13 More Brilliant iPhone Hacks That Make Life Easier

A few months ago I wrote a post sharing a few iPhone hacks that I had learned about recently and thought were amazing! (If you missed it, check it out at the link below!) I thought the hacks were both interesting and useful, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else would like them as much as I did. Well, as it turns out I didn’t need to worry, because that post ended up being quite popular! Apparently lots of people are just as eager to learn about clever and simple smartphone tips as I am. :-) So I hope you’re all hungry for more because I’ll be sharing another batch of clever iPhone hacks with you today!

Related: If You Have An iPhone, You Need To Know These 11 Brilliant Tricks!

These smartphone hacks have a variety of benefits, like saving you time, improving your phone’s battery life, adding excitement to your texts, and more! I hope you find them as helpful as I do! And feel free to share your own brilliant iPhone or smartphone hacks with us in a comment at the bottom of this post! :-)

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13 More Brilliant iPhone Hacks

1. Frequent Locations

Your iPhone stores data from locations you’ve visited to help improve their Maps app and other services. You can access this by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services. Turn off Significant Locations to prevent your phone from storing that data.

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2. Take A Photo “Burst”

Use the “Burst” function in the Camera app to take several photos in quick succession. This is a great feature for taking action shots! To use Burst, just press and hold the shutter button when you’re taking a picture.

Related: 11 Photos You Can Take That Will Make Your Life Easier

3. Time Stamped Texts

If you’re curious about how much time has passed since you sent that text to your friend, there’s an easy way to tell! Just swipe left on the message and the time stamp will appear to the right of it.

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4. Simple Sentence Ender

When you’re using the keyboard, there’s an easier way to start a new sentence than reaching for both the period and space keys. Instead, just double-tap the space bar. It will add the period automatically, and you’ll be onto your next sentence! A major time-saver for slow texters like me!

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5. Give Siri An Accent

Want to personalize the voice of Siri, your favorite search assistant? Go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice. Mix things up by choosing a different accent or gender! I have set mine to a male voice with a lovely British accent. I like to call him Mr. Darcy. ;-)

6. Pardon My Reach

Sometimes when you’re using your phone with one hand, it can be tricky to reach certain parts of the screen. In those cases, there’s a neat little trick that can help! Just double-tap the home button (tap, don’t press), and the screen will scoot down. This makes it much easier to hit whatever you were reaching for!

7. Quick Redial

Can’t remember that number you called a few minutes ago? Open the Phone app, then hit the green call button. The last number you dialed will be pasted into the number field, so you can copy it or call it again.

8. Text Replacement Shortcuts

There’s a very useful feature under Settings > General > Keyboard called Text Replacement. This feature allows you to create text “shortcuts” for longer phrases or text. The default one that Apple enables is that typing “omw” will get corrected to the phrase “on my way.” You can set up Text Replacements for anything you type frequently, like an address, a favorite phrase, or whatever! Just make sure to assign each one a unique call-up text that you wouldn’t type frequently.

9. Identify Battery Hogs

If it seems like your apps are draining your battery, there’s an easy way to figure out which ones are to blame. Go to Settings > Battery and look for the section titled Battery Usage. It lists which apps have drained the biggest percentage of your battery power in the last 24 hours or over the last 7 days. You can also see which apps are running in the background that you might not know about.

10. Celebratory Texts

Send “congrats” or “happy birthday” in iMessage, and it will appear to the recipient with confetti or balloons! These are a couple of the automated “bubble effects” you can use, but you can add them to other iMessages manually. After typing out your message, click hard down on the send button. It will pull up a menu of “bubble effects” for you to choose from. Check out the video above to see it in action!

11. Send GIFs In iMessage

Did you know you can send GIFs in your iMessages to your friends and family? And it’s so easy to do! Just go to a message and click the App Store button next to the text field. Choose #images (the button with the magnifying glass symbol), and search for your favorite GIF. It will play when they receive the message!

12. Let Siri Decide

Can’t decide whether to order Mexican or Thai food for dinner? Let Siri decide! Just say, “Hey Siri, flip a coin.” Assign heads as one restaurant, tails as the other, and let the coin flip decide your dinner destiny.

13. Quick App Options

Press hard on the icons of your apps, and it will bring up a menu of quick and useful options for you to use. For instance, the menu for most social networking apps has an option to write a new post. This feature makes it easy to post something new, and it’s much faster than waiting for the whole app to load first!