Tricks

How to check if an iPhone is new, refurbished, or a replacement unit

Icon of a confused man next to an iPhone asking if it's new

There are no external indicators on an iPhone or iPad that reveal whether it’s fresh out of the box, refurbished, or a replacement provided by Apple through a service request.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to distinguish between brand-new iPhones, refurbished models, replacement units, and even devices customized with Apple’s laser engraving.

Shortcuts Focus: how to delete all your completed reminders in one fell swoop

Inexplicably, Apple's Reminders app to this date has not bothered to offer us an option to delete all of the completed reminders at once. It should, at the very least, be able to remove completed items after a set number of days, but even that isn't allowed. Basically, you're left with two choices—either, joy, delete completed reminders manually, one by one, like an animal; or, leverage the power of scripting and iOS automation to your advantage like a boss.

Shortcuts Focus: enforcing Picture in Picture on YouTube & other unsupported websites on iPad

Your iPad supports Picture in Picture (PiP) videos in apps and webpages, but this handy mode isn't universally supported across all video-streaming websites. Crucially, PiP is unsupported by YouTube.com's iPad interface on Safari. But there's a shortcut for that, too—thanks to the power of iOS automation, you can enforce Picture in Picture on YouTube and other websites.

How to convert iPhone HEVC videos to H.264 with VideoProc [sponsor]

The Mac and Windows app VideoProc by multimedia software developer Digiarty is among the most comprehensive video converters out there. Not only does it transcode foreign video formats including MKV, DIVX, FLV and WMV to iOS-friendly formats, but also lets you convert videos in the High Efficiency Video Coding (H.265) format captured with your iPhone to the more compatible H.264 codec, which lets you play them back on older devices.