Today’s smartphones have so many features that it’s hard to keep track of them. Here are a few helpful ones that you may not know, whether you have an iPhone or an Android device.

iPhone Tips and Tricks

  • Undo with a shake. You make may a mistake when writing an email or text message. Instead of trying to select what to delete, just give your phone a quick shake to erase what you most recently typed. The physical shaking of the phone will create an “Undo” pop up that will delete the most recent text. You want that text to reappear? You can always shake it again and click “Redo” to bring back the text most recently deleted. These two options can also be accomplished by swiping left with three fingers to delete and swiping right with three fingers to make it reappear.
  • Drag and drop. Another texting hack is the quick transition between your alphabetical keyboard and your numerical and symbols keyboard. Just press down with your finger onto the “123” button, drag it over to the number or symbol you want to use and then let go. This can be a simple, efficient way to switch between your keyboards when sending out messages with numbers and/or symbols.
  • Better photo search. Have you ever struggled to find a photo in your Photos app? Stop your scrolling and take advantage of the search bar tab in your Photos app. You can search by which model of iPhone took the picture, objects in an image, people by facial recognition, geotags, text in an image, album types, and photo captions. 

Android Tips and Tricks

  • Use one hand. Some smartphones are too big to hold and use with one hand. On Android phones, you can enable “one-handed mode.” The feature slides down the user interface to the bottom of your phone’s screen. It is not a permanent setting but can allow you to work quicker when your hands may be full. To enable it on the Samsung Galaxy phones, swipe down once from the top of the screen and click the “gear” icon, scroll to the bottom of the settings, and select “advanced features,” under “motions and gestures” you can enable “one-handed mode” and you’re all set. Once turned on, you can activate “one-handed mode” by swiping down on the center of the bottom edge of the screen.
  • Hear who’s calling. You can select custom ringtones for certain contacts, which can help you differentiate between callers without having to look at your phone. To do this, open “contacts,” select the person whose ringtone you want to change, tap the “edit” button, click “more,” scroll down and select “set ringtone,” and choose from the list of different tones then save the contact.