10 iOS Safari Tips: Hidden Menus

Most people use the Safari app every day, it’s the built-in web browser for Apple’s iOS. It’s a fairly straightforward and easy to use app but there are a few menus that can make some things easier and quicker to use. Most of these menus are accessed by long pressing the link but some can also be accessed by using force touch.

Links in Webpages

Pretty easy, right? You see a link in a page and you click on it. But, did you know there are more options if you long press the link? When you long press a link you have the following options: Open, Open in New Tab, Add to Reading List, Copy or Share.

This menu can also be accessed on an iPhone by using force touch and sliding up. If you are on an iPad you will also have the option to Open in Split View.

Images in Webpages

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Ever see an image on a website you liked and wanted to save it, maybe make it your background? To save an image simply long press the image and this will give you a menu with the option to Save Image or copy it to you clipboard. If the image is also a link it will give you the link options listed above.

This menu can also be accessed on an iPhone by using force touch and sliding up. 

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Bookmarks

Simply tapping on the bookmarks icon in the bottom toolbar will pull up your favorites and bookmarks. But long pressing this icon will give you an easy option to add a bookmark to the webpage you are currently on or add it to your reading list.

Back/Forward

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Here are another set of buttons that you probably use all the time. Did you know they had a hidden menu? When you long press either the forward or back button it will pull up a history of that particular tab you are browsing on. 

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Tabs

The tabs button is the easy way to access a preview of all your open tabs, located in the bottom toolbar on the far right. Ever suddenly realize you have WAY too many tabs open? When you long press the tabs you get a few options, one of them being “Close All Tabs”. Other options you are presented with are: Close this Tab, New Private Tab & New Tab. 

Add Tab

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Ever accidentally close out a tab you wanted to keep open? Now you have to either remember what page you had open or go back through your history. Or, you can long press the + (New Tab) button. When this is long pressed it pulls up a menu that shows you all your recently closed tabs.

Done (Tabs)

Another way to close out all your tabs is to long press the “Done” button in the tabs views. 

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Reload

Most websites have multiple versions, a desktop version and a mobile version. When you visit from an iPhone or an iPad it will try to serve you up the mobile version. Sometimes the mobile version lacks features from the desktop version and can be a little frustrating. One way to get around this is to long press the reload button.

When you do this it brings you a menu that allows you to “Request Desktop Site”. This will attempt to reload the website while asking the server to show the full desktop version instead of the mobile version. 

Reader View

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Safari has a really cool mode called “Reader View”. This takes a website and isolates only the text and turns it black and white making it easy to read. If there is a website you are always activating Reader Mode on a specific website you can automate this. Long press on the reader icon (in the left in the URL bar) and you can choose to have reader mode automatically activate on a particular website or on all websites.

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Search Bar

The URL/search bar in Safari is an amazing tool with the ability to both go to an address or perform a search. One hidden menu is “Paste and Go”. If you long press the URL bar you have the option of whatever you have copied to you clipboard can be pasted and immediately acted on. If it is a URL it will send you straight there. If it is simply words then a search will be performed. This can save you a few extra taps when using Safari.

iOS 11 Release Day

The day is finally here! After a few months of teases and public and developer betas iOS 11 is available to the general public. This version of iOS can be installed on iPhones 5s and newer, iPad Mini 2 and up, iPad Air and up and iPod Touch 6th Gen. There are a TON of new features, too many to list all of them so I am just going to highlight a few for you.

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iPad

There are a lot of functionality changes coming to the iPad that bring it closer to a desktop system and may make it even more of an option to be a laptop replacement. 

The Dock

No longer is the dock stuck only to the home screen but can now be accessed from anywhere with just a swipe up from the bottom. The left side of your dock can be customized with whatever apps you want to put in it, just like before and now the right side of the dock will show apps that you’ve recently opened.

Files

There is a new app called Files that gives you easier access to all your files stored on your iPad, on iCloud and even services like Google Drive, Dropbox and Adobe Cloud. From Files you can browse, organize and share all your files. The Files app will also be available on iPhones.

Drag and Drop

Multitasking on the iPad keeps getting better and better. iOS 10 introduced ‘Slide-over’ and ‘Split View’ but now you can communicate more easily between those apps. You can move just about anything anywhere betweens apps. Simply drag a picture into a message or drag a PDF from Files into an e-mail.

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iPhone

Augmented Reality

Probably the most awesome features coming to iOS is improved augmented reality. Apple developed a powerful tool for developers called ARkit and the test videos that have been released over the last few months show amazing potential. From playing games on a tabletop to trying on a new tattoo to redecorating your house, there are endless possibilities. I for one am extremely excited about AR in iOS 11.

Apple Pay

With the iPhone 6 Apple introduced Apple Pay and now they are expanding that to allow person to person exchanges. Now you can immediately pay your friend back for that lunch or movie ticket, right in iMessages. Now, this feature will not immediately be available at launch, it will be coming in a future update.

Live Photos

Ever take a photo at just the wrong time and wish you could choose just a moment right before the photo was actually snapped? Well now you can! One new feature of Live Photos is the ability to choose which image is the key image. No more half-closed eyes or blurry slightly turned heads.

Another cool feature of Live Photos is the option to choose how that ‘video’ loop is played out. By default there is a start and an end, but now you can choose to have it Loop, Bounce (play forward then backward), or to combine all the frames from the Live Photo into a Long Exposure image.

Do Not Disturb While Driving

Your iPhone can now automatically sense when you are driving and silence all notifications for the duration of your drive. People trying to message you can be notified by a custom message that you are driving and will respond when you arrive. I feel like this is a really big one, others may just find it an annoyance. Although if you’re someone who finds it annoying maybe you need to check your texting and driving habits…

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More Features

Apple has also made improvements to Siri with a better, more natural sounding voice, added the ability to provide translations and much more. The App Store has been redesigned to give a more personal connection and allow developers to tell their story about the app they created. Control Center has a all new look and feel, you can now customize the icons that appear, depending on what you use Control Center for the most.

These just scratch the surface of what Apple has introduced with iOS 11. Visit Apple’s website for more detailed information or a full list of what’s in store for your device after you upgrade. As always, **BACK UP YOUR DEVICE BEFORE PERFORMING AN UPGRADE**. Apple does a great job to limit the amount of issues with upgrading but you don’t want to be ‘that guy’ who loses everything.

10 Ways to Free Space on Your iPhone or iPad

If you were like me you didn’t want to spend the extra $100 to get the iPhone with extra space thinking, “Oh I don’t keep a lot of stuff on my phone, I will be just fine.” Now, you keep seeing the awful message pop up telling you your “iPhone storage is almost full”. I have compiled a few tips to help you clear some much needed space from your iPhone or iPad.

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1. Apps // Delete app data

The first thing you want to do is to see where all your space is being taken up. iOS has a nifty feature that gives a pretty detailed overview of you storage space. To see this go to Settings>General>Storage and iCloud Usage and tap on iPhone Storage. Once this screen populates it will show you how much data each app is using. From here you can decide what you need to focus on to help clear space on your iPhone device. If your Notes app is saying there is hundreds of MBs being take up then it may be time to go through and purge your Notes. If you have a video player app that has hundreds of MBs or even GBs there may be video in that app that can be deleted. Or even if there is an app you haven’t used in months or years you could straight up just remove the app from your phone. 

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2. Update // Install that update

When Apple releases a new update they try to make it as easy for you as possible. One of the things they do is automatically download the update to your device so that when you are ready to install it it is already there for you and you don’t have to wait for it to download to install. This can be convenient but sometimes updates are fairly large in size. It is best to run the update and install it, that will then remove the installer from your device. If you are hesitant about updating it you can delete the installer from your device by going to the iPhone storage menu in Settings>General>Storage and iCloud Usage. From here you should be able to see the installer and remove it.

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3. iMessages // Stop keeping all your messages forever

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If you have never changed this setting it is automatically set to keep all your message and attachments forever. And if you are like most people you send and receive a decent amount of attachments, whether they are pictures, videos or even stickers. Keeping all these is fine on your computer with all the free space it has but with the limited space your iPhone has it can be a huge drain. **Before you enable this setting be sure to go through all your picture attachments and save any you want to keep.** To enable this setting to automatically delete older messages and attachments simply go to Settings>Messages and scroll down till you see ‘Message History: Keep Messages’ . Simply tap this and select whether you would like to keep for 30 Days or 1 Year. When you select something shorted than “Forever” a pop-up will appear asking if it is OK to delete older messages. Assuming you have saved everything you want to keep simply select “Yes” and it will delete anything older than the time period you selected.

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4. Photos // Empty the trash

Similar to a computer, when you delete photos they don’t disappear completely. They go in to a special folder where they sit for 30 days, that way if you accidentally delete something it isn't lost immediately. Handy, but this can take up space you thought you were freeing. Simply go to Photos>Albums and scroll down until you see ‘Recently Deleted’ and tap it. Then tap ‘Select’ at the top then at the bottom tap ‘Delete All’ and confirm. This will immediately purge all deleted photos from the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder. 

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5. Safari // Clear the cache

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This tip is doubly useful in that it can help if you accidentally clicked a nefarious link and your Safari app is locked up with an e-mail pop-up or ad pop-up. **Keep in mind this will also delete your browsing history from all devices signed in to iCloud, including your computer.** To clear this data go to Settings>Safari and scroll down until you see ‘Clear History and Website Data’. Tap this and then confirm to clear this data.

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6. Photos // Don’t save duplicate photos

By default your iPhone has two things enabled: HDR and Keep Normal Photo. HDR is an amazing feature where (in the right conditions) your iPhone will actually take 3 photos and combine them to highlight as much light and dark detail as possible. But, by default your phone will also take and keep the non-HDR photo at the same time. To turn this off simply go to Settings>Photos and Camera and turn off ‘Keep Normal Photo’. *Side Note: If you have an iPhone 7 Plus there is similar setting to turn off for portrait mode. 

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7. Music // Remove downloaded music

If you have music synced up to your iPhone you don’t have to hook your phone back up to clear music you don’t need anymore. And sometimes in order to play certain songs your iPhone will automatically download them to your iPhone. To check and clear these songs simply go to Settings>Music and scroll down to ‘Downloads’. Tap this and you can then swipe to delete any songs you want to clear off your iPhone. **Other music service apps have the ability to download music for offline listening, be sure to check any other music apps you might have such as Spotify or Amazon Music.

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8. Photos // Turn off Photo Stream

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Another photos tip! If you’re like most people you aren't even aware of what Photo Stream is or does. Not a big deal but it is on by default and even tho they don’t take up as much space the photos in your Photo Stream are still there take space. To turn this feature off simply go to Settings>Photos and turn off ‘Upload to My Photo Stream’. The photo stream photos will then be removed from your iPhone but if you decide to turn this feature back on the photos will stay saved on iCloud for 30 days from when they were uploaded. 

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9. Safari // Purge your reading list

Even if you are not familiar with what Reading List is, I would still check this feature. There have been times when even I have accidentally added something to my Reading List. This feature has it’s uses, it saves a website to be available to read later even if you have no internet connection. To clear Reading List pages go to the Safari app and tap the book button at the bottom then tap the glasses icon. You can swipe to delete any pages in the list. **Note: This will delete the pages from all your devices Reading List. 

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10. Podcasts // Delete downloaded podcasts

I like to listen to podcasts but I don’t need them taking up my precious iPhone storage space. If you want to turn off automatic downloads of Podcasts you listen to just to to Settings>Podcasts and scroll down to ‘Download Episodes’. Tap this and then set to ‘Off’, this will prevent future episodes from being downloaded to your device. Now, to purge any that have previously been downloaded go to Settings>General>Storage and iCloud Usage. Under iPhone storage scroll down to Podcasts and tap it. From here you can swipe to delete any needed podcast episodes.

Apple Releases Update 10.3.3 for iOS

Update Tuesday! Apple has released an incremental update ot iOS 10 for iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. There are no major feature changes, only bug fixes and security improvements to iOS.

This update is recommended for all users currently running iOS 10 and is free to download via Settings>General>Software Update. As always it is recommended that you make sure you have a current backup before you perform the update.

This will be one of the last update to iOS 10 as Apple will be focusing more energy on the next version, iOS 11, coming this fall. If you want to try the new version of iOS, Apple has a public beta program. You can visit www.beta.apple.com for more information.