6 Cool Things You Probably Didn’t Know an iPhone Could Do

While you may be a daily iPhone user, it’s possible you’re yet to discover all the capabilities your gadget has. This device has many features you probably didn’t know existed, meaning you aren’t making the most of it. An iPhone does more than just text, make calls, surf the internet, or take photos. Knowing all you can do with this gadget enables you to maximize its potential. Below are six cool things you probably didn’t know an iPhone could do.

1. Back up your iPhone to an external hard drive

There’s a lot of precious data on your iPhone for you to risk losing via theft, damages, or an erroneous update. Making frequent backups of your gadget means if anything goes wrong, your data is safe, and you won’t have to start from scratch, particularly if your phone is a repository for your most sensitive data and precious memories. While iCloud allows you to keep your information backed up in the cloud and makes it easily accessible, you can back up your iPhone to an external hard drive, which can be more advantageous.

Backing up your iPhone to an external drive offers a physical data backup in case your iCloud is compromised or hacked. In addition, it allows you more control over how and where your data is kept. Backing up your information to an external hard drive is more reliable and faster than doing it on iCloud, especially if you have a vast amount of data that requires backing up.

2. Activate the hidden mouse

If you’re typing a long text or an email and realize that you’ve made a mistake, the first thing you think of doing is tapping the screen where you wish to edit or pressing and holding to make the magnifier appear from where you can edit.

However, your finger can sometimes get in the way of what you’re editing, making it hard to have complete visibility of where your cursor is going. Also, it may not record your click accurately. Fortunately, your iPhone has a hidden mouse you can activate and leverage to simplify your edits and make them more precise than magnifying or tapping actions.

3. Scan documents

Your iPhone comes with a document scanner you probably didn’t know existed. This feature comes with a lot of convenience. Scanning documents using your iPhone can be quite convenient as it eliminates the need for extra equipment such as computers or scanners, which comes in handy if working remotely or on the go. You can transform physical documents into digital files in seconds with just a few clicks on your screen.

Additionally, most iPhones have intuitive and user-friendly scanning applications that provide features like image enhancement, auto-cropping, and optical character recognition (OCR). These features enable you to turn the scanned content into editable text. With this convenience level, your work efficiency can improve drastically. Using the document scanner in your iPhone for business purposes helps save money by eliminating the need to invest in a redundant device.

4. Back-tap the back of your iPhone

The back tap feature on your iPhone is an amazing feature that anyone can benefit from, including those with accessibility challenges. It allows you to perform any action you want quickly by tapping the back of your iPhone. The back tap’s intended use case is turning on other accessibility features like VoiceOver or performing actions on Switch Control hardware. This feature is quite versatile, meaning you can set it up to perform other basic actions, including:

• Turning the flashlight on and off
• Taking a screenshot
• Opening the Control Center
• Triggering accessibility-specific actions
• Activating custom shortcuts

5. Get real-time weather notifications

If you reside in areas with a lot of spontaneous spells of extreme weather, you can set your iPhone to give you real-time notifications, including:

• Hurricanes
• Snow
• Rainstorms
• Floods
• Tornadoes
• Heatwaves

These early alerts enable you to prepare so the upcoming bad weather doesn’t catch you off-guard. When setting up the weather alerts, go to the weather application, open it, and enable notifications. Note that you’ll only get alerts for the locations you’ve added to the Weather App. Consider giving the weather application permanent access to your area to receive advance weather warnings.

6. Track your heart rate

Using your iPhone camera as a simple, cost-effective tool, you can measure your heart rate’s pulse and variability by leveraging vasodilation (blood vessel widening) and vasoconstriction (blood vessel narrowing). With a real-time chart, you’ll see your every heartbeat, which is crucial to monitoring your fitness and health. Leveraging your iPhone’s camera to check your heart rate is convenient because you can do it anytime and anywhere.

Endnote

Your iPhone comes with many features, most of which you might know exist. Exploring these features will enable you to maximize your gadget while doing things you didn’t think were possible.