MAKE PHONE THE APPLE OF YOUR ‘i’

Once you get wired into the Apple ecosystem it is really hard to get out. All your gadgets are linked, they have your music, apps and photographs. So if you are indeed sticking with your iPhone, you may as well know some hacks to get the most out of it. W

MAKING THE SPEAKERS LOUDER At some point in time, we’ve all found ourselves huddled around an iPhone with a group of friends, listening to music with the volume turned up to max.

But, as anyone who has been in this situation will know, the iPhone’s maximum volume just isn’t that loud.

There are plenty of ways to improve the sound, like hooking your phone up to a Bluetooth speaker or, if you don’t have one available, putting your phone in a pint glass or a mug.

But there’s one little-known software feature that will give your music an extra volume boost with minimum effort.

All you need to do is go into “Settings” on your iPhone, tap on “Music”, and then scroll down and tap on “EQ” (which stands for equaliser).

Select the “Late Night” option, and you will immediately notice a boost in volume.

The Late Night option actually compresses the dynamic range of the track, so loud sounds are toned down and quiet parts are turned up, making it a little easier to hear what’s happening.

But the overall effect is to make whatever you’re listening to sound louder and clearer.

While the setting could be a lifesaver next time you find yourself at an impromptu latenight gathering in the park, be warned that it affects everything on your iPhone.

So if you have the lock noise and keyboard taps enabled, you’ll want to make sure you turn Late Night mode off when you’re back in the office.

LOSE THE INSOMNIA INDUCING GLARE

Ah... looking at your phone in bed. We know we shouldn’t but we do. How else are we expected to see the holiday photos of someone we went to school with but now never speak to?

Looking at your phone screen late at night can trick you body into thinking it is earlier than it is, making it then hard to drop off.

If you go to your settings you can enable “night shift”.

This automatically shifts the colours of your display to the warmer end of the spectrum after dark. This may help you get a better night’s sleep.

You can turn it on manually or set it to come on automatically.

FORCE QUITTING YOUR APPS WON’T SAVE YOUR BATTERY

“Oh no! Low battery. Better close every app I am not using ASAP.”

Every iPhone user thinks this best practice when you are trying to save the juice, so they manically upswipe all their open apps.

But experts have warned, yet again, that it is a complete waste of time. In fact, it could actually create the opposite effect of the one that is intended.

Apple pundit John Gruber explains that the practice of closing down apps is based on a misconception about how iOS works on iPhones and iPads.

“Apps in the background are effectively ‘frozen’, severely limiting what they can do in the background and freeing up the RAM they were using,” he wrote in a blog post.

“iOS is really, really good at this. It is so good at this that unfreezing a frozen app takes up way less CPU (and energy) than relaunching an app that had been forcequit.

“Not only does force quitting your apps not help, it actually hurts . Your battery life will be worse and it will take much longer to switch apps if you force-quit apps in the background.”

Gruber is by no means the first person to make this point. In an email to MacDailyNews in 2010, Steve Jobs himself said: “Just use [iOS multitasking] as designed, and you’ll be happy. No need to ever quit apps.”

Apple’s multitasking feature is one of the big technical advantages that iOS holds over Google’s Android operating system, which forces apps to quit when they are not in use to stop them using up memory.

This means the Android apps have to be relaunched again when they are reopened - a much slower process than simply “unfreezing” them.

“Every iPhone user in the world who habitually force-quits background apps manually is wasting all of the effort that went into this while simultaneously wasting their own device’s battery life and making everything slower for themselves,” said Gruber. When should you force-quit an app? According to Apple’s official support document on forcing applications to close, the only time you should use this feature is when an app freezes and becomes unresponsive.

In this case, you should double-click the Home button to see your most recently used apps, swipe right or left to find the app you want to close, and then swipe up on the app’s preview to close the app.

When you return to the Home and reopen the app, it should be working as normal.

DON’T LEAVE YOUR PHONE ON CHARGE OVERNIGHT

We’ve all had that moment where our phone has died at the worst possible time.

Ever since we stopped playing Snake and started downloading apps our phone batteries have taken a pounding.

But this is not inevitable and there are several simple steps you can take to make sure your phone battery doesn’t get sick and lasts longer.

Tech expert Simon Jary from TechAdvisor. co.uk put together some top tips for keeping your phone’s battery healthy.

Many people believe that you need to let you phone’s battery drop all the way to zero because of a phenomenon called “memory effect”.

But that’s not true in newer batteries, when you “almost need to do the opposite” and charge them often but not all the way throughout the day, not letting them drop to zero.

Writing on Tech Advisor Mr Jary said: “This is about batteries remembering remaining charge if you don’t let them go all the way to zero too often. So a battery frequently charged from 20% to 80% might ‘forget’ about the 40% that’s left uncharged (0-20% and 80-100%).

“Sounds crazy but that’s sort of true - but only for older nickel-based (NiMH and NiCd) batteries, not the lithium-ion batteries in your phone.

“Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries don’t suffer the memory effect so you almost need to do the opposite: charge them often but not all the way throughout the day, and don’t let them drop to zero.”

With Li-ion batteries you should try and keep them at 50% or more most of the time. It is not always that easy to do, especially if you are busy and travelling around a lot. Even though it is important to try and keep it above 50% you should not allow it to fully recharge to 100%. It won’t be the end of the world for your battery if you do but it will shorten its lifespan. Experts say a good range to aim for is keeping it between the 40-80% range. Here are some other hacks you may have already heard about:

CHARGING IN A HURRY?

When you need to give your phone a very quick bit of juice before you nip out there is one thing you can do to get some extra charge in.

Switching your phone to airplane mode will mean it gains about an extra 8% an hour.

SEEING HOW MUCH APPLE REALLY KNOWS…

Not “hack” exactly but if you want to know what sort of data you phone is recording you can go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations. This will show what your phone is recording in terms of where you have been.

TAKING A PICTURE WITHOUT TOUCHING YOUR SCREEN

This one is really well-known but can save you doing the awkward screen tap. If you hold your phone landscape you can click your volume control and it will take a snap. Like a real camera!

SAVE YOURSELF SOME DATA

When you get the dreaded message that you are at 80% through your data and there are still two weeks left till it tops up, you need to take action.

The best thing to do (except stopping the cat video YouTube stream) is to prevent certain apps using the internet.

To do this go to Settings > Mobile Data and limit each app individually.