In this week’s tips and tricks guide, we will be focusing on the iphone and iOS devices. We will be primarily focusing on iOS 10 for this guide, which comes on any new iOS device purchased within the last year or so. If you aren’t sure what version of iOS you have, you can check under
Settings > General > About.
While the iOS series of devices are largely focused on home users, they have multiple applications for professional use as well. However, their integration is somewhat limited depending on your choice of software platform. This leads us to our first point.
1. Use apple devices
If you want to use an iOS device as your primary phone or tablet, it is most effective when your home or work computer is an apple. Apple designs its software and hardware to work together, thus integrating things like your contacts, calendar, alerts, and messages across all of your devices. Unfortunately things can be tricky when trying to integrate this information with a Windows or Linux device. While it is doable, there are a number of bugs, glitches, and minor inconveniences that start to pile up when working cross-platform like this, so it is generally best to avoid it when possible.
2. Collaborating with the Notes app
iOS 10’s Notes app now comes with a new feature. Sharing notes with people through this app will allow them to edit and view the notes in real time, keeping them up to date. Simply tap the ‘share’ icon at the top-right corner of the note to add people to the note via twitter, email, and various other services.
3. Managing tabs
Despite ongoing improvements to iOS, its devices are still somewhat limited in their hardware. This is especially true of the iPhone, which over long hours of use can find its limited RAM used up. An easy remedy to this problem is to close apps that aren’t currently in use. This can be done by double-tapping the home button, which will open a list of active apps. From here you can close each app by swiping the tab upward. This practice is also helpful for maintaining your phone’s battery life during the day, as all those apps take up a lot of power.
4. Siri
Siri is arguably the most useful feature of iOS devices, and comes standard on both iPhones and iPads. Once properly set up, Siri can handle almost any command within the standard apps, and her voice-recognition has only improved since her debut. Some users have experienced frustration with Siri’s voice recognition, so a simple trick to ensure she can hear and understand you is to speak clearly and to not speed through a sentence. Also, try to minimize background noise while giving Siri a command, or try speaking closer to the phone if you are in a noisy area. In my experience, Siri is especially useful for setting alerts and sending texts or emails while you are otherwise preoccupied.
5. VoIP Integration
An unsung addition to iOS 10, iPhones and iPads can now accept calls from Skype, What’sApp, Facebook, and other Voice over IP software as if it were a regular phone call. While using these programs via iOS was possible before, the new integration makes the process much more seamless and much more convenient than before. Generally I’ve found this can be very useful for setting up conference calls while out of the office.
Much of the functionality added to iOS 10 focuses on home users, including new functionality for sharing and editing photos, new iTunes functionality, and voicemail transcription. The above are just a few of the most useful professional uses for iOS 10 and it’s platforms. Next week we will be discussing Apple OSX, and highlighting some of the lesser known functionality of that operating system.
