We are big fans of the iPhone at Creative Bloq. They look great, feature some of the best cameras that smartphones have seen, and as icing on the cake, all kinds of manual iPhone hacks keep popping up, helping to speed up regular operations or unlock new functions.
Okay, so a lot of supposed “iPhone hacks” shared online every day use the term somewhat liberally to describe something no one has missed out on (yes, we know the iPhone can make calls). But every now and then, we discover a trick we had no idea the iPhone could do. Even better, sometimes discovery really does come in handy.
We’ve been using and reviewing iPhones for years, but the iPhone hacks below have surprised us all over the past year. We’ve shared everything individually before, but we think it’s worth a visit again for anyone who might have missed it, from a magic wand straight out of Harry Potter shortcut to a faster way to identify multiple emails or messages and unintentionally solve students who haven’t done their homework – no This means that we condone copying in any way.
Do you need a new iPhone to try these things out? Check out our regularly updated guide to the best iPhone 13 deals to get you a bargain.
Multiple choice to hack iPhone
First, it saves nifty little time for picking out a bunch of emails, messages, or reminders. It turns out that you don’t always have to hit “select” and then click individually on each item you want to highlight. Instead of this multi-step process of clicking select and then selecting the items you want to choose, it turns out we can simply swipe down with two fingers. We’re sure many iPhone users already know this, but it was new to us when Jon Porter of The Verge shared the trick via a screencast on Twitter (below).
Unfortunately, this handy little iPhone hack doesn’t work on every app. As Porter points out, it is absent from the Clocks app, as it would be very useful for deleting the backlog of previous alarms. It is also not used by a lot of third-party apps, but maybe that’s because the developers didn’t even know it existed.
Schedule text messages on iPhone
We’ve seen a lot of people on Twitter asking Apple to create an option to let us schedule text messages, so our minds were blown when we found out that such a thing actually exists via the iPhone’s built-in Shortcuts app.
As Frank McShan’s video (below) demonstrates, the process is very simple. All you have to do is create a Personal Automation in the Shortcuts app. You can choose a specific time of day to automate a message, and by turning off the “Ask Before Playing” popup, you can schedule the message to be sent without any other input required.
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Did you know you can do this? 🤯
♬ Punk Monk – Playboy Kart
It may seem like a niche function, but we can see a lot of uses, especially when it comes to reminders. Commenters on TikTok seem to agree, calling the hack “amazing”, “life-changing” and, yes, “amazing”.
iPhone hack is used to copy homework
The iPhone has made all kinds of things and activities redundant, replacing cameras, calculators, watches, and more. Now it turns out that students don’t even need to ask for copies of someone else’s homework anymore. As shown in the viral TikTok video below, the Live Text feature in iOS 15 is surprisingly effective at copying and digitizing (that is, stealing) notes from another screen. So it’s perhaps not surprising, then, that students jump on it.
Available for any iPhone from XS onwards with iOS 15 installed, Live Text can detect text within images, and allows the user to select, copy, and paste it as they would from a word processor or a web browser. The clip below, which has racked up millions of views on TikTok and Twitter, shows a student taking a secret photo of his classmate’s lecture notes, before selecting them, copying and pasting them into his own document.
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#pasenviedecopier #mercios15 #cours #amphi #cbolavie # #technology #mercivoisine #geography #Bordeaux #copiercoller #jeunesse_en_christ #
♬ Original Son – Jan Bernelli
This may not have been exactly what Apple intended for its feature, and please note that we do not in any way condone this behavior, but it is undeniably a funly effective demonstration of the power of Live Text. “I’m not saying do this..but dang I would have done this in school,” a Twitter user hung.
Pinch to copy and paste across devices
A lot of new iPhone hacks that are being shared online include an iOS feature that the entire internet has yet to discover. But even if it’s been around for a while, this is still impressively futuristic.
In the viral video below, TikTokhappymelmelr user shared the moment they found out that Universal Clipboard + finger gestures = a great Minority Report level, allowing you to press inward on a photo on an iPhone, then press out on an iPad to paste the photo. Some commenters were so dumbfounded that they accused the user of posting a fake video, but the futuristic magic is very real, all thanks to Apple’s Universal Clipboard, which has actually been around since 2016.
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You can use the feature to seamlessly copy and paste files across two Apple devices (Universal Clipboard works with Mac as well) as long as they’re signed in with the same Apple ID, connected to Wi-Fi and within Bluetooth range of each other. It’s a more advanced version of a similar “hack” that went viral in February, in which users discovered how the gesture could work on a single device. But using it across two devices actually creates the illusion of passing the file through a vacuum.
iPhone turns you into a magic wand
And finally, some real magic. Did you know that your phone also works as a magic wand? We don’t, but iPhone users somehow discovered that Siri responds to many spell commands straight from the Harry Potter universe (no, we’re not sure how you figured out such a thing). Some of them are even very useful. Want to turn on your touch? Just shout “Lumos!”.
As long as “Hey Siri” is enabled so that the iPhone listens for commands, you can under (or simply mumble) “Lumos” to turn on the flashlight, “Nox” to turn it off, and “Accio” [app name]”To open an app. It’s all flickering with your fingers to complete the action, and as you might imagine, Harry Potter fans in particular were amazed. In fact, according to comments on Twitter, many of them spent entire days doing nothing but saying ‘Lumos’ and ‘Nox’.” And they watch the torch going on and off.
Shout out to ScotPThomas who reminded me that I can pretend my work phone is a wand by telling Siri “Lumos”. I just used it to buy a midnight snack. With sincere gratitude, a loyal Android user is forced to learn the ways to use iPhone.January 6 2022
So, if you want to make your day more magical, all you have to do is ask Siri to turn on the light. Stick-like hand waving is completely optional.
Just can’t get enough of iPhone hacks? We’ve also recently learned how to take full page screenshots, and Apple itself has shared its own list of 10 iPhone tricks, so it looks like after all this time, we still have a lot more to learn about the iPhone. Do you want to experience all of the above for yourself? Check out today’s best iPhone 13 deals below.
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