I Used To Work at Apple — Every iPhone User Should Know These Hacks
As much time as Americans spend staring at our devices—44 years of our lives, reportedly—we should at least know how to use all their features. Lucky for some iPhone users, a former Apple employee is revealing the little-known smartphone hacks the average consumer may not use.
Tyler Morgan, who bills himself as an ex-Apple employee on TikTok, taught his 14.3 million viewers how to use their iPhones better with seven tips.
@hitomidocameraroll How many did you know this time? #apple #iphonetips #iphone #ios #iphonetricks #ios17 #trythis #settings #tech ♬ Golden Hour: Piano Version – Andy Morris
The first, he explained in the viral clip, is an easier way to capture video footage.
When initially opening up the camera app, which, by default, always opens to the still camera feature, just hold down the shutter and the video feature will activate. Moving your finger up and down on the screen while pressing will allow you to zoom in as well, “like TikTok or Snapchat.”
Next, he showed viewers how to make texting with one hand even easier if it’s difficult to “reach all the way across your phone” to press the “a,” “q” or “z” keys, for instance.
There’s a one-handed keyboard option, which is accessible by holding down the globe symbol on the bottom left of the keyboard—the same one that also allows you to switch your keyboard language. When the pop-up appears, you may choose which truncated keyboard you prefer, whether it condenses to the right or to the left, depending on which one-hand you’re using to type.
Add narration to screen recordings
“If you ever want to add a commentary to your screen recordings, just hold this down,” he said, gesturing to the screen record button, which appears when users swipe down from the top right corner of their phone screen.
Holding down the screen recording button will allow users to toggle on or off the microphone when capturing their screen.
Adjust settings with haptic 3D touch
“The haptic 3D touch is really useful on here,” he said, again gesturing to the drop-down options that appear when users swipe downwards from the top right corner of their iPhone screen.
Haptic touch allows users to press and hold down buttons on their screen, which “eliminates the need to go into the settings menu at all” by controlling flashlight brightness, selecting WiFi networks or Bluetooth devices, turning on AirDrop or setting a timer.
Quick calculations
If your mental math skills are lacking, the search bar can also act as a calculator, said Morgan.
Highlight multiple messages at once
In Apple-specific apps — such as Messages or emails — swiping upwards with two fingers will allow the selection of multiple messages.
Recover deleted content
“Lastly, if you ever deleted something by accident, you can always just shake your phone and it’ll give you the option to undo it,” he said while demonstrating.
In the comments, users were shocked to learn of the “undo typing” feature and how to toggle the microphone on during a screen recording.
“THE MIC ON SCREEN RECORDING IS CRAZY,” one person exclaimed.
“Since when could you hold to record omg,” another shocked viewer wrote, referencing the video-capturing feature in the camera app.
Morgan, who is known for sharing his tips and tricks for using Apple devices, previously warned Post readers not to update their phones to the new iOS 17, complaining of lagging or crashing apps and spotty service.
“I know for a fact, with older phones at least, this is intentional on Apple’s part,” he told The Post last month. “They update the phones with a higher preference for the newer models, which makes sense [for those phones], but what they could fix and don’t is the effect it has on older models.”
His cautionary tale comes after iOS 17 upgraders initially experienced rapidly draining batteries.
The latest software update also came with safety concerns over the new NameDrop feature, which allows contact information to be swapped merely by the touch of two iPhones together.
As fears over data privacy swirled online, Forbes assured smartphone users that it would be difficult to unintentionally share personal information by way of NameDrop, since the two phones swapping contact information would need to be directly touching.
