iPhone

Stay up-to-date on the latest iPhone news and learn new tips and tricks with our comprehensive tutorials. From software updates to new features, we’ve got you covered.

Apple’s free app of the week: Impossible Road

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Impossible Road. This means that for the next 7 days, you can pick up the popular arcade racer for both iPhone and iPad for free—a solid savings of $3.

In Impossible Road, you must guide your vessel down the roller coaster-like track at high speeds, scoring through each gate you make it through. Navigate hair-pin turns, jumps and banked curves in a quest for the perfect line.

How to use Digital Touch in Messages for iPhone and iPad

Digital Touch debuted as a sort of gimmicky feature of the Apple Watch software. On iOS 10, Digital Touch has made its way into the stock Messages app, making it easy and to add various effects to photo or video attachments, send sketches, taps, kisses, heartbeats and more. In this step-by-step tutorial, you're going to learn how to express your feelings in style with the Digital Touch features on your iOS 10-enabled iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Apple’s school for app developers has opened its doors to students in Naples, Italy

Apple’s European iOS App Development Center at the University of Naples has opened its doors to students on Thursday. British newspaper The Guardian visited Apple's school for programmers in the days leading up to the launch, showing off the facility in a batch of photos. The project was formally announced in January 2016. Specialized curriculum gives students practical skills and training on developing iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps.

Apple’s iPhone 7 Lightning headphone adapter packs in a surprising amount of circuitry

Repair wizards over at iFixit along with their pals at Creative Electron gave Apple’s new $9 iPhone 7 Lightning headphone adapter a thorough X-ray treatment. The analysis has revealed a surprising amount of circuitry inside of the dongle.

Most notably, it packs in a pretty unique integrated circuit that's most likely a built-in digital-to-analog (DAC) converter. There’s actually a lot going on in the diminutive adapter aside from the DAC, writes iFixit, including things like an integrated amplifier and an analog-to-digital-converter (ADC).

“We’re surprised how much electronics Apple was able to include inside this little cable,” said Creative Electron, which builds X-ray inspection systems for electronics.

How to clear all app notifications at once on iPhone and iPad

iPhone Notification Center with no notifications

It’s easy to lose track of the notifications you’re receiving on your iPhone and end up having dozens of them filling up your Notification Center. Thankfully, you can dismiss all your Notification Center notifications in one fell swoop with a single gesture, making it much quicker than swiping left on each alert and dismissing them individually.

Apple issues a statement regarding sapphire protection on iPhone 7 camera lens

Coverage of YouTuber JerryRigEverything's scratch test of the iPhone 7's iSight camera lens wasn't lost on Apple. In the video, the device's camera lens is shown attracting scratch marks at a level six on the Mohs scale of hardness. That's quite surprising given both the official iPhone stats webpage and Apple's marketing boss Phil Schiller insist all current iPhones use sapphire for camera lens protection.

Now, pure sapphire crystal should sustain scratches up to a level nine, so it's odd that the iPhone 7's camera lens would scratch more easily than it should. As it turns out, the sapphire “issue” was serious enough to warrant an official statement from Apple.

Identifying songs inside iOS 10 Messages with Shazam’s new iMessage app

Shazam, a music identification service that's integrated into iOS (“Hey Siri, what song is this?”), recently celebrated a billionth download of its popular mobile app. Today, the company pushed a sweet little update to Shazam and Shazam Encore iOS apps in the App Store. Bumped to version 10.1, the refresh software packs in a brand new iMessage app with support for music detection within iOS 10's stock Messages app, here's how to use it.

Latest iOS 10.1 and macOS Sierra betas now available to public beta testers

Apple today released a second beta of an upcoming iOS 10.1 software update and a third beta of an upcoming macOS Sierra 10.12.1 software update to non-developers who are enrolled in the official Apple Beta Software Program.

Both macOS Sierra and iOS 10.1 public betas can be downloaded over-the-air through Apple's Software Update mechanism on devices enrolled in the beta program. iOS devices must have the proper certificate installed to run public betas.

How to enable and use Secret Conversations in Facebook Messenger

iPhone screen showing Facebook Messenger app with an encrypted secret conversation

With secret conversations in Messenger, Facebook offers support for end-to-end encryption, giving you peace of mind knowing that a third party cannot decipher any sensitive messages with friends and family. These encrypted chats rely on a device key that ensures only you and the recipient can see the message.

You can verify the device key to confirm that the messages are end-to-end encrypted, set a timer to have secret messages disappear from the conversation, and so forth.

In this article, we show you how to set up and use end-to-end encrypted secret conversations in Facebook Messenger.

Dropbox Paper app now available in the EU

Paper, a new productivity app from cloud storage experts over at Dropbox, launched in public beta in the United States a month ago. After a slight delay, Paper is now available to customers in the European Union. With the free Paper app (not to be confused with Facebook's experimental Paper app), you can collaborate on projects, get updates, make edits and respond to feedback right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.