Features of Your iPhone

You can hide the following apps from appearing on your home screen by going to Settings —> General —> Restrictions. Enter your iPhone's passcode and uncheck any of the following to hide their respective app icons: Safari, Camera, FaceTime, iTunes Store, Podcasts, and News.



You don’t need to open the Phone or Messages app to reach out to one of your contacts. Instead, you can just press down on a contact’s photo while in just about any app, and you’ll bring up a menu with options to start a call, send a message or FaceTime. Additionally, you can press down on messages to send quick replies. While in the Messages app, press down on a conversation to peek at it, then swipe up to see some quick reply options like “OK,” “Talk Later,” and “Thanks!” If you have a number you want to turn into a new contact, press down on it to reveal options to add it to an existing contact, or make an all new one.

First, make sure you're using the latest version of iOS. If you still have an issue after you update, find your symptom below and follow the link for help.

Our iPhones already perform doubly duty as out alarm clocks. With iOS 10, they’ll be able to remind us when to sleep, too. The new Clock app sets a bedtime for you based on what time you want to wake up and how many hours of sleep you need during the night. The interface looks a lot like Apple’s Activity app, which isn’t too surprising since sleep and exercise are both important to your overall health. You can also choose to set bedtime reminders for certain days of the week.

The bad news is that unless you have an Apple developer's account, you won't be able to download iOS 10 today. Later this summer, Apple will open a public beta, and the final version will be pushed to iPhones in the fall, when the iPhone 7 comes out. Apple

See the hidden map of everywhere you've been with your iPhone. Tech Insider Your iPhone keeps a hidden log of everywhere you've been, and there's a way to see your location history on a map. From the Settings app, go to Privacy —> Location Services and scroll all the way to the bottom. Then tap System Services —> Frequent Locations.  Where you've been will be grouped into cities, and you can tap each city to see a map with detailed logs of where you were at what time and for how long.

Instead of loading up an app, and then choosing what you want to do, you can actually skip directly to some functions. If you want to give it a try, then press down hard on an app’s icon, and you’ll get a wee menu of possible functions. This only works on some apps, most of them from Apple, but more developers will incorporate 3D Touch into their designs soon. For example, doing this on the Camera app reveals the option to Take Selfie, Record Video, Record Slo-mo, or Take Photo.

Since the earliest days of cellular technology, secret codes have been embedded into the software of our mobile devices, and they’re still in place today. Included in these hidden codes for the iPhone is a special diagnostics mode you can use to troubleshoot problems, get a more accurate signal reception measurement, and more.

Live Photos are one of the best features about the new iPhone 6S. By default, whenever you take a photo, it will also capture a couple of seconds of video on either side of the shot. Reviewing the snaps in your Photos app, you can bring them to life by pressing down hard on the image. You can set Live Photos to be your new wallpaper as well, and pressing down on it from the lock screen will cause it to move. Live Photos also record audio, so be careful what you say just before and after shots.

Apple is making it possible to view more information without having to unlock your iPhone. Just swipe to the right, and a list of widgets will show you the weather, your next calendar appointment, news headlines and more. Android has long offered such capabilities through lock screen replacements, or third-party apps that change your lock screen’s appearance. It’s refreshing to see Apple go beyond just showing notifications on the lock screen.

You can share your location with someone from the same Details page in the Messages app. You can share your iPhone's location for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely. The person you're texting will see your location on a map in the message thread until it expires.

Of most interest to casual users is the option to show a more accurate reading of signal strength. In Field Test mode, press and hold the Power button until you see the slider as usual, then press and hold the Home button until the home screen shows—note that you now have a numerical reading instead of dots.

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)—sometimes known as "quick codes" or "feature codes"—is an extra-UI protocol, which allows people to access hidden features. This protocol was originally created for GSM phones, but can be found on CDMA devices as well (if that's a bunch of acronym gibberish to you, here's a quick primer).

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