iOS 7 Tips & Tricks

As you all probably all know, Apple just came out with a new iOS system (operating system) for their products. I have to say that I LOVE it. I know there are a ton a haters out there but I'm not one of them. Once I figured out a few tricks I found it to be really easy to use, plus it looks cool!

I decided to do a post to share these tricks with you because recently I have had to teach a lot of my coworkers how to use their phones with the new system so I figured there were a lot of people struggling.

Tip #1: Clearing out your apps running in the background

This is important because if you have a bunch of apps running at once it will make your phone slower and may freeze out your system (That happened to me before I knew how to clear out my apps and I had to call technical support...yikes)

On the old system, if you double clicked your home button, all the currently running on your phone would show up at the bottom of the screen. Then you could hold one down and a little "X" would appear in the corner and you could close out the apps you were no longer using. On the new system, this looks different. To clear out your apps, you still double click the home button like before and this shows up:

Looks different right? Don't worry, it's still pretty easy to clear out your apps. Just touch the screen in the middle of the picture of the app and swipe up. I like this new way because as you can see, you can see the last thing you were doing and you know if you were finished with that app or not! Once you clear out all the apps you should see your home screen:

Just tap that little box and you are good to go.

Tip #2: Using Spotlight Search (Search bar)

On the old system, if you wanted to search through your phone using the search bar you had to scroll all the way to the front of all your home screens to find it. I only have two home screens so it wasn't that huge of a deal but some people have 6 or more so it was kind of an inconvenience. Now on the new system you can access the search function on any home screen you have. To use this function all you have to do is swipe down on any home screen and it will pop up:

Now something I learned is to swipe down from the second row of apps not the first or your calendar function will show up. It looks something like this:

Tip #3: iMessage not working

iMessage is a texting function that can be used between people with iPhones or iPads to see when the message was delivered, read, etc.

One of the bugs with the new system is that iMessage isn't working for some users. I (OF COURSE) am one of those users. For some reason the message won't go all the way through. There are three ways to fix this. One is to just turn the iMessage off and all your messages will send as regular text messages. Simple and easy fix but I personally like iMessage and am not satisfied with this answer. I like to berate my hubby when he doesn't answer me even though he has read the message ;). The second option is to clear out all your apps (see tip #1!) and then turn your phone off and then back on again. As simple as this sounds, it totally worked for me! I was surprised. If neither of these options work, you can reset your network settings. Caution on this one, it will reset your WIFI settings too so you will have to type in all your passwords again etc. To do this go to Settings --> General --> Reset --> Reset Network Settings.

Tip #4: Automatic App Updates

On the old system, when an app needed to be updated you had to go to the app store and click update on the app. A lot of people found this to be annoying and wouldn't ever update their apps. Just ask my friend Kassie who at one point had over 70 apps needing to be updated (insert disapproving look here). This is a problem because the updates help the apps work properly. Now on the new system you can chose to have your apps update automatically without you having to click update. You can chose to have all your apps update automatically or you can pick and chose which ones you want. To do this go to Settings --> General --> Background App Refresh. If you want to see what apps have updated at any time just swipe down from the top of your screen to the calendar view, click on the "All" tab and scroll down. A list of apps that have updated recently will be there.

Thanks for reading about the few things I have learned about the new Apple iOS7 system! If you have anything else you would like to share leave it in the comments below and I will add it to the list!