So you broke down and got an iPhone, congratulations! While I’m sure you’re enjoying your shiny purchase for things like taking photos, playing games, surfing the web or listening to music, there are several items that might come in handy as you learn to master your device. This page is dedicated to helping you master your iPhone and in most cases these same steps can be used for your iPad as well…if you own one.

Hardware Tips

1. Buy the AppleCare+ warranty for your phone as soon as you get it! Do not get the warranty from your cell company.  Go to the link here to sign up.
   
2. Don’t use knock off power cords and adapters unless you’d like to damage your iPhone. Stick with name brands, like Apple, Belkin, etc. Specifically avoid the random cheap cables you’ll find Amazon which may look tempting, but these cords often aren’t at the same specifications that Apple recommends.
   
3. Don’t ever use screen protectors. While these protect your screen from scratches they won’t do anything of use in a fall. Screen protectors interfere with the ability of your finger to register touching the screen and as you might have guessed on an iPhone this is an important thing.
   
4. In the unlikely event you damage your phone and need repairs, don’t ever take it to anyone but Apple! If you’re not located near an Apple store, simply call Apple and have them send you a phone. This is called Advanced Replacement, which means Apple will put a temporary hold on your credit card and send you a new phone. You then send the old phone back to them. It’s that simple! Please remember to turn off find my iPhone and wipe your phone once you’re new phone is running the way you’d like.

Software

Your iPhone comes with an operating system called iOS. This is the heart and soul of your phone. You can learn more about it here, but the main point is make sure your phone is up-to-date. Doing so will ensure things are working properly and your phone continues to be secure. One thing I recommend is to WAIT before installing major updates to iOS. For example, you’ve been running iOS ‘X’ for a year and Apple releases iOS ‘Y’, don’t immediately install it. While Apple does do a great deal of internal and public testing before a release, there are ALWAYS bugs. WAIT for Apple to put out its first patch before updating your phone. This is typically released within the first month of the new version so it’s not like you’ll be waiting long. I’m sure it will be hard to resist but you’ll be glad you did when your friend and family are complaining about issues they’re experiencing. You can check what version is available by going to Settings>General>Software Update. Check this every so often until you see the version number higher than ‘Y’.0.1, for example.

Maximizing Your Battery Life

There are so many people I’ve encountered that complain about one major issue with their phones, the battery life. What’s important to remember is that your phone is nothing more than a tiny computer with a lot of things running continuously that you might not realize. The following is a breakdown of tips you can follow to keep your battery life high.

1. Leave your brightness at the default automatically adjusted setting. Remember the brighter your screen the more power it’s using. In iOS 11 the ability to turn off automatic brightness has been moved and is on by default. However, to check that you’ve left it on go here to Settings>General>Accessibility>Display Accommodations>. Make sure the green switch for Auto-Brightness is ON!
2. Along the lines of brightness, it’s important to realize that using your phone late at night can disrupt your sleep rhythm. To help with this enable Night Shift on your phone by doing the following. Go to Settings>Display & Brightness>Night Shift. Make your settings looks like what’s shown below.
3. Under Settings>Privacy>Location Services. Change every single app to “While Using”. It’s important to set these because if not applications while continue to burn your battery by constantly pinpointing your location.
4. Under Settings>Battery look at the applications you’ve used for last 24 hours and 7 days. You’ll be able to determine what applications use a lot of your battery. As a general rule of thumb apps like Facebook, Safari and anything video or music oriented will burn through battery.
5. After each update no matter major or minor, let you phone run down to zero battery. The phone will turn off when it dies. Once this occurs plug the phone in until it’s 100% charged. This will allow the phone to calibrate itself.
6. Under Settings>Cellular you can see how much data your apps are using. As a general rule of thumb you should realize that you can save battery and data by restricting apps to run while on cellular data. For example disabling Facebook and App Store data will save a ton on data per month. You can reset the total data used history to gauge how much you’re actually using.

How to Keep Your Phone Backed Up

So many people I know don’t use iCloud on their iPhone and are leaving their device open to be destroyed and lose everything.

1. Signup for and enable iCloud. Under Settings>Accounts & Passwords>iCloud. While you’re there select Storage>Change Storage Plan. As a start select the 50GB plan for .99 cents per month. This is more than enough to backup most phones and will give you a good deal of room for your photos as well.
2. Enable all the following settings on your phone.
3. In the same section select Photos and make it look like the following image. This will help save a great deal of storage on your phone.
4. In the same iCloud section click the Find My iPhone option. Make sure this is ON and make sure the settings look like the following image.

How to Free Up Space on Your Phone

Go to Settings>General>iPhone Storage. From here you can see program or function and how much storage it’s taking up. Delete any apps you’re not using. As a good rule of thumb delete the Facebook and Twitter apps every so often because they each continue to grow without giving space back. You can reload the app once it’s been deleted.

Security

Security is simple on the iPhone. Use a 6 digit passcode, enable Face or Touch ID and keep them enabled. Since the steps to setup these change more often I’m removing them from this article. Please remember that the inconvenience of needing to type a code or use your fingerprint/face is better than having all of your details stolen.

How to Force Restart Your iPhone

If your phone is acting strangely you should restart it. In fact restarting is something you should do after every update to iOS you do. Since the newer iPhones have unique settings to reboot please go to the web link here for instructions. The first part of the site says “If your screen is black or frozen”, which are the steps you should follow to reboot your phone in general. You should close all apps, wait at least one minute and reboot.