New tricks to get the most from your iPhone: Talking Tech podcast

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Hey there, listeners. It's Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech. If you own an iPhone, listen up. Obviously, if you've had an iPhone for a while you think to yourself, "I know pretty much everything this phone does. It's easy. They're super powerful. And again, I have used it for long enough, that I pretty much know everything there is to know." There are some hidden tricks though that you might not know about that could be very useful and very quick and easy if you're trying to do something fast.

My colleague, Jennifer Jolly writes about this in a story that you can read on tech.usatoday.com, and it's looking at all the different, small little tricks that you can implement onto your iPhone to get the most out of it. We'll share a couple right here. Let's start with this one. If you want to capture a video really quickly. A lot of us know that when we go to our phones, there's the camera icon in the bottom corner.

So when you click and hold, it'll open up the camera automatically from your lock screen. So you're not fumbling around. Say something really cool's happening, you're trying to get your camera out quick, that's the best way to do it. Maybe you want to go a step further and get a video. Best way to do it is you'll open up your camera, it automatically defaults to photo. If you hold down the photo button long enough, it could automatically switches to video and you start recording video. You'll know that it's changed, because you'll see the red record button pop up and you'll see that it's capturing footage. The key though is, keep your finger on the button until you're done and then take your finger off. Last thing you want to do is do that and then you let go thinking it's recording and then it's not.

So good tip. Keep the thumb held down on that button as it records. But it's a nice, quick way to get video if, say, you're somewhere and you just want to capture something super fast. The other cool trick on iPhones, especially some of the newer models is what Jennifer calls a secret home button. And basically what this is the back tap on your phone. And if you're not familiar with back tap, basically what it is you can tap the back of your phone to perform different functions. It almost feels like a home button. You go to settings on iOS, then you go to accessibility, you'll go to the touch menu and you'll see an option for back tap. When you click on it, you'll see all these different options that you can pick. You can set double taps and triple taps. So if you want to do a lot of different things. I have it set on my phone where I double tap on the back and it goes right back to the home screen.

Or if I triple tap, it'll take a screenshot. So you can do a lot of different things. You can adjust volume. You can get to your camera. A lot of cool stuff you can do. One thing I have noticed though, when using the back tap is, sometimes I might hold the back of my phone and tap it with my finger and then I put it down on a table and then it automatically performs the function. That happens once in a while. It's not annoying enough where it's like, "oh, you shouldn't turn this on." But it's something I've seen happen once in a blue moon. So something to keep in mind. Pixel phones, for Google have this too. It's called quick tap. Same way. Other Android devices, you need to download a separate app called Tap in order to do this kind of functionality.

But again, very cool, very nice way to add an extra input to your phone. This tip, it's a really cool one. I never thought about using it, but it's really great. You can actually do quick math without opening the calculator app. When you go to iOS, you know how you pull down the middle of the screen and it shows you a search field and you can search for things like webpages, apps, what have you. You can pop in equations too. So if you're trying to figure out some quick math, multiply something super quick, you can just pop in that search, type it in and it'll pull up the answer right away. Android has something similar. You type in your calculation into the search bar at the top and then you'll see a little icon that pops up. It'll show the answer and it'll have all the details.

So super cool. If you're trying to do something really quick, those are some really cool ways to do it. You can read more of Jennifer's tips and some of the other cool tricks that you can do with your iPhone or your Android phone by visiting tech.usatoday.com. Listeners, let's hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, or show idea? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @brettmolina23. Please don't forget to subscribe and rate us or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. You've been listening to Talking Tech. We'll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.