to long-press while touching an icon, one of the options will be to “Edit Home Screen”. Click on that.)
  • Now tap the “+” sign on the upper left hand side.
  • It will pull up a “Search Widgets” tab. Scroll down till you find the app you want to add as a widget on the home screen. Tap on it.
  • There will be two or more dots just below it that you can scroll through to pick the badge size. After you’ve picked one, just tap the “Add Widget” button.
  • It’ll take you back to the display. From there you can drag the widget to wherever you want it on the screen, and then press “Done”.

If you merely want to change the background image on your display, and not the way the icons appear, go to Settings > Wallpaper > Add New Wallpaper.

Alternatively, you can make these changes by long-pressing the lock screen (not the home screen with the widgets) and clicking Customize. This will let you personalize the background of both screens easily.

Hide photos & videos:

Hide Photos iPhoneGo to your albums and open the folder containing the media you want to conceal. My Albums contains media shared via messenger apps as well as all your photos, videos and screenshots.

After you’ve opened the album, click Select. Tap on the pictures or videos you wish to hide. Then click the three dots on the bottom right of the screen to pull up the Hide option.

  • To sum it up, go to Albums > Select > Click on photos/videos you want to hide > Click the three-dot icon > Hide.

Now when you go to your photo gallery and scroll down to Utilities, you will see an album titled Hidden. In iOS 16, Hidden and Recently Deleted content is locked by default so no one else can access them.

You need Face ID to unlock them. You can switch off this security feature via Settings > Photos > Use Face ID.

  • If you don’t want anyone who’s checking your phone to know that you have hidden photos/videos, you can even select to hide this “Hidden” folder that appears in your Albums.
  • Go to Settings > Photos > Show Hidden Album. Turn this last setting off.

If you choose to hide the photos completely, absolutely no one will be able to see the hidden content ANYWHERE on your phone till you undo all the above steps by going to Settings > Photos > Show Hidden Album and turning it on.

But wait, there’s yet another way to hide images on the iPhone.

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