So you’ve got an iPhone for Christmas? Welcome! Having bounced between Android handsets for a decade, I returned to iOS with the iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, after my Samsung Galaxy S10e was an accidental passenger when I dived into a pool on holiday. I haven’t looked back since, other than to be more vigilant about checking pockets of swimming shorts.
I’ve picked up some useful iPhone knowledge along the way. Here are some helpful pointers to get your started.
1. Bring your digital life with you
When you upgrade from an iPhone to another iPhone, Apple makes it all rather seamless, with your settings and preferences all neatly transferred.
Naturally, Apple can’t make it quite as neat if you’re coming from Android, but it has a pretty good go at it with the Move to iOS app. Just download this to your Android device and follow the instructions. If, for some reason, it doesn’t work for you, we have some more advanced guidance you can read here.
2. Learn to type again
If you’ve spent years using Android, stabbing away at the iPhone’s keyboard may feel a little disorienting. The main tip I have here is that you can control the cursor by holding down the spacebar and sliding your finger or thumb left or right, making fixing those ‘ducking typos’ nice and simple.
Or you can get something more familiar. Since iOS 8 Apple has supported third-party keyboards, so you can try one to your liking. When I switched to iOS, I was thrilled to see that Google’s Gboard was one of the options, allowing neat swipe-style controls and easy GIF access at your fingertips.
3. Consider Apple One
Digital subscriptions are, unfortunately, a part of modern life. Or “fortunately” if you happen to be an Apple shareholder, benefiting from the estimated $100 billion the company’s services will generate this year.
If you find yourself tempted by several of Apple’s subscription services, you can save money by signing up for Apple One. For $19.95 a month, you get Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and 50GB of iCloud storage, saving around a third of the price of subscribing individually. If your family are all on iPhone too, it becomes even cheaper with the Family plan, which allows up to six people access to the same services (and 150GB more iCloud space) for $25.95 a month
While on the subject of subscriptions, if you do want to subscribe to non-Apple services, double check the App Store price isn’t higher than expected. Because Apple takes a cut, some developers charge more than going via a web browser, though this may be changing thanks to a recent court ruling.
4. Learn to juggle storage
Even with extra iCloud space, juggling iPhone storage can be tricky, especially if you’ve opted for a 128GB model (note to future self: don’t cheap out this way again).
The main tip to free up space on your iPhone is to enable two space-saving features. ‘Offload Unused Apps’ removes apps you don’t seem to be using, while hanging on to your in-app data should you need to redownload. You can find it under Settings > Apps > App Store > ‘Offload Unused Apps’.
Then, in the Photos app, there’s an option to ‘Optimize iPhone Storage’, which keeps high quality versions of your photos and videos on iCloud, while reducing the file size of local ones (Settings > iCloud > Photos > ‘Optimize iPhone Storage’).
Photos, in my experience, are the root cause of all iPhone capacity headaches, but there are a couple of tips for staying on top of them. Firstly, in the Photos app, you can filter just screenshots, letting you delete years’ worth of now-redundant screengrabs in seconds. For the rest, something like Swipewipe gamifies and streamlines the tedious song and dance of deciding which photos you actually want to keep.
5. Get to know Magsafe
Unless you’ve acquired an iPhone 16e, which doesn’t have it for cost-saving measures, your new phone will support the MagSafe attachment system, which lets you magnetically attach accessories to the back of your new phone.
This is predominantly used for taking the frustration out of wireless charging, with compatible chargers snapping to the back of the phone without slipping. But other neat accessories let you snap on a card holder, or even use your iPhone’s excellent camera as a webcam for your Mac. You can see some of the best MagSafe accessories here.
6. Try Back Tap controls
The iPhone is known for its outstanding accessibility features. Most of these are only useful to those with specific needs, such as visual impaired people, but there’s one that most people may want to try: Back Tap.
This lets you bind certain functions to a double or triple tap on the back of the iPhone. You can tie this to a pre-set list of specific functions (opening Siri, turning on the torch, taking a screenshot, etc.) or something more bespoke via the Shortcuts app.
Just open Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap to get started.
7. Use your Apple Wallet
While I appreciate the contactless payment infrastructure isn’t the same the world over, I’ve basically stopped taking my wallet with me, given Apple Pay is soo good.
But Apple Pay is just a small part of Apple Wallet, and I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with it. You’ll often find digital tickets can be automatically added to your Apple Wallet for easy access, but for passes without the option, something like Passdrop can turn anything into an Apple Wallet pass to keep about your person. Then these are quickly accessible via a double press of the power button, along with your credit cards.
On the subject of keeping useful documents about your person, you can also quickly scan documents using the iPhone camera to convert them to PDF files. Just long press the Notes app, and tap ‘Scan document’ to get started.
8. Set time limits!
It’s very easy to lose hours a day on the millions of apps and other distractions that the iPhone offers. If, like me, you lack the self control not to go overboard, you can set up daily usage limits on the most addictive apps — in my case Reddit.
Just hit Settings > Screen Time > App Limits and set the apps you want to cap. Neatly, you can create groups of apps (social media, video, communications, etc.) to prevent you from bouncing off TikTok to Instagram as soon as one locks you out.
This is easily undone via a passcode should you need extra time on any given day — as I did on a six-hour train journey recently — but it does make you think twice about your usage, which is undeniably a good thing.
