Drag and drop was one of the big additions for iPad in iOS 11, something that advocates for Apple's tablet as a productivity device had been wanting for years. Drag and drop is pretty much what it sounds like: you can select an item like text you've selected, a photo, or another kind of file, and drag it from its original location to another. This could be somewhere else in your current app, but drag and drop really reaches its full potential when used with Slide Over and Split View multitasking on the iPad.

 How to add a second app on screen in Slide Over and Split View 

This way, you can do things like move a file from one cloud storage service to another, copy text from Safari into a text editing app to add a quote or expert to a project, or create a backup for particular photos in a file storage app.

Here's how you use drag and drop to take your iPad to the next level.

• How to drag and drop photos, files, and text
• How to drag and drop multiple photos or files at once
• How to rearrange multiple apps using drag and drop

How to drag and drop photos, files, and text

1. Tap and hold on the photo, file, or selected text that you want to drag to another app.
2. Drag the item to its destination, be that elsewhere in the same app, or a different app that you've opened up in Slide Over or Split View, and release.

How to drag and drop multiple photos or files at once

1. Tap and hold on one of the photos or files that you want to drag.
2. As you are dragging your current item, tap on another photo or file that you also want to drag. Do this again with as many items as you want to move.
3. Drag all of your items to their intended destination either in their current app or in one that you've opened up in Slide Over or Split View and release them.

How to drag and drop text from one app to another

1. Tap and hold on part of the text you want to drag to highlight it.
2. Use the selection points to highlight the rest of the text you want to drag.

3. Tap and hold on the selected text.
4. Drag the text to the app in which you'd like to place it and release.

How to rearrange multiple apps using drag and drop

While most of the iOS drag and drop features remain iPad-only, this trick actually works on both iPhone and iPad. It allows you to rearrange apps on your Home screen using drag and drop, rather than having to move them one at a time.

Note that if you have a particular order into which you'd like to rearrange your apps, the app you pick should be the one that you want to be in the right-most position. When you select other apps, you'll want to select them in reverse order of what positions you want them to hold left to right. So, if you're selecting, for instance, four apps, the fourth app you select will be the first app (left-most app) when you've dropped your selections into their new arrangement, while the third selected will be the second app, and so on.

1. Tap and hold on an app icon whose position on your Home screen you want to change until all of the
2. Tap the additional apps that you want to move. Remember, tap them in reverse order of how you want them to lay out left-to-right.
3. Drag these apps to the page or folder in which you'd like them to reside and release them.

Questions?

If you have any questions about using drag and drop on your iPad, let us know in the comments.

Apple Music not only allows you to listen to a massive library of music, but also connect and share your favorite music with your friends. You can share the playlists you've made and see what your friends have been listening to. But how will do follow them in the first place?

This is how you can follow friends in Apple Music.

• How to follow friends on Apple Music
• How to use Recommended Friends in Apple Music
• How to search for friends on Apple Music
• How to unfollow someone on Apple Music

How to follow friends on Apple Music

Once you've set up your profile on Apple Music, you'll want to connect to those friends of yours that also use Apple Music.

1. Open Music on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap For You.
3. Tap your avatar.

4. Tap your name.
5. Tap Follow More Friends.
6. Tap Follow next to anyone sharing Apple Music.

7. Tap Invite to invite someone to share Apple Music with you.
8. Tap Connect Facebook if you want to connect to Apple Music with your Facebook friends.

9. Sign in to Facebook (if needed) if you've chosen to connect it.

How to use Recommended Friends in Apple Music

Recommended Friends is an Apple Music feature that, as the name suggests, recommends people for you to follow. These recommendations are based on common musical tastes, whether or not they are one of your contacts, or if someone you already follow follows them.

1. Open Music.
2. Tap For You.
3. Scroll down and tap Follow on people you want to follow under the Recommended Friends section.

How to search for friends on Apple Music

You can also use Apple Music's built-in search feature to find friends, either by their name or their Apple Music nickname (@theirnickname).

1. Open Apple Music.
2. Tap Search.
3. Search for the friend you want to find using either the name associated with their Apple Music account or their Apple Music nickname.

4. You can tap on "[Friend's name] in People" that pops up as you're typing. This will take you to users on Apple Music with your friend's name.
5. Tap Search if you skipped Step 4.
6. Scroll down to People at the bottom of the search results.

7. Tap See All unless your friend is among the first three available results under People, in which case, skip to Step 9.
8. Tap on your friend's name on the list to go to their profile.
9. Tap Follow.

How to unfollow someone on Apple Music

Look, we all make bad follows. It happens, and is a perfectly natural part of online life. The good news is that unfollowing someone on Apple Music is easy.

1. Open Music on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap For You.
3. Tap your avatar.

4. Tap your name.
5. Tap on a friend's avatar.
6. Tap Following. This will unfollow the person on Apple Music.

Questions?

If you've got any questions about finding friends on Apple Music, be sure to hit up the comments and let us know.

Update August 2019: Updated for iOS 12 and the iOS 13 beta.

Wherever you are in the world, there is likely access to some sort of emergency service for police, medical, or fire help. Different locations around the world have different call numbers for emergency services. Instead of having to know the local emergency service number, or waiting to be redirected from the number you've just called (like 911), you can be directly connected to the emergency number wherever you are, and have your location shared in the U.S. (in iOS 12) using a shortcut on your iPhone.

This feature is called Emergency SOS, and we hope you never have to use it — but in case you ever do, here's how.

• How to trigger Emergency SOS
• How to end an Emergency SOS call
• How to add emergency contacts to your iPhone or Apple Watch
• How to turn off Auto Call
• How to disable the countdown sound for Emergency SOS
• How to use Emergency SOS on your Apple Watch

How to trigger Emergency SOS on your iPhone

Apple makes it very easy to trigger Emergency SOS without having to look at your screen or speak to another person. If you're in a situation where you can't move a whole lot, you can trigger it by pressing some physical buttons on your iPhone.

In iOS 12 and newer, when you trigger a call to emergency services in the U.S., you'll also be sending your current location to the 911 center to improve response time. Your location will only be shared with 911 and not with your emergency contacts.

By default, Emergency SOS require is set up so you have to press both the side button and one of the volume buttons to activate.

1. Press and hold the Side button and either volume button on the sides of your iPhone.
2. Continue holding the Side button and volume button as the SOS emergency countdown begins.
3. You can also swipe right on the Emergency SOS switch to activate the call immediately.

Your phone will now automatically start a countdown and then call emergencies services.

Rapidly press the side button five times.

Your phone will automatically start a countdown and then call emergency services.

If you'd prefer to only have to use one button to use the Emergency SOS feature on iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, or iPhone XR, you can change the settings to allow it.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Emergency SOS.
3. Tap the Call with Side Button On/Off switch. When the switch is green the feature has been turned on.

When this feature is enabled, you can activate the Emergency SOS feature by pressing the Side Button five times in quick succession. It's much easier to do inside a pocket. You will still be able to activate Emergency SOS by pressing and holding the Side Button and volume buttons.

How to end an Emergency SOS call

If you accidentally trigger Emergency SOS, you can stop the call, even after the countdown ends, by tapping Stop. You'll then be asked to confirm that you want to end the call.

If you have your emergency contacts listed in the Health app, you'll also be asked if you want to stop sending notifications to your emergency contacts.

How to add emergency contacts to your iPhone or Apple Watch

Your iPhone or Apple Watch can automatically find the number for your local emergency services department by triangulating your current location, but it can't automatically pick your emergency contacts: If you want to alert any members of your family or friends in an emergency, you'll have to designate them yourself. Here's how to do it!

How to add emergency contacts to your iPhone or Apple Watch

In iOS 12, when you trigger a call to emergency services in the U.S., you'll also be sending your current location to the 911 center to improve response time. Your location will only be shared with 911 and not with your emergency contacts.

How to turn off Auto Call

If you're worried you might accidentally make emergency SOS calls regularly, you might consider disabling the auto-call option, which will always automatically call emergency services after the SOS countdown ends, whether you manually make the call or not.

How to stop accidentally calling 911 on your iPhone

Remember, with Auto Call off, you can't secretly or as easily call emergency services, so make sure the convenience outweighs the risk.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Emergency SOS.
3. Toggle the switch for Auto Call off.

How to disable the countdown sound for Emergency SOS

While the SOS countdown sound can be useful in alerting you to a false positive, it's not the greatest if you're trying to use the feature in a dangerous situation where audio could get you in trouble. If you don't want your iPhone to make a noise when it's about to call emergency services, you can turn off the countdown sound.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Emergency SOS.
3. Tap the Countdown Sound On/Off switch. When the switch is gray the feature has been turned off.

How to use Emergency SOS on your Apple Watch

If you have an Apple Watch, it can also make SOS calls. Here's how to go about it.

How to call for help with the Apple Watch using the SOS feature

Any questions about Emergency SOS?

Do you have any questions about how Emergency SOS works, who it calls, and how to use it? Put them in the comments and we'll help you out.

Updated January 2019: Updated for iOS 12.

It used to be that you could subscribe to RSS feeds directly within Safari, both on Mac and on iOS, in the form of "saved links" or "subscriptions." Safari for Mac eliminated this capability a few years ago, and now Safari on iPhone and iPad has followed suit with iOS, removing RSS subscriptions from mobile Safari.

While some are probably sad to see RSS subscriptions go, it's likely that Apple is looking to bring parity between all versions of Safari. Given that the browsers on macOS and iOS sync so much, from bookmarks and reading lists to the actual tabs that you have open, it's not surprising that Apple would remove this feature from iOS when it had already done so on the Mac in Safari 11.

Of course, there are still plenty of RSS reader apps available for iPhone and iPad that can help you get your fill of the news. Here are a few of the top ones:

• Feedly - Free - Download Now
• Unread - Free - Download Now
• Newsify - Free - Download Now
• Reeder - $4.99 - Download Now

Update August 2018: RSS is still out of Safari in iOS 12.

July 18, 2018: iOS 12 beta 4 closes USB Restricted Mode one-hour window

Security is perpetually at war with convenience. In the last version of iOS, Apple kept USB Restricted Mode from activating for one hour after an iPhone or iPad was last unlocked. As of iOS 12 beta 4, that one hour window is gone, and a passcode is required any time an iPhone is locked and a USB accessory is plugged in.

This is my personal preference, as mentioned in the original article below, but it may cause some complaints about passcode fatigure for people who care more about ease of use than data protection.

We'll also have to wait and see what behavior the final version of iOS 12.0 ships with this fall.

There's some FUD — Fear Uncertainty and Doubt — going around about the new USB Restricted Mode Apple shipped as part of iOS 11.4.1 and the iOS 12 beta. USB Restricted Mode is a new security system that's meant to prevent third parties from trying to connect your iPhone and iPad over USB and extract your data.

Here's how Apple says it works:

There are some exceptions and overrides, of course:

That's because security perpetually has to be balanced against convenience.

Which brings us to the FUD:

First, there's no such thing as "untrusted USB accessories". There are "untrusted devices", namely devices like computers capable of pairing with and extracting data from an iOS device, but not "untrusted USB accessory". By itself, that statement sets off all kinds of alarms.

Second, Apple itself outlined why some devices, like accessibility devices, can override the lockout. That's because the daily usage of those devices requires an element of convenience that Apple believes supersedes the need for security.

Here's the process for how that article should have been developed, if it cared more about getting to the facts and less about stealing attention through sensationalism:

1. Discover behavior.
2. Disclose it to Apple.
3. If it's a bug, work with Apple to get it patched prior to disclosure.
4. If it's not a bug, disclose the behavior along with cogent arguments about why you agree or disagree with the choice of behaviors.

In this case, it's not an oversight. It's a choice to balance convenience and security. Personally, I'd prefer Apple biased a little more towards security in this case, but I also understand I'm not everyone and it's tough to juggle things like accessibility devices and persistent accessories.

Increasingly, it's not the bits that are the exploit or the malware, it's the coverage of the bits. That's terrible for everyone from media to customers.

While Apple has been testing it since the later beta versions of iOS 11.4, with the release of iOS 11.4.1, USB Restricted Mode is now available to the iPhone-using public at large. This new mode, which is buried under your passcode settings, adds additional security to your iOS device by preventing USB accessories to connect with your iPhone or iPad if the device has been locked for more than one hour.

Recently, we've seen the emergence of a number of devices, including the GrayBox, that allow third parties to gather data from your iPhone or iPad through the Lightning port without having to unlock your device beforehand. While these devices are ostensibly designed for law enforcement, they are still taking advantage of a security hole that anyone could theoretically exploit. This means that Apple has a responsibility to plug this particular hole, despite the protestations of law enforcement.

Here's how you can enable USB Restricted Mode on your iPhone or iPad

How to turn on USB Restricted Mode on your iPhone or iPad

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Face ID & Passcode or Touch ID & Passcode depending on your device.

3. Enter your device's passcode. The next step is where it can get a little confusing.
4. Tap the switch next to USB Accessories under Allow Access When Locked to put it in the white "off" position (if it's not there already) if you want USB Restricted Mode activated. If it's in the green "on" position, USB devices will have the same level of access that they've previously had.

That's all there is to it. While the companies behind devices like the GrayBox have previously said that they can beat this new USB Restricted Mode, we'll have to wait and see whether or not that's true and what's more, what Apple will do to respond.

Questions?

Do you have any questions about using USB Restricted Mode on your iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comments.

iOS 11.4.1 is on its way with new features that require third-party developer input. As such, the company is releasing developer betas so that software engineers can get a head start on making great software for you.

• How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad
• How to register your device with the iOS 11.4.1 developer beta
• How to install the iOS 11.4.1 developer beta
• How to get started with the iOS 11.4.1 beta

How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad

Before you begin, make sure you back up your iPhone or iPad. While the beta process is fairly straight forward, any time you make any significant change to your device you risk problems. And with your personal data, it's always — always! — better to be safe than sorry. Even if you back up every night, you'll want to make sure it's absolutely up-to-date.

1. Plug iPhone or iPad into your Mac or Windows PC.
2. Launch iTunes.
3. Click on the iPhone or iPad icon in the menu bar when it appears.
4. Make sure backup is set to This Computer. (And enable Encrypted backup — it's worth it!)
5. Click on Back Up Now. (Click on Encrypt Backup and add a password — you want the security.)
6. Back up Apps, if asked.
   
   
   

7. Press Command, to open Preferences. (Or go to iTunes in the menu bar and click on Preferences.
8. Click on the Devices tab.
9. Control-click on your Backup and choose Archive.
   
   
   

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iOS 11.4.1 backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to register your account for the iOS 11.4.1 beta

Before you do anything else, make sure you have a developer account with Apple — without a paid account, you won't be able to download any non-Xcode betas.

Thanks to Apple's configuration profile, you can download iOS betas directly on your iPhone or iPad, no Mac required! (You can still install iOS 11 on your iPhone or iPad by connecting your device to iTunes, but you'll need to be running the Xcode beta first. The method listed below is generally a lot faster, with fewer wires.)

1. Go to developer.apple.com on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Click on the "Download New Betas" tab.
3. Log in with your developer account's username and password.
4. Go to the iOS 11 beta section and tap the download. This will start the process of downloading the iOS beta software profile on your iPhone.
5. The Beta software profile will appear on your phone. Tap Install. You may need to enter your Passcode.
6. Agree to the Consent form and press Install once in the upper right corner, and once at the bottom of the screen.
7. Press Restart to apply the changes to your iPhone.

How to install the iOS 11.4.1 beta

To install the iOS 11.4.1 beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen, tap on General, then tap on Software Update.
2. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
3. Enter your Passcode.

4. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
5. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPhone or iPad will reboot to install iOS 11.4.1. There will be a couple progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish.

How to get started with iOS 11.4.1 beta

Once your iPhone or iPad reboots, it'll be running iOS 11.4.1. There's a brief bit of setup you'll need to go through, however, as the system will have changed enough that it'll need your login to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock iOS 11.4.1

Update July 2, 2018: Apple has just released the fourth beta version of iOS 11.4.1 for developers. If you have a previous iOS 11 beta installed, you can head to Settings > General > Software Updates and get started downloading. If you were waiting for iOS 11.4.1 to get started with beta testing, go ahead and download the latest version.

iOS 11.4.1 is coming down the road with a number of new features — features that need real-world testing before the software officially launches. As such, Apple is letting interested users check out iOS 11.4.1 and provide feedback before it goes into wide release.

If you're one of those interested users, however, you will have to go through the public beta download and install process. While it's not complicated, it is different. So, we're going to walk you through it and give you a place to ask questions if you need extra help.

Apple occasionally offers updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS as closed developer previews or public betas. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That's why we strongly recommend staying away from developer previews unless you need them for software development, and using the public betas with caution. If you depend on your devices, wait for the final release.

• How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad
• How to register your device with the iOS 11.4.1 public beta
• How to enroll your iPhone or iPad in the iOS 11.4.1 public beta
• How to install the iOS 11.4.1 public beta
• How to get started with the iOS 11.4.1 beta

How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad

Before you begin, make sure you back up your iPhone or iPad. While the beta process is fairly straight forward, any time you make any significant change to your device you risk problems. And with your personal data, it's always — always! — better to be safe than sorry. Even if you back up every night, you'll want to make sure it's absolutely up-to-date.

1. Plug iPhone or iPad into your Mac or Windows PC.
2. Launch iTunes.
3. Click on the iPhone or iPad icon in the menu bar when it appears.
4. Make sure backup is set to This Computer. (And enable Encrypted backup — it's worth it!)
5. Click on Back Up Now. (Click on Encrypt Backup and add a password — you want the security.)
6. Back up Apps, if asked.
   
   
   

7. Press Command, to open Preferences. (Or go to iTunes in the menu bar and click on Preferences.
8. Click on the Devices tab.
9. Option-click on your Backup and choose Archive.
   
   
   

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iOS 11.4.1 backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to register your account for the iOS 11.4.1 public beta

If you've already joined an Apple public beta in the past, you shouldn't need to register again for iOS 11.4.1; simply sign in with the same Apple ID. If you've never joined a public beta before, you'll start by signing up with your Apple ID.

1. Go to beta.apple.com on the iPhone or iPad you want to enroll in the beta.
2. Tap on Sign up to get started. (If you've already signed up for a previous public beta, tap on Sign in and skip to our "How to enroll your device" section below.)
3. Enter you Apple ID email address and password.
4. Tap Sign in.
5. Tap Accept to agree to the terms and conditions.

Once you're signed up and signed in, it's time to start downloading.

How to enroll your iPhone or iPad in the iOS 11.4.1 public beta

Unlike regular iOS updates, where you just tap and start downloading, Apple is using configuration profiles to validate devices for the iOS 11.4.1 public beta. Here's how to install it.

Note: If you've been on a previous iOS public beta, you may need to remove the previous beta profile before installing the iOS 11.4.1 version. You can do so by going to Settings > General > Profile, selecting the iOS Beta Software Profile, and pressing Delete Profile.

1. Go to beta.apple.com, if you're not there already.
2. Tap the iOS tab, if it's not highlighted already.
3. Tap on Download profile.
4. Tap on Install in the upper right corner.
5. Enter your Passcode.
6. Tap on Install, this time to consent to the beta agreement. (Read it: There are risks to any beta.)
7. Tap on Install at the bottom to confirm. (Yes, you need to be really sure.)
8. Tap on Restart to reboot your device.

Once your iPhone or iPad has finished rebooting, it should start to download iOS 11.4.1 automatically. From this point on, the process is the same as any other iOS update.

How to install the iOS 11.4 public beta

To install the iOS 11.4.1 beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen, tap on General, then tap on Software Update.
2. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
3. Enter your Passcode.

4. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
5. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPhone or iPad will reboot to install iOS 11.4.1. There will be a couple progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish.

How to get started with iOS 11.4.1 public beta

Once your iPhone or iPad reboots, it'll be running iOS 11.4.1. There's a brief bit of setup you'll need to go through, however, as the system will have changed enough that it'll need your login to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock iOS 11.4.1.

Update June 12, 2018: Apple has released iOS 11.4.1 public beta 2 for members of the Beta Software Program. If you already have a version of the iOS 11 public beta installed, proceed to Settings > General > Software Updates and download away.

iOS 11.3 brings new Animoji, Battery Health, better ARKit, Business Chat, and more!

iOS 11.3 is Apple's spring update for iPhone and iPad. It features a few higher-profile new or expanded features, including fun new Animoji lions, dragons, and bears, new settings for battery health that should make every #iPhoneSlow follower happy, as well as new additions to ARKit that'll have you up the wall — ha! not sorry! — and Business Chat for iMessage, which... might do the same!

Where ARKit was previously limited to understanding horizontal surfaces, Apple is now providing the ability to map and make use of vertical and irregular surfaces as well. That means you can have virtual posters, paintings, even walls and doors exist alongside the real thing. It allows for experiences like virtual museums and gateways to other words. It'll also all looks better thanks to higher resolution support and auto-focus.

After spending some time with it and some new ARKit apps, the differences are subtle but profound. Peering into a painting and walking around it in a way that would get you banned from a real gallery are all acceptable — and enjoyable! — in AR. It's also getting to the point where I'm starting to forget what's AR and what's IRL. I saw a baby elephant on a table and immediately reached out to pet it. (I saw someone else — no names! — try to take a selfie before realizing the AR wouldn't be there for the camera!)

Apple is all-in on ARKit from Tim Cook on down, and it shows.

What's new with ARKit in iOS 11.3

Break out the karaoke. Again. Apple is adding a quartet of new emoji to the iPhone X Animoji feature.

That includes:

• Dragon
• Bear
• Skull
• Lion

No doubt this will be the most popular new feature in iOS 11. At least for the first 24 hours. Which is fine. Animoji has always been meant as a tech demo to show off what ARKit's face detection was capable of in a fun and engaging way. It's done that and now the updates serve as reminders and (re-)engagement points.

Hopefully, lots more from third-parties will be possible in iOS 12.

Apple's Messages app isn't just for talking to people anymore. Now, you'll be able to talk to businesses as well — though with complete privacy and control. I haven't had a chance to try this yet, so I'll just quote from Apple for now and update when and if I do.

Apple is rolling out Battery Health as a surfaced feature in Settings in the wake of negative reaction to iPhone advanced power management — the system that slowed down older iPhones with degraded batteries to prevent shutdowns.

It provides information on current maximum capacity and peak performance capability, and will also inform you if your iPhone is being slowed down, whether it needs service, and will even allow you to turn off advanced power management — now called performance management — if you so choose.

If your iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, or iPhone 7 had been slowed down due to prevent an unexpected shutdown, iOS 11.3 will restore it to its previous, unmanaged performance levels. Performance management will only kick back in when and if you experience another unexpected shutdown. Until then, it's a clean slate.

Peak performance capability is the ability of your iPhone's battery to supply adequate charge even in the face of highly demanding tasks, up to and including those that cause power spikes.

Apple shows the following messages, depending on the capability to handle peak performance:

• 100%: Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance.
• 95%: This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again. Disable…
• 79% or less: Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options…
• Unknown: This iPhone is unable to determine battery health. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can service the battery. More about service options…

If you disable performance management, you'll see the following message:

You can also use these settings to disable performance management... to a point. Performance management has never been completely about batteries. All processors have always been throttled to protect against heat, for example. That kind of performance management can't be disabled — it would literally allow your iPhone to fry. So, the only performance management you can disable is the battery-related performance management Apple introduced with iOS 10.3.1.

it'll also only stay disabled unless and until you suffer another unexpected shutdown due to a power spike your battery can't handle. Then it'll kick back in. You can disable it again, but it will be re-enabled every time you experience that kind of shutdown.

And as a reminder, this doesn't affect iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or iPhone X, which use a different method to manage peak power draw, nor does it affect iPads, which have batteries so large it's unlikely they'd ever power down in face of powr spikes.

Overall, I love all this stuff. It took what happened to get here, but it would have been great if we could have started here to begin with.

Participating medical institutions and health providers are now able to share patient date with you directly through the Health app. I haven't had a chance to test this yet, so again I'll quote from Apple:

As always, there's a bunch more in iOS 11.3 as well.

• Apple Music will soon be the home for music videos. Users can stream all the music videos they want without being interrupted by ads. They can also watch the hottest new videos, the classics or ones from their favorite artists back-to-back in new music video playlists.
• Apple News now makes it easier to stay up-to-date on the most important videos of the day with a new Video group in For You, and improved Top Stories.
• HomeKit software authentication provides a great new way for developers to add HomeKit support to existing accessories while protecting privacy and security.
• Support for Advanced Mobile Location (AML) to automatically send a user's current location when making a call to emergency services in countries where AML is supported.

I love all the attention Apple News is getting but it's still immensely frustrating that it's only available in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Apple managed to launch Apple Music in 100 countries at the same time and it can't get News into more than 3 after several years? It's one of Apple's best services and it's simply not available to most of its customers. Immensely. Frustrating.

The HomeKit software authentication is terrific as well. The previous, hardware-only model was a terrific way to force a lax industry into actually caring about security but it increased overhead and slowed deployment. It was a worthwhile tradeoff but to be sure, but advances in technology inevitably lead to better, easier solutions. With software authentication in HomeKit, we should see even more vendors coming on board. And I can't wait.

iOS 11.2 adds Apple Pay Cash, faster charging, better stability, and more.

One of the marquee features of iOS 11.2 didn't actually ship yet. I'm talking about person-to-person Apple Pay in the U.S. (Yes, sadly it's U.S.-only at launch.) Apple pushed iOS 11.2 out a few days early to patch a date-related springboard crash but the server-side component for P2P Apple Pay still isn't going live until early this week. I've had a chance the chance to try out person-to-person Apple Pay a little early and I really like it. We see how it holds up when it goes wide. (Perhaps by the time you're reading this, it will have already.)

Several emoji have been tweaked in iOS 11.2. Emojipedia has the full set of changes but they include a return to a proper glass of Whiskey, a new, cuter ant, a more Leica-like camera, and a better metallic finish to all the cutlery.

iOS 11.2 also brings faster inductive charging to iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X owners. It's up to 7.5w now. It's still not as fast as wired charging over Lightning but it will make your charge pads charge just a little bit faster. I've been using it through the betas and, while it's definitely a nice to have, if you're primarily using inductive charging overnight like I am, it won't make a real difference to you. If you're charging interstitially at your desk it might give you a bit of a faster boost.

There are three new live wallpapers for iPhone X. There's one that's all reds and oranges, another that's all blues and greens, and a third that swirls together almost all the colors. They're a nice addition and contrast to the cleaner gaussian blurs and nature-themed clouds that were already included.

HealthKit now supports downhill snow sports. Hopefully, I'll get to try those out this winter. There's also a new Sports section in TV.app, including a Sports tab and sports-related notifications.

Control Center on iPhone X now displays a transparent indicator on Lock screen... which I really don't like. I get that Apple has help people with the new Control Center location but I hope they find a better way of doing it. Or simply move Control Center to the fast app switcher the way it is on iPad.

There's also a new explainer screen that pops up the first time you toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth off. It covers the new behavior which is more of a temporary disconnection than a real on-off switch for the radio. This doesn't really solve the problem with the new behavior, it just makes sure people are aware of it.

Screen recording, if you have it enabled in Control Center will now end neatly without including the end-recording dialog. So. Much. Better.

Siri can now handle basic music control even when not connected to the internet. It's not much, but play, pause, resume, skip, next, etc. all work even when in airplane mode. (It's especially handy if you use AirPods on a flight and want to control playback while offline.)

Lastly, but importantly, iOS 11.2 fixes the calendar bug that caused local notifications to crash springboard on December 2. It also fixes the I.T. misfire in autocorrect, and the animation delay issue in Calculator that caused rapid tapping to lock out registration of every second operator.

How to download and install iOS 11.2 on your iPhone and iPad

October 31, 2017: iOS 11.1 brings all the new emoji

Nothing prompts people to update more than new emoji and iOS 11.1 boats 70 new ones, some with variants. They include new faces, so you can bleep out your anger or shush down the bleeped anger of others.

There are gender-neutral characters now as well, a new, orange heart, and "I Love You", in honor of American Sign Language.

There also coats and gloves and scarves, and dinosaurs, dark elves, and unicorns. Yes, unicorns.

Text-based communication is challenging. Words convey what we want to say but not how we want to say it. They lack emotion and nuance. Type "I'm running late!" and the person waiting for you might get upset. Send 🕗😱🏃‍♀️ and they may just smile.

More Emoji mean more emotions in more context for more situations. And that means better communication for everyone.

(Now I just need UNICODE to approve my "hold down 🍟 to trigger options for poutine, tater tots, and chips" request and we'll be all set! )

There are a host of fixes for accessibility, including braille grade 2, VoiceOver for multi-page PDF documents, rotor actions for incoming notifications, and more. Photos also has a slew of fixes, including for blurriness and Live Photo playback.

There's also a fix for the KRACK vulnerability in WPA2 encryption.

For iPhone 6s and later iPhone owners, the best new feature will be an old feature — the return of the 3D Touch multitasking gesture. Just swiper firmly from the left edge and you'll once again go straight into the fast apps switcher.

Regardless of why Apple saw fit to abandon it in iOS 11.0, it's good to have it back in iOS 11.1.

• November 16, 2017: iOS 11.1.2 is out with a fix for the iPhone X touch response bug following rapid temperature drops.
• November 9, 2017: iOS 11.1 fixes the hilariously frustrating machine-learning bug/poisoning that caused i to be replaced with A [?] or ! [?], and 'Hey Siri' activation bug.

iOS 11 Review Smarter, Better, Faster, Bolder

Ten years ago, Apple shocked the world and shook up the industry by unveiling not just the iPhone but what would later become known as iOS — the mobile, multitouch operating system that powered it. iOS combined engaging design, delightful animations, and intuitive interactions with a real web browser, real apps, iTunes sync, and a multitasking demo that left the crowd — and a Starbucks employee on the other end of the biggest latte order in history — speechless.

Since then, Apple has added third-party apps and innumerable new features, and both directly and, through inspiring others, made computing accessible to billions of people.

Taking all that to 11 is an easy line — but not an easy job. Many of us count on iOS to keep us connected, informed, entertained, on time, in the right place, and with everything we want and need, every moment of the day and night. It's what ties us to our friends and families, locally and around the world, and lets us do our jobs and have our fun. It's become our external memory and our life accelerator.

To keep iOS moving forward without leaving people behind, to increase productivity, creativity, efficiency, and convenience without adversely affecting approachability and inclusivity is an exquisitely tough juggling act. (I was going to say "balancing" but "juggling" feels apt.) One that involves staying focused but avoiding tunnel vision, and solving problems in a way that delivers new and improved features that are truly meaningful and impactful now and into the future.

No pressure.

To accomplish it, Apple is doubling down on smarts. What started a few years ago with sequential inference and a proactive interface is now using all the artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision buzzwords — and the technologies behind them — to bring more information and more actions to us, hopefully before we even know we need them.

iPad is also going even more pro. After largely sitting out last year, this year it's getting its biggest update ever — drag and drop multi-window interactions reimagined not just for multitouch, but for a level of multitouch beyond anything Apple's been willing to unleash before. And it's all at the system level, so iPhone benefits from it as well, if minimally for now.

There are also all sorts of other goodies, like person-to-person Apple Pay, a one-handed keyboard for iPhone, document scanning in notes, markup for screenshots and the web, a new Siri voice and intelligence, new Photos filters that can get "depthy" with it, indoor maps for airports and malls, HomeKit support for speakers, multi-room capable AirPlay 2, Apple Music social sharing, a whole new App Store, FaceTime captures, "automagic" setup, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

• October 11, 2017: iOS 11.0.3 is now live with fixes for audio and taptic feedback on iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, and touch input issues with iPhone 6s services with non-Apple parts.
• October 3, 2017: iOS 11.0.2 is out with a fix for the "crackling" sound some users reported experiencing with iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus phone calls.
• September 26, 2017: iOS 11.0.1 has been released with bug fixes, performance enhancements, and a patch for the dodgy Exchange support some users had been seeing.

iOS 11 Evolution

iOS 11 is the sum of all the versions and features, additions and deprecations that have come before it. That's more than a decade of major yearly releases and quarterly updates. Here's a quick look at the "tentpole" features over the years and how they compare.

For details on those features, please see my previous reviews:

• iOS 10 review
• iOS 9 review
• iOS 8 review
• iOS 7 review
• iOS 6 review
• iOS 5 review
• iOS 4 review
• iPhone OS 3.0 review
• iPhone OS 2.0 review

iOS 11 Compatibility

iOS 11 supports all 64-bit iOS devices. (Yes, the age of 32-bit is official over.) That means you can download and install iOS 11 on any iPhone or iPad going back to the fall of 2013.

• iPhone X
• iPhone 8
• iPhone 8 Plus
• iPhone 7
• iPhone 7 Plus
• iPhone SE
• iPhone 6s
• iPhone 6s Plus
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone 5s
• iPad Pro 10.5-inches
• iPad Pro 9.7-inches
• iPad Pro 12.9-inches
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad mini 4
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2
• iPod touch 6

iOS 11 Design

iOS 7 was a major redesign. The photo-illustrative, metaphorical interfaces of the past, rich in texture were set aside for more digitally authentic, physically playful look.

With iOS 10, scuttlebutt designer working on the services apps — Apple Music, Maps, Home — came up with a bigger, bolder variation, including large titles and layered card views.

The goal was to better orient people, especially in apps with a lot of content. Back in the old days of iOS, you could be disoriented and still realize you were in Messages contacts rather than Find My Friends contacts or Game Center contacts, for example, simply based on the seeing stitched leather rather than green felt. Sounds silly, but it could mean the difference between texting a friend for help and pinging them with a challenge.

Large titles, which have now spread to other apps like Mail and Photos, help solve the same problem — they let you know right up front where you are. Unlike the heavy textures of the past, however, they shrink down and get out of your way after you've discovered what you need.

It's all part of the "way-finding" that Apple is focusing on with iOS 11. Inspired by airport and street signs, iOS 11 wants to show you where you can go.

They're not used — nor recommended — everywhere, especially not where they would compete with, rather than contrast against, the content. But where they are used, they work extremely well.

Mostly. There's an initial trade-off in terms of information density. With titles that big, you don't get as much content at first glance, roughly in the order of one-list item.

What's more, Instead of just size or color to distinguish informational levels, Apple is now using and recommending a mix of position, size, weight, and color. The first iOS 11 betas were too heavy for my liking but the final version is well balanced. In general, headers are on top, bigger, bolder, and darker and supporting text is underneath, smaller, thinner, and lighter. It results in faster wayfinding and much higher legibility, with a better content balance.

The new App Store design looks especially great, with the Today view really standing out. That's thanks to big, bold cards that mix text, art, and videos in a way that draws attention without overwhelming the eye. (Only the Updates tab suffers from bitsy-ness — but what's an overloaded list to do?)

Apple is also improving contrast in other ways. It's filling in button shapes, for example, increasing the size of fields, making glyphs heavier and thicker, and filling them in. At least in some apps, like Photos.

It makes for better legibility, especially at the speed of mobile, and is absolutely the best expression of post-iOS 7 design we've seen yet.

iOS 11 Automatic Setup

Since launch, you've set up Apple Watch by scanning a pattern on its screen with your iPhone camera. From there, it was just a few short steps before it was up and running. Now, thanks to iOS 11, you can use that same, simplified setup method for a new iPhone or iPad as well (and Apple TV with tvOS 11).

I love this. I'm not a fan of QR or pattern code scanning in general. It feels like outdated technology in an era where things like Apple Pay "just work". But, using the camera and pattern is a simple way to ensure both devices are in proximity — in your presence and under your immediate control.

Once the pattern is scanned and your passcode created and entered, peer-to-peer networking with transfer over things like your settings, iCloud Keychain, and personal content.

For years now it's been obvious that the traditional "Setup Buddy" system that walked you through the installation of a new iPhone or iPad was becoming far too long far too complicated and far too tedious to use. It had to ask you about privacy, Hey Siri, Touch ID and Apple Pay, and a list that went on and on.

And it wasn't clear how to fix it without hurting disclosure and discoverability.

Automatic Setup is that fix. You still have to do some setup, including services that want access to your location or require on-device security. But it's so much faster and better than the old way that I can't ever imagine going back.

For people like me, who have to set up multiple devices multiple times a year, because they have to write reviews like this, it's a godsend. Even for people who only set up one or two new devices every year or two, though, it's a major leap forward in speed and convenience.

iOS 11 Notification and Control Centers

Notification Center and Control Center have changed multiple times over the last few years. So much so that, compared to the other interface layers, they've always seemed more like works-in-progress. iOS 11 is no exception, with significant changes to both in order to provide a more discoverable, more consistent experience.

Notification Center has essentially been replaced with iOS 11's Lock screen. Pull down from the top of the screen (top center on iPhone X) and, like a cover sheet, you get the Lock screen interface with all notifications visible. They stay that way too, unless and until you act on them or choose to tap-to-clear them. (And you can 3D-Touch-to-clear all.)

(On Lock screen, they'll appear cleared if there haven't been any new ones since the last time you used your phone. Swipe up, though, and they'll all come back. That persistence should appease people who disliked everything being blown away every time they unlocked.)

From the cover sheet, you can swipe left to access the Camera and right to see Siri suggestions. These shortcuts are now identical regardless of whether you started on the Lock screen or accessed the pull-down from any other app on your device.

It works. Mostly. Being able to pull down Lock screen makes some spatial sense, though the true Lock screen fades more than pulls down. Reconciling all the animations might help there. It still confuses me sometimes as far as the security state of my device (Lock screen vs. glanceable information screen) but I think the consistency makes for a decent trade-off.

Swiping into Camera from Notification Center, the way you've been able to do from Lock screen for years, is handy. But it really highlights its just-as-longstanding inability to let you swipe back out of it. (It collides, and loses to, the Camera's use of the gesture for switching between photo and video modes.)

The contradictions here, and in many other areas of iOS, have no easy answers. Some don't even have clear better or worse options: They're judgment calls. Overall, Apple's made those calls well. But enough of them exist now — especially with iPhone X, that I'd love to see Apple tear it all down, start with a clean slate, and come up with a new spatiality and gesture navigation system that's as coherent as possible within, between, and across apps and devices. (Easy for me to say, I know.)

Control Center has gotten an even bigger change. Swipe up from the bottom (or the top right of iPhone X), and you get a single screen again: No more half-height, multi-pane layout to swipe back and forth through. I'm guessing enough people failed to realize there were multiple panes that Apple had to call a mulligan and go back to a unified sheet.

To fit everything in, Control Center now fills the entire screen on iPhone. (On iPad, it fills the right side of the new App Switcher.) And the controls themselves… they're everywhere.

While other elements of iOS have gotten bigger and less informationally dense, Control Center is the opposite. It's denser than ever. You can even customize it now in Settings > Control Center so you can have more and different controls. And that includes items from almost everyone's wishlists.

Top of mine is the built-in screen recorder. Previously you had to plug into a Mac and use QuickTime to grab video from your iPhone or iPad. Now, once you add it in Settings, all you have to do is invoke Control Center, tap the record button, go to what you want to record and, when you're done, tap the red banner to end and save the video.

Apple TV Remote, Low Power Mode, Voice Memos, Guided Access, Magnifier — the options are varied and truly useful. About the only thing still missing is third-party app support. (And the ability to reassign default apps, which would likely be needed to make it truly useful.)

3D Touch (or long press on devices without 3D Touch) on a button or control and it pops you into even deeper options, too. For example, the entire Now Playing and Home panes are now contained within the pop action of its audio controls and Home icon.

Discoverability is always a concern with that type of interface, but enough is surfaced that most people should find the rest, at least given time.

I'm not sure Control Center has gotten to its final, elegantly functional destination yet. But I like the way it's going.

iOS 11 Drag and drop

The biggest feature not introduced last year was drag and drop interactivity, especially for iPad. It was rumored, it was longed for, but not matter how often people said it was coming, it never quite arrived.

Until now.

This isn't the Mac drag-and-drop with a touch layer grafted on top of it. Apple didn't graft any old code or behavior here. This is drag and drop born for multitouch. A lot of multitouch.

It's another example of Apple's long-stated belief that the Mac should be the Mac and iOS should be iOS or, perhaps better stated, legacy and preconception should never hold back the future.

For a long time, Apple has been incredibly conservative, and sometimes almost mystical about how it used multitouch. Instead of using the multitouch field to enable tricks like hover states, Apple used it to detect which fingers were being used and reject incidental contact. Instead of creating complex, multi-finger and multi-directional gesture traced like incantations across the screen, Apple has stuck to the few, really intuitive ones that move quickly and cleanly across cardinal directions or best reflected direct manipulation.

With drag and drop, though, Apple is starting to let loose.

Previously, as my colleague Serenity Caldwell has pointed out numerous times, uploading images from Photos to iMore through the CMS was arduous to the point of being unusable. Now, it's arguably better and certainly more tactile and fun than on Mac. Functionality that didn't work on iOS before, like dragging to move elements on a web page, all "just work" now.

The technology is built in at the system level, so drag and drop works on both iPhone and iPad, although iPhone implements far, far less of it right now. On iPad, you get everything Apple's got.

Touch an element — it could be an image, an icon, a text selection, whatever — and it begins to float. Keep touching it and you can drag it around the screen and drop it anywhere else that will take it. That includes other parts of the app and even entirely different apps.

Tap other elements with other fingers and they'll be added to the drop stack. Walk your fingers so one touches before the other releases, and you can switch how you're holding the stack.

Start using your other hand and — holy wow! — you can four-finger pinch or swipe to change apps, or hit the Home button and pick another app, or use the split view app switcher, or… you get the idea. But there's more: Tap inside an app to start a new email or new note or bring up a folder or uploader or… I could just keep going.

It's Apple unlocking the full-on multi-finger multitouch, and it's glorious. Complex, sometimes requiring two hands and an iPad set down on a table? Yes. But glorious.

You can even use drag-and-drop multi-select to make rearranging Home screen icons a lot less tedious. Put them into jiggly mode, grab one icon, tap to add others, and then move them where you want them.

Mostly, you can drag and drop almost anything you can touch. Words or snippets of highlighted text. Pictures. Objects. Locations. Links. If it's data and can be packaged for dragging, it'll drag. There's enough "hinting" in the interaction model that you should be able to discover what's draggable quickly, and enough joy in the process that you should experiment and find all sorts of incredibly convenient use cases as time goes on.

Multitouch aside, there is another major difference between macOS and iOS drag and drop: the security model.

On iOS, only metadata — for example, the type of content you're dragging — is shared with an app you're dragging over. No actual data is handed over unless or until you actually drop it.

That's annoyed some who want to do things like preview changes on drag. It's annoyed them so much so, some have gone as far as to call the feature "drag and secure paste" instead of "drag and drop". Security and privacy are Apple's priorities, though. First, last, and always.

So, yeah, you can't preview a color change on drag but you also can't accidentally hand over a private photo or personal info to a dodgy app you just downloaded — or, you know, Facebook — as you're dragging over it to get to Files or Mail. Maybe a future version will offer secure previewing as well. Until then, though, I think Apple made the right choice.

iOS 11 Dock and multi-windowing

Despite my intermittent pleading, iPad still hasn't been given its own iPadOS interface layer the way Apple Watch and Apple TV were given watchOS and tvOS. That leaves iPad, despite its more expansive display, with essentially the same interface layer as iPhone. Though not entirely.

Two years ago, with iOS 9, Apple gave iPad multi-window multitasking. Now, with iOS 11, Apple's giving iPad better tools for using those windows.

It starts with a new Dock implementation. Instead of being anchored to the bottom of the display it's inset now, with rounded edges and a style that makes it look like it's floating. Functionally, it's just as unfettered. Dynamic now, the Dock will expand and contract to fit whatever apps you want to stick on it at any given time. It'll also present you with suggested apps and Continuity apps on the right.

If it's not already visible, you can drag the Dock up from the bottom of the display with a simple swipe. (It's usurped the gesture from Control Center on iPad just as Home has on iPhone X.)

You can still tap icons on the Dock to launch apps but, now, you can also touch and hold an icon, drag it up, and drop into a new-style Slide Over, which also floats more than docks, and also has rounded corners. (UIKit can animate corner radius now — celebrate!) You can even swipe the Slide Over from side to side depending on how you want to work.

Flick down, counterintuitively, on the top of a Slide Over and it turns into a full-on Split View. You can even stack an additional Slide Over on top of a Split View interface. It works great, especially with devices that support 4GB of RAM, like the new iPad Pro models: The primary app in Split View will stay active along with the Slide Over interface, and even a Picture-in-Picture video, if you have one running.

When the Dock is visible, a second swipe up takes you into the new App Switcher interface. It replaces the old iOS multitasking interface with a more powerful version, providing the aforementioned Control Center icons top left, along with an iPad-style version of Spaces from macOS. There, you can not only find your recent events apps, but your recent Split View pairings, and quickly pop back to not only what you were doing — but how you were doing it.

(On iPhone, you still double-click Home to invoke the fast app switcher or, on iPhone X, swipe up from the bottom and pause. The 3D Touch firm swipe from the left edge is currently not enabled but, rumor has it, will return to iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 with iOS 11.1.)

You can't pin any pairings but the system does a great job persisting the ones you use most. Notes and Safari, for example, is almost always center tap for me. (It's the one I'm using right now, after all.)

It's not perfect yet: If an app isn't in the permanent or recent section of the Dock, there's no easy way to pull it up into Slide Over or Split View. (You can try using Spotlight in Notification Center to bring it up, but it stopped working for me in later betas.)

It can also take a lot of manual dexterity — and both hands — to get all the multi-finger multitouch gestures working just right, and more than a little time and repetition before it starts to become natural.

Then, the complexity of the mechanics fade and it starts to feel like you're dealing windows onto the screen just like you'd deal cards onto a table. Terrific.

It's so cool it makes the Split View introduced in macOS a couple of years ago — and neglected ever since — feel absolutely primitive by comparison.

iOS 11 Files

I've been asking for a Files.app almost every year since iOS 4 made it obvious that per-app silos created as many problems as they solved.

Don't get me wrong: Traditional comp-sci file systems remain confusing and unapproachable to the mainstream, which is why so many files get dumped onto so many desktops. That said, by not having a relatively flat, easily searchable repository, iOS has been creating just as much confusion and anxiety.

All I've ever wanted was an analog to Photos.app and the ImagePicker API. It's a great model for the mainstream. iOS got DocumentPicker a while ago and now, finally, it's gotten Files.app as well.

On the surface, Files.app makes it easy to organize and find all the documents on your iPhone and iPad. The initial hierarchy is flat, but you can create and nest folders if you really, really want to.

Thanks to drag and drop, it's delightful to move stuff around both inside Files.app and between apps. Folders are spring-loaded, for example, so you can easily drag a file from one right into another — or a sub-folder beneath it.

You can toggle between icon view and list view, pin your most important content, and tag groups of similar content together — by dragging it over the tag color in the sidebar!

What's coolest and most important about Files.app is that Apple has taken not just its own silos, but the ones that often complicate traditional file systems, and attracted them away. What you get is a unified view of not just the files local to your iPhone or iPad, but of your iCloud Drive, and other online providers as well, including Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox. So, you can truly organize and find all your files, all in one place. (Which is good, because Files.app also replaces the previous iCloud Drive app.)

The default Recents view is, perhaps the quintessential expression of that. All your latest stuff, all right up front. (You can even get to them from the Home screen or Dock thanks to 3D Touch shortcuts.)

Nothing is copied, conflated, or jumbled together: Each storage system remains separate and distinct. But you enjoy the efficiency and simplicity of seeing and using them all together.

iOS 11 Camera and Photos

Years ago, the cliche was that Nokia had the glass, Apple had the silicon, and Google had the servers. In other words, a Lumia could capture great images, Apple could calculate great images, and since Google never knew what hardware was available on any given device, they'd just suck everything up to the cloud and make the best they could from it there.

Now, though, Apple is fielding fusion lenses and doing local computational photography, where machine learning, computer vision, and a lot of smart programming start to produce images beyond what any one of those processes could do alone. (And since it's done on-device, you don't have to give up all your private photos to Apple just to reap the benefits of the processing — your valuable data stays yours.)

Portrait Mode on iPhone 7 Plus was the first mass-market application of fusion and computational photography that I'm aware of. On iOS 10, it came with fairly strict lighting requirements. On iOS 11, though, better optical and software-based stabilization, and shoots with high dynamic range (HDR), which dramatically improves low-light and high contrast performance. For extreme low-light situations, iOS 11 will even let you do Portrait Mode with the LED flash.

Noise is still an issue, but Apple does a lot with the "grain" to mitigate it. So much so that I often don't notice the noise at all at first — I'm too busy marveling at the subject. Reflections can also still be problematic, but it's starting to improve on that as well.

It's more than just faces now too. Last year, you could already capture flowers, coffee cups (so many, sorry!), and more but you could still tell it was a face-first feature. Now it feels like it's got wider ambitions. Officially. For example, grabbing onto a chain link fence and blurring the background behind it.

Apple has also switched from the ancient JPEG (joint photographic experts group) format to the new HEIF (high-efficiency image format) in iOS 11. To capture it and hardware encode/decode HEIF, you'll need a recent device though — A10 Fusion-powered or later, which means iPhone 7 and iPad Pro (2nd Gen) at the least.

When moving images around, Apple will try to maintain HEIF formatting for quality reasons but, if you ever try to send a HEIF image to an older device that doesn't support it, or Apple can't tell if the device you're sending it to is compatible, the system will automatically convert to JPG first. Compatibility beats efficiency.

The efficiency in HEIF's name works out to about 50% space-savings over JPG in your library. It comes at the expense of slightly longer encode times but nothing in life, and certainly nothing in imaging, is free. For photos on iPhone, though, the process is already so fast I've never noticed a difference.

What's even cooler about HEIF is that it can store multiple image assets in the same container. For example: In iOS 10, when you shot on an iPhone 7 Plus in Portrait mode, the Camera app would spit out two images — one normal, and one with the depth effect burned in. With HEIF, the depth data for Portrait Mode is retained but bundled into the same file.

The advantage to that is most apparent in photo editing, where filters can now apply different effects based on the depth or motion data. Not just on iPhone 7 Plus either. As long as the effect information is bundled into the HEIF, iPad and Mac can get every bit as "depthy" with it.

So, for example, the new filters in Camera and Photos, can apply different shades and tones based on the depth data in the photo.

Those filters have been rethought not to duplicate what you typically see on social networks but what you'd find in more classic photography: Vivid, Vivid Warm, or Vivid Cool, which play on vibrancy; Dramatic, Dramatic Warm, or Dramatic Cool, which toy with contrast, and Silvertone which rounds out the previous Mono and Noir filters with something a little more high-key.

Silvertone is probably my favorite of the new "depthy" bunch.

Apple's also been steadily improving Live Photos as well over the last couple of years. First and foremost, the quality you get from the 1.5 second before and after animations are much-improved. So much so that Apple can start to offer some really cool new effect options.

Namely, Loop, Bounce, and Long Exposure.

• Loop takes the 3 seconds of Live Photo animation and fades from end back to beginning, so the video plays over and over and over again, in an endless cycle.
• Bounce takes the animation, plays it forward, then plays it back, like a perpetual ricochet.
• Long exposure takes the animation and shows all frames at once, so motion blurs and light stretches out across the frame.

HEIF also works with Live Photos. Instead of a separate JPG and MOV (movie) file, you now have both the still/key photo and the video bundled into one file. That means those effects are also non-destructive, and you can go from bounce to loop and back again any time you like.

In all cases, the effects are intelligent and try to lock position on static elements so the moving elements become even more dynamic in contrast.

Sure, these types of effects have been available in apps like Instagram and Snapchat for a while, but they were also stuck in those networks. If I wanted to make a fun bounce, I had to do it in Instagram and either share it with everyone or with friends on Instagram.

By adding effects into Live Photos, I can share them outside of my social networks — including with family and friends that want no part of the Facebook or Snapchat scenes.

That bounce of my friend and I tapping champagne glasses at my birthday? That went straight to them over iMessage. Securely. Privately. Not for the world or for the giant data harvesting companies. Just for us.

Especially when it comes to Faces and sync.

When Apple initially re-deployed facial recognition and tagging last year, the company said syncing would come later.

Well, later is now. And the reason it took so long is that Apple wanted to provide the convenience of sync while maintaining the privacy and security of on-device processing — Apple doesn't want to know who your friends and connections are, and I'm supremely thankful for that.

So, what Apple's doing is interesting. To enable face detection, you have to start selecting people you know and then identifying them. At that point, the on-device machine learning and computer vision takes over and starts to add more and more pictures of the identified people to the pool.

When syncing, Apple is only moving over the data you yourself identified. None of the machine learning or computer vision relationships that were built around it. Just your "truth". Then, the synced device rebuilds those relationships locally.

In other words, I tag pictures of my mom on my iPhone, it finds other pictures of my mom on my iPhone to add to her Faces folder on my iPhone. The pictures I tagged are also synced to my Mac, which then also finds other pictures of my mom on my Mac to add to her Faces folder on my Mac.

Apple will have to prove that this implementation works well enough that people who want no part of the massive data harvest that is Google Photos will still find it useful enough to use, and that'll take a while post-launch to really shake out.

Still, privacy is good and options are good, and options for privacy are great.

The video version of HEIF, and the base codec technology, is HEVC (high efficiency video codec) — an ugly way of saying H.265. Compatibility is slightly wider for HEVC. Any iOS device with an A9 processor (iPhone 6s and iPad Pro or later) can encode and decode 8-bit HEVC. Devices with A10 Fusion (iPhone 7 and iPad Pro 2 or later) can encode and decode 10-bit HEVC, which translates into HDR (high dynamic range) video.

HEVC offers a 2x improvement in compression over the previous H.264 codec. Apple will similarly maintain HEVC internally whenever possible but will fall back to H.264 if you try to share a video to a device that has no support or there's no way to know if it has support or not.

There's a lot more in Camara and Photos in iOS 11 as well. QR scanning, for example, will let you quickly capture and act on codes. Memories, which was a surprise hit with mainstream users last year, is getting several new types, including: pets, babies, birthdays, sportsball, outdoor activities, driving, night life, performances, anniversaries, weddings, "over the years" (aka "this is your life", "early memories" (aka "glory days"), visits, gatherings, and the one that scares and delights me almost as much as pets — meals.

There's even a stealthy level that fades in when you've got the grid overlay enabled and you go to take a top-down photo of your food, coffee, everyday carry, etc. It's a glorious touch that helps the already composition-obsessed absolutely nail the shot.

iOS 11 iMessage and Apple Pay

iMessage is the most popular app on iOS and, like messaging in general, is increasingly becoming a platform in its own right. That's why Apple has been focusing on messaging almost as much as it has photography: It wants people stuck to iMessage so they remain stuck to iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices. Inline stickers, effects, and apps were a big part of that strategy over the last few years and continue to be refined in iOS 11.

iMessage has a new interface for choosing apps and stickers which I'm still neither here nor there about. It's better than before but still feels like it clutters up the messaging experience. I don't know a better way to solve for the increasingly cluttered messaging experience in general, though. So, I'll just keep holding to hope that even better is still on the horizon.

There are some new screen effects, including echo which lets you set everything from a chicken head to poop emoji to knives to eggplants (yes, eggplants) swirling around the screen. It's as delightful and terrifying as it sounds.

There still aren't any bubble effects for setting a message on fire or freezing it cold, which I'd love to see. And I still wonder how or even if Apple will keep up with Snapchat and Instagram who seem to offer ever-more-outlandish filters weekly if not daily.

When iPhone X launches in November, though, we will have Animoji to entertain — and spam — our contacts with.

Also on the waiting list is iMessage sync. Apple originally announced the feature would be coming to iMessage for iOS 11 at WWDC back in June but it was pulled at some point during the beta process. I'm hoping it returns in iOS 11.1 or some future release because the implementation looked clever:

Previously, each device got its own unique end-to-end encrypted copy of a message that Apple's servers would attempt to deliver for a week or so and then abandon forever. It was great for security but not so great for convenience and consistency. Over time, invariably, some devices would have some messages and others, especially newer ones, wouldn't.

I was curious how Apple would solve this because the last thing any privacy-conscious person — or Apple itself — wanted was some unencrypted web repository sitting online, ripe for the plucking.

With iMessage sync, all messages remained end-to-end encrypted and, for all intents and purposes, inaccessible to Apple. They were simply collected on the web, in their encrypted form, so Apple could ensure a consistent delivery and experience across devices.

Once the feature actually ships, we'll see if any of that has changed and how well the system holds up to the scrutiny of the infosec community. If Apple is going to stick by its privacy-first policies, though, it's going to have to stick with delivering on them as well.

Another iMessage feature that still has to ship is person-to-person Apple Pay. It wasn't promised for release but for later this fall, so Apple still has some time left. And I'm really hoping they nail it.

I'm lucky to live in a place that's soaking in Apple Pay. I use everywhere I go. So much so that when I can't use it it's like a utility has gone off. Like I've lost power or the internet. I don't carry cash with me anymore and I barely carry cards. The only exception, of course, has been swapping funds with friends and family. They don't exactly walk around with contactless payment terminals around their necks. Most, anyway…

For that, we've had to resort to quick bank machine runs, using PayPal like it's 2007, or relying on a third-party service and app, which isn't always available or set up by everyone. All the while hoping Apple would bring person-to-person payments to Apple Pay. And now they're starting to.

Even though person-to-person Apple Pay is still a short way off, I have had the chance to try it at a demo last month. And it worked well.

You have to approve it first, so someone can't simply spam you with requests for cash and hope to trigger an automated response. (Sorry, colleagues who've tried!). Once it is approved, though, it works intelligently to detect potential triggers and offer itself when and as needed. For example, if Lory Gil messages me that my share of beverages is $42, iMessage could ask me if I want to send it to her right there, right then.

Sending money is also a breeze. You simply tap it out in iMessage or tell Siri, Apple's intelligent voice assistant, who you want to send money to and how much.

If and when you receive money, it goes into an "Apple Pay Cash" card stored in Wallet where you can quickly and easily buffer funds until you decide to make purchases or withdraw to a traditional account.

Being tied to Messages might be inconvenient for people who live in a different service, like WeChat or WhatsApp. For people already in the Apple ecosystem, especially those like my friends and family who only ever use iMessage, it'll be all but effortless. Better still, it's one less service to have to maintain — and one less security and privacy vector to worry about.

That's because, like everything in iMessage, person-to-person Apple Pay is end-to-end encrypted and Apple has absolutely no interest in harvesting, aggregating, and profiting off your transaction data. Who you get money from and who you send money to is your business, not some massive online social search company. And, frankly, that's become just as if not more important to me than the service itself.

Person-to-person Apple Pay will be U.S. only at launch, which is a huge but expected bummer to people like me who live outside the U.S. Hopefully, it'll roll-out to more countries and quickly. Apple's scale generally helps push things out and make them mainstream. Because I want it yesterday.

iOS 11 App Store

Ten years after it was first introduced with iOS 11, the App Store has finally gotten a complete re-imagining. It's more than a makeover because it's more than interface deep: It's a complete rethinking not just of how to present apps for people to browse and search, but how people browse and search for apps.

It starts with the new Today tab. For years Apple has had an amazing team of editors working on surfacing, curating, organizing, and arranging the best of the best apps. But their work was constrained to weekly feature blocks. Now it's open to daily features.

An endless vertical scroll filled with stories, broken up by text, images, videos, and lists, it's rich beyond rich and instantly forces you to reconsider everything you thought you knew about the App Store. It almost reminds me of thumbing through stacks vinyl records, seeing the album art and type fan by. This isn't a digital shelf anymore. It's a multi-faceted digital experience.

There are features, like "Meet the developer", "Our favorites", "Gaming 101", "Behind the scenes", "Collection", "How to", "DIY", and "The daily list". There's also an "App of the day" and "Game of the day". Each gets its own card in the deck. Tap a card and it springs up excitedly to fill the screen. And, where previously App Store editors were limited to tiny blurbs, if that, they now have real space for real prose. It's almost as though Apple has started its own app blog. (That's fine. Everything's fine. We need the competition!)

It's a jaw-dropping achievement, both in terms of the App Store app itself and the Today content that fills it. But it's also a jaw-dropping increase in the scope of the App Store team's workload, text, graphics, and video all. I'm legit exhausted just thinking about how much consistent effort they're going to need to put in, day after day, month after month, year after year, to maintain it.

And I'm curious to find out just how much return the App Store gets on this incredible investment. Today, after all, is a destination. Destinations are great, especially when we're bored and simply want to find the next cool thing to pass our time. But, increasingly, destinations have given way to demand. We want therefore we search. Boredom is less frequently our problem. Finding what we want in a sea of potentials, that's our problem.

Luckily, App Store is getting better at that as well. Gone are the days when searching for "Twetbot" returned no results. Now, it properly returns not only "Tweetbot", but other apps by the same developer, and other apps around the same service (Twitter).

There are, at long last, separate tabs for Apps and Games, so popular apps are no longer buried under the always more massively popular games. That's fine again for browsing, and I'm super glad Apple's done it. But I think we're already in an era where most people come to the App Store not from the tabs but from elsewhere on the internet. They see an app or game on the web or on social and they tap or click straight to it.

Those app and game pages have been redesigned as well, though the interface still struggles to cleanly contain all the elements. (And the use of the "more" (•••) button for pulling up the Share Sheet still causes me to do a double-take.)

As Today builds up more content and that content propagates down to the app and games pages, they should become more visually interesting, engaging, and alive as well. That'll take some time, though.

The App Store can even offload apps and games you haven't launched for a while to free up space on your iPhone or iPad. No data is deleted or lost, and you can re-download them at any time. I haven't been able to tell if any of my apps have been offloaded, so it's either taking its time or working brilliantly.

It's clear the redesign was a labor of intense love from Apple, and that Today is evidence of the company's extreme commitment to the platform and developers.

And I'm hoping intensely it pays off for all involved.

iOS 11 QuickType Keyboard

Apple's doing a couple cool things with the iOS keyboard this year. The first is a one-handed keyboard for iPhone. It's not the first time Apple's worked on solving for wider phones but it's the first time they've been happy enough with the solution to ship it. And I'm thankful for that. I've been waiting for it for a while.

There are both left and right-sided versions of the one-handed keyboard. You access them through the same "globe" button that you use to switch keyboards or get to emoji. Getting back to the standard keyboard is even easier. You simply tap the huge arrow on the opposite side.

I wish it were even easier though. I'm guessing edge gestures to invoke and switch the keyboard to one-handed mode and from side to side — which is how split keyboard has always worked on iPad — don't scale down as well. Still, I'd love it if Apple could figure it out since I want to move in and out of one-handed mode a lot.

The second big change is a new "flick"-style keyboard for iPad. It lets you enter alternate characters like numbers and symbols by simply flicking down on the key.

It has an almost old-school typewriter feeling to it but I'm still wondering if flicking down – as opposed to flicking up — was the best choice Apple could make here. Because the alternate characters are not only rendered at the top of the main characters but the area I'm writing on is spatially above the keyboard as well, I still find myself flicking up on occasion. (I have the same problem with Slide Over apps and pulling down rather than pushing up to dock them into Split View apps.)

Like autocorrect, flicking is something you have to get used to and learn to trust, but once you do you can enter mixed text, including passwords and addresses, faster than ever.

Especially since Siri has been amped up to prompt for even more information types, including places, movies, recently viewed items, ETAs, and more.

In my experience, it doesn't work all the time, or at least all the times I'd expect it to, which is slightly frustrating. When it does work its delightfully convenient.

iOS 11 Notes

Notes is my Mind Palace. With Sync. I dump everything I'm working on and want to keep top-of-mind into Notes and it shows up everywhere so I can find and use it anywhere. I do wish I could switch it from rich text to plain text mode — because, nerd — but otherwise, it's become one of my most-used apps. And in iOS 11, it's gotten even better.

Apps have been able to scan and digitize documents for years on iOS, but now Notes has it built in. It doesn't work on highly complex, highly illustrative documents, but for forms and text on a page, it's solid.

If you have an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, Notes is now even better integrated. Instant Notes lets tap the Lock screen with your Pencil and start writing. By default, it kicks you right into a new note but you can tweak that in Settings so that you land on the last Instant note you created or the last note you viewed in the app.

In Notes, you can nudge text aside and start drawing inline, so you can easily mingle text and handwriting. You can even write in English or Simplified Chinese (which I can do at approximately a 1-year-old's level!). It can recognize your scribblings and let you search them as though they were text. Swoon.

If you don't have an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, you can still benefit from the new strikethrough and monospacing styles, and from the ability to pin Notes to the top of the list so really important work — like iOS 11 reviews! — never gets lost under more recent, if more random, notes.

iOS 11 Screenshots and Markup

Markup started life as a humble extension buried away in Mail. No longer. Now, it's everywhere. Screenshots started off as a debugging feature kept alive because Walt Mossberg told Steve Jobs it would be useful for media. Now, they're front and center and tied right into the new Instant Markup system.

Take a screenshot and, instead of it disappearing away into your photo deck, it persists at the bottom left of the screen. Tap on it, and it takes you right into the Markup interface where you can add feedback or, you know, send everything from snarky comments to naughty annotations. (Who needs InstaSnap, right? Just markup responsibly, please, people.)

The overlay interface is at the same time super convenient and kind of annoying. When you want to act on a screenshot immediately, it's right there ready and waiting for you. When you don't, it's still right there, covering the screen, and harshening your Feng Shui. At least until you swipe it off-screen and away or wait a few moments for it to fade. There's no way for the system to know when you actually want a screenshot immediately, and when you're snapping away for later use, so it feels like Apple chose the best implementation possible here.

If you have an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, you can use Markup even more precisely and easily — simply touch the tip to a document in Files or Mail and annotate away.

Giving instant access to screenshots and making Markup ubiquitous has made the act of capturing, commenting, and sharing visual ideas almost muscle memory for me already. And that makes it almost invaluable.

iOS 11 Siri

Apple was first-to-market with a mainstream digital assistant but the company's lack of early focus and acceleration has allowed Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others to catch up and, in many people's opinions, race ahead.

Over the course of the last year or so, I've been wondering if Apple wouldn't benefit greatly from a public-facing VP of Siri Experience who has only one job — to sidestep everyone and everything else and make sure Siri is the best damn assistant on the planet, period. Much as Apple does for physical products like iPhone, and much as Phil Schiller has done since taking up that kind of roll at App Store. A little while ago, Apple did something pretty close: The company moved responsibility for Siri over to Craig Federighi's software engineering organization.

Just like it took a while before we saw the App Store pick up speed under Schiller, it'll probably take a while before Siri picks up speed under Federigihi, but iOS 11 is already off to a good start.

New features include a more natural voice with machine-learned inflections and intonations. There's also support for translations from English to Chinese, Spanish, French, German, or Italian. And, something else I've been hoping for over the last few years: the ability to type to Siri for when speaking is inappropriate or impossible. (Though that feature is currently tucked away under Accessibility.)

Siri will also sync what it's learned about you between devices. It doesn't keep a profile of you or your relationships on Apple's servers, the way some other companies do to harvest and monetize your personal information. Instead, it syncs securely, with end-to-end encryption between your devices. Apple doesn't have — and still claims not to want — your data.

New SiriKit domains include task managers and bill payment. Apps can use them to hook into Siri and provide functionality based around a wide range of intents. Still, only two new domains in a year is disappointing. Especially when it doesn't include media domains for music and video. I need to talk to Spotify and Netflix.

Inconsistency remains the biggest frustration. When you ask for something and it just works eight out of ten times, but the other two times it returns something incomprehensibly ridiculous, it's jarring. As someone who uses Siri all day, every day, for everything from controlling my home to dictating my work, if Apple's server-side Siri team did nothing else but stamp out aberrations and improve consistency over the course of the next year, I'd be ecstatic.

The Suggestions interface has also been expanded to include text in Safari, stories from Apple News, and flight status.

There's also a new Siri animation at the bottom of the screen. It's all futuristic and round, which makes it look a lot like Siri on top of Apple's upcoming HomePod. Badass.

iOS 11 ARKit

Screens are great. I love screens. But having to have a screen for my wrist, my pocket, my lap, my desk, and my wall, never mind several of each, gets expensive. One day I hope to have a simple marble-sized device that I keep on me — or implanted in me, shudder — and it constantly authenticates my identity locally and syncs my information with the cloud. Then shows and tells me everything and anything I want, whenever I want, through the infinite screens of augmented reality (AR). That might sound like science fiction, but I'm already seeing a glimpse of that future today, thanks to Apple's ARKit.

Unlike Google, which released a personal screen prototype called Glass and later a phone-based platform called Tango, and Microsoft which made a full-on mixed reality visor called HoloLens, Apple decided not to put the augmented device cart before the platform horse. (I'd guessed as much before WWDC.)

Thanks to the popularity of iPhone and iPad, that instantly gives them not only hundreds of millions of screens to target, but the deepest pool of developer talent on the planet to figure out and test the first use-cases.

Apple takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting up front. ARKit handles figuring out the planes, the lighting, the scaling, and keeping it all as anchored in time and space as possible. With the True Depth camera on iPhone X, ARKit will even handle face mapping. (See Rene as poop emoji, above.)

That lets developers create compelling, immersive AR experiences without having to create all the technology for AR around it. In other words, they get to hit the AR ground not just running but running like The Flash.

I've had a chance to try out a bunch of ARKit apps in various stages of development over the course of the last month or two. Some are upfront about the setup mechanics and tell you to move your iPhone or iPad around while overlaying the dot grids that map the real-world planes to the digital objects that will occupy them. Others gamify the experience, telling you to catch or find something while stealthily scanning as you do. I find both approaches fascinating.

Many of them do some variation of just what you'd expect right now: Let you place rendered objects in the environment, be they chairs on your floor, lipstick on your face, castles on your coffee tables, or starfighters in your driveway, and then inspect and interact with them for education, commerce, or just plain fun. Others, which let you do things like opening a door in a real library to access a fantasy or far-flung-future library, are brain-boggling.

Like with any framework Apple introduces ahead of first-party products and software, though, it'll take some time for the augmented dust to settle, the obvious realities to fall away, and the truly transformative experiences to emerge.

For now, though, I expect I'll be spending the better part of next year with AirPods in my ears and an iPhone or iPad in front of my face, ARKit augmenting my reality beyond anything I can imagine now.

And I can't wait.

iOS 11 Core ML

Machine Learning is basically Tinder for computers: Yes. No. No. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. No. It's how Apple trained the Neural Engine block on the A11 Bionic chipset for iPhone X, how it taught Photos to recognize mountains without having to suck up all your personal photos, and how Siri is getting its new, more naturally inflected voice.

Core ML is how Apple bundled all that up and made it available to developers. Like ARKit, it means apps can access the power of machine learning without their coders having to expend the time and effort of building out all the frameworks all by themselves. It's also been called PDF-like, in that Core ML can ingest a wide range of different ML models, serving as a common ground.

There's also a Vision application programming interface (API), to apply Computer Vision, to apps. That likewise lets apps ingest and understand photos without having to engineer the process themselves. And a Natural Language Processing API for ingesting and understanding words and phrases. (There's even GamePlayKit for learned decision trees in games.)

All of this technology accomplishes the same basic thing: It lets Apple handle the grunt work so developers can concentrate on what makes their apps unique and compelling.

And that's kind of what ML, CV, and related technologies do for us as well.

I've gotten to try a few Core ML-based apps over the last couple of months as well. The best ones do a lot of work behind the scenes so that you have less to do in front of the interface.

For example, let's say you're selling your house and you want to show it off as best as possible. You may not have done all the research or gotten all the experience necessary to know which photos do precisely that. But an ML model sourced from massive amounts of real estate agents might. So, you load up the dozens of photos you took, the CV framework figures out what they all are, and the ML model arranges them so the bright, welcoming living room is up front and the darker, smaller bathroom is buried third from last.

You can tweak from there but you no longer have to start from scratch and do all the grunt work yourself. The machine has done it for you because it was trained to do just exactly that for you.

Yes, I realize we're starting to talk about devices more like pets than like objects, and yes, Terminator and Matrix have made sure I'm suitably creeped out by that. Computers have always been about convenience, though. And Machine Learning is the next leap forward in convenience.

iOS 11 Miscellany

iOS 11 is one of Apple biggest releases to date and that means it's chocked full of new and updated features. Everyone will have their favorites and the ones that are most impactful to their own workflows and experiences. Here are some of the bigger ones.

Apple Music is becoming more social but without any of the baggage that came with Ping or Connect. You can simply follow people and be followed, see what friends are listening to, and jam along as you do. I wish App Store would add this so hard.

Podcasts, which has long been tied to but seldom been in sync with the Music app, has caught up again with a big, bold, and beautiful redesign all its own. It looks and works great. Which is good because, thanks to the continued lack of SiriKit support for media, it remains the only fully integrated option on iPhone and iPad.

The Maps app is getting indoor mapping for malls and airports. Just a few to start, because the process is arduous, but more on the way. Lane guidance, light guidance, and speed limits are also being added to navigation — and to CarPlay — hurray. And yeah, you can drag and drop from and to Maps. Awesome.

There's a new Do Not Disturb while Driving feature that I think is important, especially as more jurisdictions pass much-needed distracted driving laws. I'm not sure DND is the right solution, though. It's so cut off it leads me to believe many will choose to ignore it. Maybe that it exists is enough. Still, I'd like to see Apple do what Google did with Android Auto and make an iPhone version of the CarPlay interface available — minus all the infotainment integrations, of course — to anyone with a car mount. That might just keep you safe even if you need to stay connected.

HomeKit can control speakers — interesting, with the coming of Apple's HomePod — as well as sprinklers and faucets. There are also expanded triggers, so you can automate better, and easier accessory setup via NFC and QR code scanning.

Speaking of HomePod, AirPlay 2 will let you do multi-room audio with a shared Up Next queue. Developers can add support for it to their own services and devices. It might take a while before we see that support, which means it might take a while before AirPlay 2 actually manifests in a useful way, but hopefully not too long.

The News app is more personal, smarter, can show video on its widget, and gives breaking news more attention. It's still not available outside its tiny handful of launch countries, though, which is incredibly disappointing. Apple pushed Apple Music out to 100 countries on day one. I'd love to see even a score or two more for news some two years later.

Mail has top hits, which I'm also still not sold on. It's convenient when its engagement engine nails exactly what you're looking for. Trouble is, I'm mostly looking for stuff like order info and fringe emails that I'm least engaged with. I'm a dinosaur, but I think I preferred my raw list of results.

Health can now sync your data between devices, and that sync is enabled by default in iCloud Settings. Lack of sync was one of biggest headaches for users switching between or upgrading devices, so that's great to see.

Safari now uses Machine Learning to try and prevent web advertisers from tracking you across multiple sites. It won't mean less ads but it will mean ads won't be able to gather as much information about you, both for advertisers and for targeting ads. Google's AMP proxying is also being stripped out when you go to retrieve a link. Thank goodness.

There's a new Accounts & Passwords section in Settings which, in addition to serving as a single, unified location to get to your iCloud, Google, Microsoft, and other services, provides a list of your current iCloud Keychain app and web passwords. You have to authorize with Touch ID or Passcode to see them, which is great.

There's also some facility now to require Touch ID or Passcode authorization before you can access iCloud Keychain passwords in apps. It's a good first step but only iPhone X and Face ID implement it the way I really want it: With authorization required before every fill. iPhones with Touch ID only required authorization when you add them to apps, at least for now. I hope Apple comes around on this and makes it ubiquitous. Convenience is always at war with security but unless and until security wins this one, I can't hand an older iPhone to a friend or person in need. And that's unfortunate.

Wi-Fi sharing lets you securely, invisibly pass along your Wi-Fi credentials to your contacts, so they can get online and you can stop worrying about resetting everything when that sketchy cousin or acquaintance finally leaves… It works something like Automatic Setup where you need to bring the visiting device near your device to share the credentials. And it's a great feature to have.

There's still no dark mode or ThemeKit for iOS, even with the advent of the OLED-based iPhone X. Which is sad. There is a new Smart Invert for Accessibility, though. Instead of simply inverting all colors, which ruins things like photos, Smart Invert can switch text from white on black to black on white, but leave photos uninverted. But, there's still no dark mode or ThemeKit in iOS. At least not this year.

SOS mode lets you call for help or simply disable Touch ID (or the upcoming Face ID) by clicking the power/side button 5 times in succession. This is the kind of feature that saves lives and protects data, and I'm thrilled Apple brought it from Apple Watch to iPhone. (Apple says it will also work by squeezing both sides of iPhone, but that still just reboots for me.)

AirPod can now have separate actions assigned to the left and right pods, including Siri, play/pause, next, and previous. So, for example, you could set Siri activation for the left pod and song skipping for the right. It adds a small amount of complexity but offers a huge increase in functionality. Well done.

Core NFC will let developers read from — but not write from — the near-field communications system on iPhone and iPads. That means some clever things could be done with tags but no full-fledged Apple Pay-like bidirectional systems can be built.

And the list goes on and on.

iOS 11 Conclusion

iOS 11 still doesn't have everything — no iCloud multi-user for iPad, re-assignable default apps, "Read This" accessibility, ThemeKit customizations, music and many other integrations for SiriKit, Apple TV and CarPlay on-board, Lock screen complications, and the list goes on and on.

What iOS 11 does have is far greater power without too much additional complexity and far more convenience without hurting approachability. It focuses on a few core things across a wide range of apps and services and ultimately comes together to do exactly what we've come to expect it to do — help us better manage and accelerate our lives.

Each year, every year, some expect Apple to slow down and shore up the foundations. Others expect the company to speed up and push the innovation. This year, we've gotten a good mix of both. At WWDC, Craig Federighi said, in addition to new and updated feature implementation, Apple gave the software engineering teams some time to fix what irked them most. I think it shows. And I think it's a great approach to carry Apple through iOS 11 and into the next decade.

What we get at launch is just the first stage of iOS 11. iPhone 8 will bring the beta for Portrait Lighting iPhone X will introduce a few additional features, like Animoji and Face ID. Future versions, including updates later in the year and into early next year, should improve and round things out further.

For now, what we have is iOS taken to 11. Smarter thanks to machine learning and computer vision. Better thanks to drag-and-drop and Files. Faster thanks to Automatic setup and Instant Notes and Markdown. And Bolder thanks to headlong dive into augmented reality.

And it's available now.

Originally published September 19, 2017. Updated October 31, 2017 for the iOS 11.1 update. Updated December 2, 2017 for the iOS 11.2 update.

Among the many improvements headed to iOS 11.3, Apple is expanding the capabilities of ARKit for developers to do more. The new ARKit 1.5 update is the clear result of developer feedback, and these new features are going to help both your existing ARKit favorites and new ARKit apps really shine.

Here's what's new with ARKit in iOS 11.3!

ARKit can now "see" more things

The biggest part of the ARKit update by far is the ability to detect vertical and irregularly shaped surfaces. That's a complicated way of saying ARKit will now be able to tell when there's a wall nearby or a coffee cup on your kitchen table. It also means things like doorways and windows will be easier to detect, and round table edges will actually mean something to the apps you are using.

What does this mean for your favorite ARKit apps? For right now, it means developers who choose to support ARKit 1.5 will be able to offer a more complete experience. It means your AR creations won't walk through walls and possibly even be able to avoid real world objects on your table or floor. The big thing here is being able to "see" more of the space you want to play it, as that gives developers a lot more flexibility when it comes to making AR seem more realistic.

'Looking' at things with ARKit

Apple is also making it possible for ARKit to detect 2D objects, and allow developers to interact with them. That's a complicated way of saying images on flat surfaces can be made to be interactive. This could be as simple as pointing your iPhone at a movie poster and seeing the title fly off the page, or it could be as complex as a full museum tour narrated by you pointing your phone at famous paintings.

This isn't as flashy as some of the other ARKit tricks, and versions of this are already being done with things like the Merge Cube, but baking it in to ARKit means Apple developers will be able use it easily. Who knows, we may even see something baked in to the Apple camera like the barcode scanner.

Everything in ARKit looks nicer

Lots of ARKit experiences let you see the real world through the camera, but you've probably noticed when taking photos or screenshots that the resolution isn't super high compared to a normal iPhone photo. According to Apple, ARKit 1.5 includes 50% greater resolution with auto-focus on the surface you're interacting with.

Not only does this mean the real world will look nicer through your ARKit app, but photos you take through your favorite apps will look sharper and videos should be recorded at 1080p or higher.

More Animoji on the iPhone X

One of the cutest ARKit experiences on the iPhone is also being updated with ARKit. Animoji now include a dragon, lion, bear, and skull. This brings the total Animoji character count up to 16, so there's plenty or personalities to satisfy there.

This is the only major update specific to the iPhone X and its TrueDepth camera. Everything else here applies to any iPhone or iPad running iOS 11.3!

In the wake of negative reaction to iPhone advanced power management — the system that slowed down older iPhones with degraded batteries to prevent shutdowns — Apple is including a new Battery Health feature in iOS 11.3. Currently in beta, the feature is built into Settings > Battery, and provides information on current maximum capacity and peak performance capability.

It will also inform you if your iPhone is being slowed down, whether it needs service, and even allows you to turn off advanced power management — now called performance management — if you so choose.

Why is this battery feature in beta?

Apple is presumably still working out the kinks and messaging for batteries at various levels. We should see it come out of beta as the company is able to run it on more devices.

Okay, so what is performance management?

If your iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, or iPhone 7 had previously been slowed down to prevent power surges and unexpected shutdowns, iOS 11.3 will restore it to its previous, unmanaged performance levels. The system's performance management will only restart if you experience an unexpected shutdown; until then, it's a clean slate.

What's more, from Apple:

What is my battery's maximum capacity, anyway?

Here's how Apple defines maximum (battery) capacity:

How does Apple define "peak performance capability"?

Peak performance capability is the ability of your iPhone's battery to supply adequate charge even in the face of highly demanding tasks, up to and including those that cause power spikes.

Apple shows the following messages in Battery Health, depending on your iPhone's capability to handle apps at peak performance:

• 100%: Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance.
• 95%: This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again. Disable…
• 79% or less: Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options…
• Unknown: This iPhone is unable to determine battery health. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can service the battery. More about service options…

If you disable performance management, you'll see the following message:

Can you completely disable performance management if you don't want your iPhone's power throttled?

Yes and no. Performance management has never been completely about batteries: Every processor is throttled to protect against heat, for example. That kind of performance management can't be disabled — it would literally allow your iPhone to fry.

That said, you can disable all battery-related performance management (the feature Apple introduced with iOS 10.3.1 to slow down older iPhone models).

If you disable performance management for battery health, will it stay disabled?

It stays disabled unless and until you suffer an unexpected shutdown due to a power spike your battery can't handle. You can disable it again after that, but it will automatically re-enable every time you experience that kind of shutdown.

Is it dangerous to disable performance management?

Not to yourself or your home: The battery is stable and doesn't pose any unusual safety risks. (It won't explode or catch on fire.)

But if your iPhone shuts down when you really need it — placing an urgent call, sending an urgent message, or looking up critical information or directions – it could prove highly inconvenient.

Does Apple's performance management feature affect either the iPhone 8 or iPhone X line?

Not according to Apple:

What about iPads?

iPad batteries are so large that, apparently, power spikes can't cause shutdowns even when they are well past their primes.

Any iOS 11.3 battery health questions?

Let us know in the comments.

Both action extensions and share extensions can streamline your workflow by allowing you to access important functions and giving you the ability to share content through the various apps on your iPhone or iPad.

Action extensions let apps share their functions with other apps installed on your iPhone or iPad. For example, you can use a 1Password action extension to log in to your Twitter account from inside Tweetbot. You can use a Bing action extension to translate a web page inside Safari.

Share extensions work very similarly, and are a great way to expand the capabilities of your iPhone or iPad. You can, for instance, share a cool app you found in the App Store with friends with a couple taps of the Messages extension, or tweet out an interesting article without having to leave Safari. Beyond sharing with other people, share extensions also let you share with yourself. Maybe save the interesting article you found for later in the read-it-later app of your choice. Create a new note from something you liked on Pinterest.

A quick note: extensions for particular apps will only show up in apps whose content they support. For instance, while you can open an image in Photos in Procreate, you can't do the same with an image from Pinterest.

• How to enable action extensions on iPhone and iPad
• How to reorder action extensions on iPhone and iPad
• How to access and use action extensions on iPhone and iPad
• How to enable share extensions on the iPhone and iPad
• How to access and use share extensions on iPhone and iPad
• How to reorder share extensions on iPhone and iPad

How to enable action extensions on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch Safari on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Navigate to any web page and tap on the Share button in the bottom navigation.
3. Scroll all the way through the bottom row of icons.

4. Tap on the More button.
5. Toggle On any action extensions you have that you'd like to use. When the switch is green that means the extension is on.
6. Tap Done to finish.

How to reorder action extensions on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch Safari on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Navigate to any web page and tap on the Share button in the bottom navigation.
3. Swipe left to scroll all the way through the bottom row of icons.

4. Tap on the More button.
5. Touch and hold the grabber icon to the right of any extension and drag it up or down to reorder it.
6. Tap Done to finish.

How to access and use action extensions on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the app that contains the content you want to work with.
2. Tap on the Share button.
3. Choose the action extension you'd like to use.

In this example, I'm using 1Password to sign into my Mobile Nations account. What you see may be different depending on the kind of action you choose. Follow the directions you see on your screen.

How to enable share extensions on iPhone and iPad

You can activate share extensions in any app that uses the standard iOS Share Sheet on iOS 8 or later. In this example, we'll be using Safari.

1. Open Safari on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Navigate to a web page.
3. Tap on the share button (looks like a box with an arrow pointing upwards.
4. Scroll all the way to the right end of the top row of icons.

5. Tap More.
6. Flip the switches next to any share extensions you want to use to the green 'On' position.
7. Tap Done.

How to access and use share extensions on iPhone and iPad

Once you've set them up, accessing share extensions is pretty easy and straightforward.

1. Open your chosen app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap the share button.
3. Tap the share extension that you want to use. Remember that since each extension is different, working with each will be a slightly different experience.

How to reorder share extensions on iPhone and iPad

You can reorder share extensions to move those that you need to the top of the list. Here's how. Once again, you can do this in any app that uses the share sheet in iOS 8 or later, and in this example, we'll use Safari.

1. Open Safari on your iPhone or iPad,
2. Navigate to a web page.
3. Tap on the share button (looks like a box with an arrow pointing upwards.
4. Scroll all the way to the right end of the top row of icons.

5. Tap More.
6. Press and hold on the reorder icon on the right side of the extension you wish to move (looks like three stacked lines).

7. Move the extension to the desired position.
8. Tap Done.

Questions?

If you have any more questions about using and managing share extensions on your iPhone or iPad, let us know in the comments.

Updated March 2018: Added the instructions for using action extensions

Note: If you're not a registered member of Apple's Developer Program, you won't be able to download the sample code mentioned in this article.

When Apple introduced iPhone 7 Plus and its dual-camera system, it also introduced Portrait Mode. Portrait Mode uses the dual-camera system on iPhone 7 Plus to capture depth data when it takes a photo and make use of said data to add a pleasing, DSLR-style blur effect to photos. Outside of Portrait Mode's nifty blur, though, we haven't been able to do much else with the depth data captured by our phones. As of iOS 11, though, developers can read the embedded depth data and use it in their own apps.

Blurring out the background of a photo is but one option available when you've got access to a photo's depth. An app might let you add a photo filter, adjust the saturation, or make transparent a specific depth layer within a photograph. There are loads of creative possibilities and I'm looking forward to seeing what developers come up with!

How to capture and visualize photo depth in iOS 11

If you're a registered member of Apple's Developer Program, you can get a simplistic look at what's possible with depth data in iOS 11. Apple's Brad Ford hosted a session back at WWDC 2017 called "Capturing Depth in iPhone Photography" where he explained not only how the dual-camera system captures depth in photographs, but also how developers can make use of it.

You should start by checking out the session, which is chock-full of math (gasp!) and groan-worthy depth puns:

Capturing Depth in iPhone Photography

After you've gotten your fill, it's time to kick the tires on depth data in iOS 11. Apple has provided a couple sample apps to help you both capture and visualize depth data in photographs. They'll give you an idea of what depth information is available and ways it can be manipulated.

1. First, download AVCam and install it on your developer device running iOS 11. Remember, it's gotta be an iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus, or iPhone X to capture depth data.
2. Launch AVCam on your iPhone.
3. Tap Depth Data Delivery: Off so that it says Depth Data Delivery: On. This will include depth data in each photo you take in AVCam.
4. Snap a few photos by tapping the word Photo at the bottom of the app.

Photos with depth data work a little differently from photos taken in Portrait Mode. You can use the Photos app in iOS 11 to tell the difference.

1. Launch the Photos app in iOS 11.
2. Tap a photo that was shot using Portrait Mode or using the AVCam sample app.
3. If the photo was taken in Portrait Mode, you'll see a label in the top left corner of the screen that says DEPTH EFFECT.
4. If the photo includes embedded depth data, you'll need to tap the Edit button (looks like three sliders) at the bottom of the app. You'll see a label in the top middle area of the screen that says DEPTH. You can tap it to enable and disable the Portrait Mode effect.

How to use WiggleMe to see depth data in all its glory

Enabling and disabling the Portrait Mode effect is one way to visualize depth data in iOS 11, but there's a better, more hilarious way. Apple has created a sample app called WiggleMe that uses depth data to separate the background of a photo from the foreground and add an interesting 3D wiggle effect.

1. First, download WiggleMe and install it on your developer device running iOS 11.
2. Tap on one of the photos you took using AVCam (the ones that have embedded depth data).
3. The app will immediately display a wiggling, depth-adjusted animation of your photograph. It pulls out the foreground from the background and extrapolates the visual info in between to give the image a sort of 3D look. It's pretty awesome! You can also pinch and zoom on the screen while the animation is playing to increase or decrease the intensity of the depth effect.
4. Tap the photo once to switch off the automatic animation. The app will use your phone's gyroscope to trigger movement.
5. Tap the photo twice to stop the animation and choose a new photo.

Dig deeper!

There's obviously a lot more you can do with depth data in iOS 11, but WiggleMe gives you a quirky look at the feature. If you're registered with Apple's Developer Program, consider downloading the sample apps and using them as inspiration for creating your own photo apps that take advantage of depth data!

The thought of removing a boring background and subbing in an awesome one with just a few taps, making my puppers the center of attention in an otherwise busy photograph, or adding a subtle contrast change to the foreground of a photo has me eagerly awaiting more apps that make use of this data. What about you?

Updated January 2018: This article was updated with new information pertaining to depth data and Apple's developer-focused apps for iOS 11.

Automatic Setup is Apple's proximity-based process for transferring data, settings, and content from an old device to a new one. You can use Automatic Setup on your iPhone, Apple Watch, or Apple TV. Here's what it is and how to go about it!

What is Automatic Setup, and how does it work?

Apple's Automatic Setup feature began as an easier way for users to set up the Apple TV with "tap-to-set-up," which let you use your iPhone's sensors to quickly connect to your Apple TV and automatically enter in data like an Apple ID and Wi-Fi network. Since then, the feature has evolved and expanded to cover not only the Apple TV, but new iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch models as well.

Automatic Setup is great because it lets users skip much of the form-filling present in older versions of setting up new devices — you shouldn't have to manually enter Wi-Fi network names and passwords, Apple IDs, or settings from previous devices. It's also proximity-based, keeping that data secure by requiring you to physically have both old and new devices in the same location.

Apple uses a slightly different method to automatically set up each device, depending on whether it's an iPhone or iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple TV.

How to use Automatic Setup to set up a new iPhone or iPad

You can use any current device running iOS 11 to set up a new iPhone or iPad by transferring the settings from your current device to your new device when in close physical proximity. Here's how!

How to transfer data from your old phone to your new iPhone

How to use Automatic Setup to set up a new Apple Watch

There are a few ways to pair your Apple Watch to your iPhone, depending on what makes the most sense for your needs. Automatic Setup lets you quickly sync your Apple Watch's internal signifiers to your iPhone and get everything set up.

How to set up a new Apple Watch

How to use Automatic Setup to set up a new Apple TV

Once you get your new Apple TV, you'll have to set it up from scratch. Apple offers two different ways of initializing your Apple TV: Set Up With Device, and Set Up Manually. If you don't have your device handy, Rene has a great how-to on manually setting up your Apple TV; otherwise, the easiest and best way is to use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

How to automatically set up your Apple TV with your iPhone

What do you think of Automatic Setup?

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated January 2018: Updated with more info about Automatic Setup.

Drag and drop is one of the marquee features of iOS 11. You can drag photos, documents, and other items from one location on your iPhone to another, whether that's between apps or within a single app. While you might have a handle on the basics of drag and drop, there are some cool tricks that you could have escaped your notice.

Here are some of the best tricks that drag and drop has up its sleeves.

• Drag within apps
• Drag multiple items
• Move text between apps
• Drag contacts and addresses into Maps
• Open links in Safari

Drag within apps

While a lot of Apple's marketing with drag and drop focused on your ability to drag items between apps, you can also move items within an app. So, copy text from one note to another, or drag photos into a new photo album.

One of the great things about this is feature is not strictly confined to the iPad. While you need an iPad to really take advantage of the full range of drag and drop capabilities, apps like Notes and Files let you drag and drop items on your iPhone as well, as long as you stay within that app.

Drag multiple items

You don't have to drag things one at a time with drag and drop. If you're moving something like photos or documents, once you start dragging the first one, just tap others with a different finger and they'll shoot over to your existing dragging activity. This way, you can quickly move a bunch of related documents into a new folder, or drag photos into a brand new album.

This isn't just for different file types, either. You can also use this trick when you're rearranging apps on your Home screen. This way, you can drag multiple apps into a new app folder or a different Home screen at once.

Move text between apps

As a writer that likes to work on his iPad and has to use a lot of quotes, I find this next trick particularly useful. If you've got text in one app, whether it's a note you've written down or a section of text from an article or document that you want to quote, you can now just drag it between two apps. Just highlight the text you want to move into your app of choice, then drag it from its origin point into your app.

Drag contacts and addresses into Maps

This is a neat little trick that makes getting directions to a new place easier. If you have a contact with an address that you're unfamiliar with, you can easily find that address and get directions by dragging that contact's name from your list and dropping it into Maps. The app will shoot right to that address, letting you then ask for directions that you can then share with your iPhone with AirDrop.

You can also do this with addresses that you find in other apps or anywhere on the web. Simply drag the address to Maps, and you'll see the exact location and have the option of getting directions.

Open links in Safari

If you're reading an article or email or something else that has interesting-looking links, you can now drag those links into Safari to check them out. Just drag the link into the Safari app, drop it, and Safari will open that link. Note that if it's just a new tab with nothing in it, you'll need to drag your link into the address bar towards the top of the screen.

You can also do this within Safari. Just drag your link, open a new tab, and drop the link in the address bar if you want to have that link and your existing content open at the same time.

What have you found?

Have you found any cool things that you can do with drag and drop on either your iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comments.

Ever since iOS 7, you've been able to open the app switching interface on your iPhone or iPad and swipe up on an app in order to force it to close completely. Now, with the arrival of iOS 11, that process has changed, but only slightly thanks to the addition of a new option.

• How to force quit an app on iPhone 8 or earlier
• How to force quit apps on the iPhone X
• How to force quit an app on iPad in iOS 11
• How to force quit an app in iOS 11 on the iPad using a gesture

How to force quit an app on iPhone 8 or earlier

On iPhone 8 or earlier, force quitting apps hasn't really changed in iOS 11 compared to iOS 10.

1. Double click the Home button to bring up the fast app switcher.
2. Navigate to the app screen you want to quit.
3. Swipe up on the app card you wish to shut down by flicking it up and off the screen.

With the release of iOS 11.1, you can also use a gesture to activate multitasking on 3D Touch-capable iPhones, except for the iPhone X.

1. Press firmly on the left edge of your iPhone's display.
2. Move that same finger toward the center of the screen.
3. Swipe up on the app card that you wish to force quit by flicking it up and off the screen.

How to force quit apps on the iPhone X

If your apps are working like they're supposed to, you really shouldn't force quit them. However, if you ever need to, you should know that force quitting has changed a bit on the iPhone X.

1. Touch your finger to the gesture area at the bottom of the screen.
2. Swipe up and hold your finger in place for a moment until the card-like multitasking interface appears.
3. Tap and hold on the app you want to quit until the red circle with the "-" symbol appears in the top left corner of the app.

4. Flick the app up.
5. Alternatively, tap the red circle.

How to force quit an app on iPad in iOS 11

Force quitting an app on an iPad running iOS 11 still follows the same process as before, but it looks a bit different thanks to the new multitasking layout.

1. Double-click on your iPad's Home button
2. Find the app you want to quit in the app switcher.
3. Swipe up on the app that you want to force quit.

How to force quit an app in iOS 11 on the iPad using a gesture

On an iPad running iOS 11, you can also use a gesture to help you force quit an app.

1. While in an app, swipe up from the bottom of the screen with one finger.
2. When the Dock appears, keep swiping to open up the app switching interface and Control Center.

3. Find the app you want to quit in the app switcher.
4. Swipe up on the app that you want to force quit.

That's all there is to it. Now you have one more option for starting the force quitting process, and you can also access Control Center during this process if you need to.

Questions?

If you've got any questions about force quitting apps on your iPad in iOS 11, be sure to let us know in the comments.

Updated January 2018: Added information on force quitting apps on iPhone 8 or earlier and iPhone X.

Your iPhone will track and record places that you visit most often to provide better location-based data and suggestions across iOS 11. While these suggestions can be super helpful, you may not like the idea of your iPhone and iPad tracking the locations you frequent

If you value your privacy more than you do location-based data and suggestions, you can turn the feature off.

How to turn off Significant Locations on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen.
2. Tap on Privacy.
3. Tap Location Services at the top.
4. Tap System Services. It's all the way down at the bottom of the list.

5. Tap Significant Locations.
6. Enter your passcode, use Touch ID, or Face ID, to authenticate access.
7. Tap the Significant Locations On/Off Switch. When the switch is gray, that means the feature has been turned off.

That's all there is to it. Locations you travel to most will no longer be tracked. While this comes at the expense of not having as accurate location data in places like the Today Summary screen, it also preserves your privacy better and to a lot of us, that's more important.

Updated January 2018: Completely overhauled the article to reflect changes in iOS 11.

If you usually use your iPhone's volume buttons to change the volume of your ringer, you might have found that iOS 11 has changed the default behavior of your buttons. Now, they'll control your iPhone's volume no matter where you are, with ringer control relegated to Settings.

For people that prefer the old setup, I have good news. You can quite easily set your volume buttons to control your ringer volume once again. Here's how.

How to set your volume buttons to control your iPhone's ringer

While by default your iPhone's volume buttons control the system volume, you can set them so that they'll control the ringer volume on the phone when you're device isn't playing any audio.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Sounds & Haptics.
3. Turn the switch next to Change with Buttons to the on position.

You'll now be able to change the volume of the ringer using the volume buttons. Those buttons will control the system volume once again when it's playing some kind of audio, such as music or a audio from a video.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about controlling your iPhone's ringer with the volume buttons.

You're scrolling through Apple Music looking for something to listen to and nothing is grabbing your attention. You've already checked out Apple's weekly curated mixes in the For You tab and you're being picky. Don't you just wish there was a radio station that only plays music you liked? Ask Siri and ye shall receive!

• How it works
• How to create a personalized radio station with Siri on iPhone and iPad
• How to create a personalized radio station with Siri on iPhone and iPad

How it works

Just like other Apple Music radio stations, your personalized one that Siri creates will play music non stop as long as you keep it running. You need an Apple Music subscription to take advantage of this cool feature, and as of right now, it seems to only functions through Siri.

In my experimentation with it, the personalized radio station uses your history, loved songs, and frequently listening to tracks to curate the content, so you likely won't come across any new songs or artists this way.

It's pretty awesome to have a randomized list of bangers that you know like on stand by for those times you don't know what to listen to; here's how do it!

How to create a personalized radio station with Siri on iPhone and iPad

1. Say "Hey, Siri" to activate Siri.
2. Say Play me some music.

That's it! You're off to music heaven with your very own radio station.

How to create a personalized radio station with Siri on Mac

You can even create the radio station on your Mac!

1. Click on the Siri app to activate Siri.
2. Say Play me some music.

Now, get to headbanging to your favorites tunes and watch out for whiplash!

Any Questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

If you have an App Store app installed that sends local notifications, once you hit December 2, 2017, local time, your iPhone could begin to crash. iOS 11.2 is now live with a fix for this issue. Apple Support Recommends disabling notifications for each app and then installing the update.

1. Tap Settings > Notifications.
2. Tap an app, then turn off Allow Notifications. Repeat this step for each app.
3. Update your device to iOS 11.2.

After updating, tap Settings > Notifications and turn Allow Notifications on again for each app. If you're unable to update or still have issues after the update, contact Apple Support.

Since iOS 11.2 was pushed out a few days early, the actual person-to-person Apple Pay system it advertises isn't available yet and won't be until Monday or Tuesday in the U.S.

Also, if you changed the data on your iPhone to get around the crashes, and have any trouble with Face ID after updating, a reboot should fix it. (And change your time/back to automatic ASAP).

Something in the iOS time system is causing local notifications to consume so much memory they crash springboard, the iPhone and iPad windowing manager.

What's a local notification?

Local notifications are part of the notification options available to App Store apps. They differ from remote notifications in that they don't come from internet services.

They're most commonly used to alert you to things an App Store app wants you to do, like mediate, feed your in-game creatures, or handle a to-do.

This only applies to App Store apps, not built-in apps like Clock?

That's what it looks like. All reports so far have to do with apps downloaded from the App Store using Apple's local notification API.

Will Do Not Disturb help?

No. Turning on DND won't help with this particular bug.

How do you turn off notifications for an app?

This is potentially the most time consuming but least problematic solution:

1. Launch Settings.
2. Tap on Notifications.
3. Tap on the app you want to disable.
4. Toggle off Allow Notifications.
5. Repeat for all the apps you want to disable.

Why do date/time bugs keep happening?

Seriously. You'd figure Apple would have torn any all time-based code apart by now and stamped all of this out. Once is a bug. Twice is a bad bug. More than that, it's a problem beyond the code.

Fail safe vs. fail secure. Convenience vs. security. When you discuss issues like encryption and backups, these are the debates — and in some cases, massive divides — you encounter. Information security experts will insist that everything needs to be locked down so tightly that even you have trouble getting into it. Backup experts will tell you most people suffer from data loss far more often and devastatingly than they ever do data theft.

Bricks vs. windows

iOS was built to be more secure from the start. With iOS 7 and iPhone 5s, it became something akin to a crypto brick. More recently, though, Apple has taken a few deliberate steps back. In certain cases, the company has made the system fail safe instead of secure.

Personally, I don't like or agree with some of these changes. I grew up with computers and I'm a power user who understands encryption, uses unique, pseudorandom passwords, and has no trouble managing two-factor and device policies.

I do have enough perspective taking ability — and I've dealt with enough family and friends who've been locked out of their own devices, accounts, and data — to see the other side of the dilemma.

From ElcomSoft blog:

The issues pointed out are predicated on an attacker having both physical custody of your device(s) and knowledge of your passcode. And that's as close as you can get to a "game over" scenario anyway, at least without additional roadblocks that can be extremely disruptive to customers.

Even then, with your device and your passcode, someone could access all your iCloud keychain items, use your email account and SMS to reset passwords from other systems, and could otherwise gain access to a degree that makes everything else sensationalized in the Elmsoft article functionally bullshit.

And without existing knowledge of your passcode? Well, you're looking at an attacker with intent and resources beyond what the FBI initially claimed it had in the San Bernardino case.

What's changed?

With iOS 11, the passcode — which can be as simple as 6 numbers — can be used to reset iTunes backup passwords and even Apple ID passwords.

Based on Apple's usage data and support logs, my guess is that they found mainstream customers were unable to access their own backups or accounts far, far, far more frequently than anyone was ever trying to illegitimately gain access. That was part of the reason for the change from the old two-step authentication system to the new two-factor authentication and for some of the policies around how iCloud Photo Library, for example, works.

Again, as a power-user, I don't like some of this. I don't like that passcode can reset Apple ID. But I've dealt with enough people who have no idea what their Apple ID is, that I understand the need to balance loss vs. theft. I understand that, for some of my friends, losing access to the photos of their children because they couldn't remember a backup or account password would hurt them far more than some theoretical attacker gaining access to them. And it is absolutely not my place or right to judge them or anyone else based on that difference in priorities.

Especially because security conscious people like myself have other options.

What can you do about it?

If you're at all concerned about passcode as an attack vector, switch from a 6-digit passcode to a strong alphanumeric password. You can do that in Settings > Passcode > Change Passcode > Passcode Options > Custom Alphanumeric Code.

It means sacrificing some convenience — because passwords are harder and take longer to enter — to regain security, but with Touch ID and Face ID, you won't have to enter it that frequently anyway.

If someone knows your strong alphanumeric password, they'll still be able to change your security settings, but the odds of someone being able to crack a strong alphanumeric password are far, far, far lower than a 6-digit passcode. (And if that's the threat level you're facing, you likely shook your head and walked away long before reading the article linked to here.)

There are also mobile device management (MDM) solutions, including Apple's iOS Configurator and third-party, enterprise- and government-level tools that let administrators and organizations lock down iOS to a significantly higher degree than the consumer-oriented, built-in features allow. Which is why Apple started adding them back with iOS 2. (iPhone OS 2.0.)

Continuing the conversation

There are some interesting if overly sensationalized points raised by Elmsoft and this is an incredibly important discussion to have. It's also one that the security and backup communities have been arguing over since the inception of bits.

People and certainly the internet aren't often good at handling situations where multiple truths exist and the needs of different people are at odds with their own.

I do think we've swung between being too secure and too convenient over the years and that we continuously need to find both a better balance and better options for everyone. And that's why Apple's security team has been iterating so aggressively on all of this over the last few years.

I'd love to see an option to turn off passcode as a reset vector for those of us who don't want or need it, but then again, I use a password so I probably wouldn't want or need that setting anyway. And that's how these loops begin.

For now, iOS 11 is doing a good job making sure people don't lose access to their data while providing alphanumeric password and MDM options for those of us who want to make sure our data is better protected as well.

But let me know what you think.

iOS 11.1.1 is now available through Settings > General > Software Update. It fixes the weird bug going around where the letter i was being autocorrected as I️ (an exclamation mark with a box, originally containing the letter A, now the ?).

The bug seemingly spread through Apple's new Machine Learning facility in the QuickType keyboard. The feature is supposed to identify, learn, and share new trends in online language and usage. So, for example, if everyone starts typing Animoji, the system learns it's a new, popular word and corrects for it, rather than trying to correct away from it.

In this case, somehow, the letter i got paired with a non-display character meant for emoji rendering and ridiculousness ensued.

Apple is no doubt working to prevent this from happening again. Meanwhile, if you're suffering from the problem on your ! [?]Phone or ! [?]Pad — sorry, had to — you can fix it by downloading and installing the iOS 11.1.1 update.

If, for some reason, you can't or simply don't want to update to iOS 11.1.1 yet, you can use the following temporary workaround until you update:

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Keyboard.

4. Tap on Text Replacement.
5. Tap on Add (looks like +).
6. Type I for Phrase.
7. Type i for Shortcut.
8. Tap Done.

You can also use a third-party custom keyboard from the App Store. Since 3rd-party keyboards can't access the iOS autocorrect system, they can't experience the bug.

• GBoard
• SwiftKey
• Swype

Any questions?

If you have any questions, comments, or tips of your own to share, drop them in the comments below!

Updated November 9, 2017 with information on the release of iOS 11.1.1.

In iOS 11, Control Center is all new. You have everything on one screen now, rather than having to swipe between music and utilities like your flashlight. If you're listening to music and want to adjust volume or jump backward on the fly, the Now Playing widget is there to make life easier on you.

Here's how to use the Now Play widget in Control Center in iOS 11!

• How to access Control Center
• How to see what's playing with the Now Playing widget
• How to get to the app that's playing from Control Center
• How to scrub through what's playing in Control Center
• How to pause/play playback in Control Center
• How to go back, rewind, skip forward, and fast forward in Control Center
• How to change volume in Control Center
• How to AirPlay media from Control Center

How to access Control Center

Control Center is where you can quickly change settings that you use all the time, like Wi-Fi, volume, Bluetooth, and more.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen.

How to see what's playing with the Now Playing widget

1. Launch Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of your screen.
2. Hard press (or long press) the Now Playing widget. It looks like a play button with forward and backward controls and is on the top right of Control Center.

Here you can see what's playing with album art, the name and information about the track, as well as more playback controls and options.

How to get to the app that's playing from Control Center

Not sure which app's playing the audio you're hearing? Here's how to open it from Control Center:

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen.;''''./
2. Hard press (or long press if you don't have 3D Touch) the Now Playing widget. It's on the top right of Control Center.
3. Tap the album art (or lack thereof) on the left side of the widget.

This will open up the app from which the audio is playing.

How to scrub through what's playing in Control Center

If you want to hear a part of the song or podcast that just past or you want to scrub forward to where you left off, here's how!

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen.
2. Hard press (or long press) the Now Playing widget. It's on the top right of Control Center.
3. Tap and drag the time slider either to the right or left to scrub forward or backward.

How to pause/play playback in Control Center

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen.
2. Tap the play/pause button on the Now Playing widget on the top right of Control Center.

How to go back, rewind, skip forward, and fast forward in Control Center

You can skip to the next track or go back to the previous track, as well as fast forward and rewind!

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen.

From here, you can use the forward and backward buttons to skip, fast forward, rewind, or go back to the beginning of a track or to a previous track.

• Tap the forward button to skip to the next track or episode
• Tap and hold on the forward button to fast forward

• Tap the back button to return to the start of the song or episode. If you tap it in the first 3 seconds of that track, it'll automatically go back to the previous track.
• Double-tap the back button to return to the previous track/episode if you've passed the 3-second mark.
• Tap and hold the back button to rewind.

Remember that pressing on either button will simply open the widget from Control Center on devices with 3D Touch.

How to change volume in Control Center

You have two places to change your iPhone's volume in Control Center. Let's go with the quickest and easiest!

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Lock screen or Home screen to launch Control Center.
2. Tap and slide on the volume slider on the middle right of control center. It's the widget with a speaker on it. Up is louder, down is quieter.

How to AirPlay media from Control Center

You can send audio to any AirPlay-capable device, like your Apple TV or various wireless speakers. Here's how!

1. Launch Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of your screen.
2. Tap the AirPlay button on the Now Playing widget. It's the two "Wi-Fi" bars on the top right of the widget.
3. Tap a device to AirPlay to.

When you want to stop AirPlaying, just tap your iPhone again in that same device menu.

Questions?

Got any questions about Now Playing in Control Center? Let us know in the comments below!

Connecting your iPhone or iPad to Wi-Fi not only gives you access to the internet and all its glory, it also saves you from using data for your apps, games, and web browsing, which can save you some money on your bill.

If you want to know how to join a Wi-Fi network, forget a network, use an HTTP Proxy server, and more, read on for step-by-step instructions!

• How to connect to a Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad
• How to connect to a custom Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad
• How to forget a network on iPhone and iPad
• How to turn on Ask To Join network on iPhone and iPad
• How to turn off Auto-Join network on iPhone and iPad
• How to Renew Lease on a Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad
• How to use an HTTP Proxy on iPhone and iPad

How to connect to a Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap the Wi-Fi On/Off switch. You'll want the switch to be green.

4. Tap on the network you want to join.
5. Type in the network password. If the network has no password you won't need this step.
6. Tap Join.

Now you're free to surf the net without using your data! Look at all the cat gifs and YouTube videos you want!

How to make your iPhone or iPad choose the right Wi-Fi network

How to connect to a custom Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad

If there is a particular Wi-Fi network you want to join — like an unlisted one — you can do so by joining a custom network. You'll need the name of the network and password before you start.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap the Wi-Fi On/Off switch. You'll want the switch to be green.

4. Tap Other…. You may have to scroll down to see it.
5. Enter the name of the network you want to join.
6. Tap Security.

7. Tap the type of security the network uses. If there is no security you can skip this step.
8. Enter the password for the network.
9. Tap Join.

Provided you enter all the right information, you will now be connected to the particular network you wanted to use.

How to forget a network on iPhone and iPad

You iPhone and iPad will automatically join familiar networks after you've been connected once before, in order to break your connection to a network permanently, you'll need to forget the network.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap on the network connected to your device.

4. Tap Forget This Network.
5. Tap Forget.

Your iPhone and iPad won't automatically connect to this network, you'll need to connect to the network again.

How to turn on Ask To Join network on iPhone and iPad

Your iPhone and iPad will automatically connect to any network that it can including public Wi-Fi networks that require no password. If you don't want to join any network automatically, you can turn on the Ask to Join Networks feature.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi.
3. Tap the Ask to Join Network On/Off switch. If the switch is green that means the feature is turned on.

How to turn off Auto-Join network on iPhone and iPad

If you want to stop your iPhone or iPad from automatically joining a network you've already connected to, you can turn off the Auto-Join feature in your settings.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap on the network connected to your device.
4. Tap the Auto-Join On/Off switch When the switch is gray, it means the feature is off.

Now every time you want to join that network, you'll need to select it from the Wi-Fi settings.

How to Renew Lease on a Wi-Fi network on iPhone and iPad

If you're on a public or time-limited network and you want to ask for more time, you can renew your lease from the Wi-Fi settings menu. Also, renewing your lease on a Wi-Fi network can sometimes be useful when troubleshooting Wi-Fi connections.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap on the network connected to your device.

4. Tap Renew Lease.
5. Tap Renew Lease again.

How to use an HTTP Proxy on iPhone and iPad

If you prefer using an HTTP Proxy server for security and privacy, you can set one up in the Wi-Fi settings.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. Tap on the network connected to your device.
4. Tap Configure Proxy.

5. Tap Manual or Automatic to choose which setup you want.
6. Enter all the relevant information for your selected method.
7. Tap Save.

If you use a VPN service to ensure your privacy on the net you can also set that up on your iPhone or iPad.

Read:How to configure VPN access on your iPhone or iPad

Any questions?

Let us know in the comments down below.

Many GarageBand users have noticed that after installing iOS 11, they've been unable to launch the app without it crashing immediately. According to a support page on Apple's website, the company is "aware of the issue and is investigating solutions." This is just the latest in a line of many bugs Apple has been attempting to contend with following iOS 11's release, including haptic issues with the iPhone 7 and crackling noises coming from the earpieces during calls on iPhone 8.

Like all the other problems users are experiencing post-update, this isn't affecting everyone. However, if you're one of the individuals struggling to open GarageBand on your device Apple suggests turning off iCloud for GarageBand as a temporary solution:

1. Launch the Settings app for iOS.
2. Tap your Apple ID banner.
3. Tap iCloud.
4. Under Apps Using iCloud, toggle off the on/off switch next to GarageBand.

Unfortunately, this does mean that you won't be able to access any GarageBand songs you've saved to iCloud Drive. They won't be deleted or anything — they'll still be there once you switch iCloud back on — but you won't be able to work on them until the issue is fixed. Any new songs you create will be saved to your device's native memory.

GarageBand is free on the App Store. It comes pre-installed when you purchase an Apple device, but if you've deleted it and want it back, you can get it here:

• GarageBand - Free - Download now

Thoughts? Questions?

Have you been experiencing any issues with GarageBand since updating to iOS 11? Give us a shout in the comments and let us know if switching off iCloud fixes the issue for you.

Prior to iOS 11, toggling off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in Control Center killed those radios dead. Now, it only kills current connections but leaves everything from Apple Watch and Apple Pencil connections and AirDrop and Universal Clipboard features running as normal. And some people aren't happy about it.

The EFF:

Apple has to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of customers from first-time users to long-time pros. Sometimes those needs are in conflict.

For example, it wasn't intuitive to first-time, casual, and mainstream customers that turning off Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth would cause AirDrop, Instant Hotspot, call and SMS relay, and other features to stop working. Or, that it would cause Apple Watch, Apple Pencil, and even AirPods to cut out. Many of us have had first-hand experience helping family members with exactly those problems.

Having the Control Center toggles shut off the current Wi-Fi connection or third-party Bluetooth devices, but keep Continuity services and Apple Pencil and Apple Watch-style deeply-connected accessories keep going makes the most sense to that user group, And it's a big user group.

But, it comes at the expense of longer-term, more expert users who know full well how the protocols and radios work, and are used to how Control Center toggled them in previous versions of iOS. You know, the ones who want "off" to mean "OFF".

To further complicate matters, connections re-active when you come in range of known networks, or at 5 a.m. local time, because Apple decided that makes sense. The result is a state that's no longer binary or predictable, which is incredibly frustrating for people who expect it to be both.

Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in Settings remains as it was — absolute as in off means OFF. But it's not as readily nor as quickly accessible. And that's inconvenient.

I'm not opposed to the change in theory. Persisting Continuity and deeply-connected accessories is a good thing. But the current implementation isn't a clear win for anyone.

There are several things Apple could do about it:

1. Revert the change, which would again leave casual, mainstream users confused about why Continuity and deeply connected accessories stopped working just because Wi-Fi or Bluetooth was intentionally or accidentally tapped.
2. Add multiple states to the switches — on, disconnect, and off — which would increase complexity and, potentially, confusion.
3. Add an alert-on-toggle — "Are you sure you want to disconnect Apple Watch?" — which would add significant overhead and dialog fatigue to the process.
4. Add a preference in Settings to restore the old behavior, which would just offload the problem to users.

My preference is currently for the 4th solution. Sure, it's "one more toggle", but it could be set to the new behavior by default — and most people, especially casual users, never change defaults — it would only add load to the long-term, expert users who want it and are most capable of handling it.

Apple's iOS team could likely come up with an even better solution, of course. It's their job to do just that.

As to the EFF's security issues with the new implementation, Bluetooth isn't going anywhere. With BT LE and now Bluetooth 5.0, and the aforementioned Continuity features and deeply connected devices, it's becoming increasingly critical to how we use and benefit from technology.

Bluetooth needs to do everything possible to make its protocol as secure as possible. Vendors need to make sure their Bluetooth stacks are bullet-proof. And people concerned about Bluetooth, in general, need to remember that can still kill it completely in Settings. That works the same way it always did.

The new Control Center in iOS 11 came with a plethora of changes that made Control Center even more useful on your iPhone and iPad, but not all the changes are straightforward.

If you're coming from iOS 10, you may be used to using Control Center to turn off Wi-fi and Bluetooth with just a few quick taps. Unfortunately, in iOS 11 you're not able to do that. Here's a quick rundown of what Control Center actually does with Wi-fi and Bluetooth, and how to turn off completely.

• What Control Center does with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• How to turn off Wi-Fi in iOS 11
• How to turn off Bluetooth in iOS 11

What Control Center does with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

As pictured above, you can access Wi-Fi and Bluetooth through Control Center in iOS 11 and when you tap either of those buttons, it may appear as if it turned off the wireless connectivity. What those buttons actually do is more of a temporary "disable" feature that kicks off currently connected networks and devices, but keeps the connectivity active.

For example, if you have a pair of Bluetooth headphones connected to your iPhone or iPad and you want to quickly disconnect them, you can tap the Bluetooth button in the Control Center to do that. The device you had paired will become disconnected, but you could still connect another device without having to press the Bluetooth button again. The same thing goes for Wi-Fi.

If you want to completely turn off Wi-Fi or Bluetooth so you can't connect to anything, you'll need to go through settings.

How to turn off Wi-Fi in iOS 11

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Wi-Fi.
3. Tap the Wi-Fi On/Off switch. Grey means it's off.

You can follow these exact same steps whenever to turn Wi-Fi on as well.

How to turn off Bluetooth in iOS 11

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap Bluetooth.
3. Tap the Bluetooth On/Off switch. Grey means it's off.

You can follow these exact same steps whenever to turn Bluetooth on as well.

Any other questions?

Let us know by leaving a comment below!

Thanks to iPad-specific features in iOS 11, iPad is becoming the everyperson's portable computer and that means the tablet has to be packed with productivity features that make getting work done that much easier and that much more delightful. One of the new features, called "Key Flicks" is more of a game changer than I realized. It makes typing on iPad's QuickType keyboard super-fast and a little fun, too.

Key Flicks puts many of the numbers and symbols hidden behind the More Numbers button front and center, hidden behind a simple swipe gesture.

• How to enable Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11
• How to use Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11
• How to turn off Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11
• Not seeing Key Flicks on your iPad in iOS 11?

How to enable Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11

Key Flicks is on by default in iOS 11, but if you don't see it, you might have to turn it on first.

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.

3. Tap Keyboard.
4. Tap the toggle next to Enable Key Flicks to enable Key Flicks.

How to use Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11

Using Key Flicks is incredibly simple — you simply flick down on the key to access the symbol above the key. Say you're typing a message and you want to send your email to someone. Say your email is my.name@example.com, here's how you'd go about using Key Flicks to type your email:

1. Type out the beginning of your email: my.name
2. When it's time to type the @ symbol, put your finger on the a key and flick down. You should see an @ symbol appear in your text field.

It really is as simple as that! Any number or symbol displayed above the key in the QuickType keyboard is accessible via Key Flicks.

How to turn off Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11

Not diggin' Key Flicks in iOS 11? You can disable it! Here's how:

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.

3. Tap Keyboard.
4. Tap the toggle next to Enable Key Flicks to disable Key Flicks.

Not seeing Key Flicks on your iPad in iOS 11?

If you don't see Key Flicks on your iPad running iOS 11, it's because your iPad is too big! No, really. Apple says Key Flicks works with all iOS 11-compatible iPad models save for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro uses a different system for accessing extra keys by sliding up on a key instead.

Here's the list of iPad devices that work with Key Flicks in iOS 11:

• 10.5-inch iPad Pro
• 9.7-inch iPad Pro
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad 5th generation
• iPad mini 4
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2

Questions?

Run into any trouble using Key Flicks on iPad's QuickType keyboard in iOS 11? We're here to help! Give us a shout in the comments and we'll try to troubleshoot the issue.

The Siri Remote is a mixed bag. Some people love it; some find it too easy to lose or hold upside down. The Apple TV Remote app for iOS took some of the pain away, letting you use your iPhone or iPad for anything the Siri Remote could do, even voice searches.

It's really nice to have, but the Apple TV remote app has a problem: You have to open it to use it, but it's not the kind of app I want to keep open while watching TV. Apple fixed this in iOS 11— now you can use whatever app you want while you're lounging on the couch because the Apple TV controls are just a swipe away in Control Center.

How to add the Apple TV Remote app to Control Center

Note: The Apple TV Remote widget in Control Center only works with the fourth-generation Apple TV and newer.

The beauty of stashing an Apple TV remote in Control Center is that it's accessible from anywhere in iOS, even the Lock screen. You just have to add it to Control Center and it'll be there when you need it.

1. Open the Settings app in iOS 11.
2. Tap Control Center.
3. Turn on the Access Within Apps feature.
4. Tap Customize Controls.
5. Tap the Apple TV Remote switch on. You can also reorder its position in Control Center.

How to control an Apple TV with the Apple TV Remote app in Control Center in iOS 11

Once you're set up, here's how you'll use the controls.

1. Swipe on your screen to activate Control Center. Swiping up should work from most any app, but some apps make it tricky, especially in a beta environment. So if that happens, just press the Home button to exit the app and call up Control Center from your Home screen.
2. Tap the Apple TV button in Control Center to launch the controls.
3. Swipe up, down, and sideways on the large gray area in the middle. This acts as the touchpad. Swipe it to navigate menus, tap it to select items, and swipe or tap it during playback to rewind or fast-forward.
4. If you select a menu item that requires keyboard entry, a keyboard pops up on your iOS device—score!
5. Even handier are the buttons to jump forward and back 10 seconds. They only show up when something is playing.
6. Play/Pause is on the bottom-left. Press Play to start a selected item immediately, instead of viewing its details or iTunes Extras menus first.
7. Hold down the Siri button on the bottom right to speak a query, and your answers show up on the TV screen.
8. Press the Menu button once to go back a level. It's not a pure back button, though. It's a contextual back button for whichever app you're using.
9. The Home button (with the TV icon on it) goes right to the home screen of the TV app—the TV app on the Apple TV, not the companion TV app also on your iOS device.
10. If you press Home again, you'll go to the grid of app icons.
11. Double-tap Home to go to the Apple TV's app switcher, where you can swipe between apps or swipe one up to force-quit it.
12. Hold Home down for a couple seconds and you'll be offered the option to put the Apple TV to sleep (which also shuts off the connected TV).

The only thing you really can't do with the Apple TV controls in iOS 11's Control Center but you can with the Siri Remote, is control the volume. The software remote lacks volume buttons, and the volume buttons on your iOS device don't adjust the TV volume.

If you run into trouble with the Control Center remote, make sure the iOS device and the Apple TV are connected to the same Wi-Fi network—and try restarting the iOS device if needed, since after all, it's running a beta.

How to control more than one Apple TV with iOS 11

If you have more than one Apple TV on your network, the same iOS device can control them all.

1. Tap the name of your Apple TV at the top. This displays a list of all the Apple TVs on your network.
2. Tap a different Apple TV to control that one instead. Easy peasy.

How to restart your Apple TV with iOS 11

If your Apple TV ever gets stuck and needs a force-restart, iOS 11 can handle that too.

1. With a hardware Siri Remote, you'd hold down the Menu and Home buttons. On the software remote in iOS 11's Control Center, hold down Play/Pause and Home.
2. After a few seconds, the light on the Apple TV will blink, and you can release the buttons.
3. The Apple TV will reboot.

Questions?

If you're an Apple TV user, does this make you more excited about iOS 11? Do you think you're more likely to use a stripped-down remote in Control Center, or will you still pop open the full Apple TV remote app? Do you prefer software controls or the hardware Siri Remote? The comments are open.

With iOS 11, you can quickly mark up documents all over the system, including in the Files app. Markup allows you to write, draw, and make highlights on your documents just as you'd be able to do on paper. You'll find most if not all of the documents on your iPad in the new Files app, which brings together items from iCloud, Dropbox, and other storage services, along with local files, and puts them in a central location.

Here's how you can go about marking up your documents in the Files app.

How to mark up a document in the Files app

Marking up a document in the Files app is pretty simple. Here's how you do it.

1. Open the Files app.
2. Tap the file that you want to mark up.
3. Tap the markup button in the top-right corner. Note: if you're marking up a document on an iPad Pro, you can just start writing or drawing on the document with the Apple Pencil if you've got one.

4. Mark up your document with the tools of your choice.
5. Tap the markup button again.
6. Tap Done.

Questions

If you've got any questions about marking up documents in the Files app, let us know in the comments.

The iPhone 8 Plus and its iPhone 7 Plus predecessor pack a ton of photographic computational power and mathematics underneath their sleek glass and metal exteriors. Whenever you open the Camera app on an iPhone, the app begins to instantly analyze the scene for movement and lighting conditions to give you the best picture; this is largely thanks to its A-series chipset and image signal processor (ISP).

iPhone 8 Plus (left) and iPhone 7 Plus (right) use a ton of behind-the-scenes data to give you pictures like this.

In daylight, this isn't visible to the end user — you line up the shot, take the photo, and get your (hopefully) desired result. But when you shoot Portrait mode at night in almost pitch-black conditions, you can see a little bit of that magic in action.

What follows is a fascinating view of the processors at work while shooting in Portrait mode with poor lighting conditions, discovered while testing the iPhone 7 Plus (running iOS 11) and iPhone 8 Plus for an upcoming photography review.

Portrait mode is a special beast

Before iOS 11, Apple's iPhone 7 Plus couldn't shoot in low or dark light at all when it came to Portrait mode. Apple didn't want to provide a poor experience with the blurred "bokeh" depth effect, and because of the telephoto lens's less-than-stellar low-light capability, users were limited to taking portraits in sunlit or bright conditions (or using artificial lighting in a smart way).

But with the latest iOS update and the release of the iPhone 8 Plus, Portrait mode now supports photography in all sorts of lighting conditions including dim lighting, shooting with Flash, and using HDR to balance out tricky exposures.

On the left, an iPhone 8 Plus telephoto shot with no flash. On the right, the same shot with flash (in black and white).

These are great upgrades to Portrait mode, and especially impressive for Apple to ship, given that dim lighting isn't easy for any camera — let alone metering for depth. Portrait mode's "bokeh" effects attempt to blur both the background (and, as of iOS 11, the foreground) around a subject; in little to no light, the camera has to work twice as hard to figure out all of that depth information so that you avoid an out-of-focus subject or weirdly-metered lighting. So Apple's A-series processors and ISP attempt to provide as much focus data as possible to allow the sensor to properly capture the image — and, in the case of the iPhone 8 Plus, sync with the flash for its Slow Sync feature.

Bring on the blobs

When you frame a Portrait mode at night, most of this intense processing happens in an instant. But when it comes to getting focus points in the dark, if you look closely you may see some… interesting aberrations on the screen. Specifically, something I'm calling "focus blobs."

Several times while shooting low light Portrait mode photos with the iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus cameras, I caught glimpses of almost amoeba-like black blobs appearing and undulating around the screen. If you've ever been unfortunate enough to witness water leak into an LCD panel, the look is very similar — a strange sort of dark shape on top of the existing picture, with a slightly lighter ring around it.

I should note that these aren't particularly glaring if you're not looking for them: I was certain I was imagining things at first, but we were able to capture it in a screen recording of a low-light shoot, as well as in a few screenshots (see above). And replicating this is a pretty simple experiment: While running iOS 11, point your iPhone 7 Plus or 8 Plus camera at a light surface, then point it toward an almost pitch-black subject. Focus blobs will almost immediately appear as the iPhone's telephoto camera tries to find a subject, light, and meter accordingly.

It's worth noting this only happens in Portrait mode: In Photo mode, the camera can swap from bright to low lighting conditions almost instantly, in part because the wide-angle lens has a much better aperture for letting in light than its telephoto pair (f/1.8 vs f/2.8).

A spot of magic

Why can we see these blobs? I suspect it has something to do with Portrait mode's "bokeh" preview, which tries to give you a basic idea of what's in focus and what will be blurred out. On well-lit subjects, this pops into focus as a basic blur, but it's a bit slower of a lock when you lose the light.

As such, what I'm calling "focus blobs" may very well be an attempt by Portrait mode to offer bokeh preview for its depth map. It just doesn't quite preview the way that it might in a better light because, well... there's literally no light.

Even if it doesn't quite work from a "show the user what they're going to get" perspective, it's an incredibly cool peek at how hard your iPhone Plus software and hardware is working to properly map low-light image depth. (Even if it is almost impossible to take a screenshot or video of the blobs without boosting the contrast like crazy.) Apple's done some great work in the Portrait arena, and it's pretty nifty to see the processor in action.

What does this mean for the average user? Nothing but a cool science experiment. These blobs are normal, and part of the iPhone's camera system — they won't show up in your final image, and you likely won't notice them unless you're shooting in almost complete darkness. For me, they're just another a reminder of how much effort has gone into making Portrait mode more functional in iOS 11 — and my photos and I are grateful for it.

iPhone 7 Plus (left) with Portrait mode and True Tone Flash on iOS 11 vs iPhone 8 Plus (right) with Portrait mode and True Tone Flash with Slow Sync on iOS 11.

Whether you used it to save apps and other content for later or you used it so you could share things that your friends might enjoy, the iTunes wish list was a thing of convenience in iOS.

Well, once you update to iOS 11, you'll have to put an iTune wish list on your wish list because it's gone.

Apple hasn't really said why it's gone or whether or not it plans on bringing it back, so here we are. It could be because it wasn't be used much, but who knows. If you were hoping for a notification system for price cuts in the App Store, you can probably rest assured that we'll never see that.

If you really miss the wish list and miss it enough to forgo all of the new iOS 11 features, then you can downgrade to iOS 10.3.3, but that's really your only other option, aside from setting reminders or making yourself notes on which apps you want to keep track of.

Did you use the iTunes wish list much on your iPhone or iPad? Sound off in the comments below.

With iOS 11, you'll be able to share storage with members of your Family Sharing group. If your family members are using Apple's free 5GB plan, they'll be automatically moved to your storage if you're using a larger plan. If they're paying for a larger amount of storage, you'll need to invite them, which they will be able to decline.

Note: You can only share an iCloud Storage Plan of 200GB or higher. If your on the 50GB plan, you'll be directed to upgrade first.

Here's how you'll add a family member to your shared iCloud storage plan.

• How to add a family member to a shared iCloud storage plan in iOS 11
• How to accept an invitation to join a Family Sharing iCloud Storage plan

How to add a family member to a shared iCloud storage plan in iOS 11

Adding a family member to your shared iCloud Storage plan is fairly straightforward and quick. You can only share an iCloud Storage plan of 200GB or higher.

1. Open Settings on the device of the iCloud family organizer.
2. Tap the Apple ID banner.
3. Tap Family Sharing.

4. Tap iCloud Storage.
5. Tap Let Your Family Know.

6. Tap the Send button to send an invitation to your family members to share your iCloud Storage.
7. Tap Close.

How to accept an invitation to join a Family Sharing iCloud Storage plan

When you've been invited to share an iCloud Storage Plan with a family member, you'll be able to accept or decline the invitation.

1. Open Messages on the family member's iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap the iCloud invitation in the message that was sent.
3. Tap Accept to join the iCloud Storage Family Sharing plan.

Questions?

If you have any more questions about iCloud shared storage in iOS 11, don't hesitate to ask in the comments.

When you need to send audio from your iPhone or iPad to a different device, you can pop open the Control Center and tap the AirPlay icon near the audio controls to get a list of options. With iOS 11, that button is still there; it's just an extra press away. So no, you don't have to go all the way to Settings > Bluetooth to switch the audio output.

How to switch Bluetooth or AirPlay speakers and headphones using audio controls in iOS 11's Control Center

Control Center in iOS 11 includes some stock controls you can't change and a collection of buttons you can add, remove, and reorder. One of the stock modules is a set of audio controls, but its basic view is quite... basic. Until you expand it.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of your Home screen to launch Control Center.
2. Press firmly (iPhone) or long press (iPad) in the audio playback section of Control Center. It will display whatever you're playing on your iPhone at the moment. If you just tap it, it'll just open the app associated with what's playing.
3. Tap the AirPlay button on the top right of the new window. It looks like a triangle with rings around it.
4. Tap the device to which you'd like to AirPlay audio.

The expanded view also has the volume slider, playback scrubber, and a thumbnail of your content that you can tap to launch the audio app.

• How to customize Control Center in iOS 11

Easy-peasy or not?

Obviously, it would be nice if Apple decided to make that audio-out button available as its own button in Control Center. It would also be great as an optional button, since anyone who doesn't mind the extra force-tap could simply turn the dedicated button off.

Keep in mind that many audio-playing apps have an AirPlay button right inside the app, too.

Any questions about audio playback controls in iOS 11? Let us know!

iOS 11 is packed with a number of changes and new features, including a major design update for Control Center. Aside from a complete visual overhaul, Control Center has also made some changes to its controls, including brightness and volume, both of which now support long press and 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s or newer.

Here's how you will control brightness and volume in Control Center in iOS 11.

• How to change your brightness in Control Center in iOS 11
• How to turn auto-brightness on and off in iOS 11
• How to change your volume in Control Center in iOS 11

How to change your brightness in Control Center in iOS 11

Basic brightness control is in Control Center is as simple as ever.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to activate Control Center.
2. Slide a finger up or down on the brightness slider to change the brightness.

If you want to adjust brightness in smaller increments or control Night Shift, you can press and hold or use 3D Touch on the brightness slider.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to activate  Control Center.
2. Press firmly (on iPhone 6s or later) or press and hold on the brightness slider to expand it.

3. Slide a finger up or down on the brightness slider to change the brightness of the display.
4. Tap the Night Shift button to turn Night Shift on or off.

How to turn auto-brightness on and off in iOS 11

In iOS 11, auto-brightness is now on by default, and the controls for adjusting it are located under Accessibility. Here's how you change your auto-brightness settings.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Accessibility.

4. Tap Display Accommodations.
5. Flip the switch next to Auto-Brightness to turn the feature on or off.

How to change your volume in Control Center in iOS 11

As with brightness, controlling the volume in Control Center in iOS 11 remains simple

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to activate Control Center.
2. Slide a finger up or down on the volume slider to adjust the volume.

Pressing and holding or using 3D Touch on the volume slider will let you adjust volume in smaller increments.

1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to activate  Control Center.
2. Press firmly (on iPhone 6s or later) or press and hold on the volume slider to expand it.
3. Slide a finger up or down on the volume slider to adjust the volume.

Questions?

If you need to know anything else about controlling brightness or volume in iOS 11's Control Center, tell us down in the comments.

Updated September, 2017: Added information on adjusting auto-brightness in iOS 11.

Siri has a few notable improvements in iOS 11, among which is the ability to translate words and phrases into different languages. This can be particularly useful for overseas travelers, especially if you just need a quick translation every now and then. Siri can now translate from English into the following languages:

• French
• German
• Italian
• Mandarin
• Spanish

Apple says that it will add more languages to Siri translation over time.

How to use Sir translation in iOS 11

1. Hold down on the iPhone's Home button or say "Hey Siri."
2. Say something like "Translate [word or phrase] into [your chosen language]."
3. Tap the play button to have Siri say the phrase again.

If you elect to type to Siri instead of speak, translation works the same way, except, of course, that you type your question instead of speaking it.

Siri Translation pairs well with iOS 11's improvements for follow-up questions for Siri, so you can ask, for instance, "How do you say 'where is the museum' in German," get the answer, tap the Siri button again, and follow up with "How about in Italian" and get the correct translation. Additionally, if you keep asking Siri to translate words or phrases without leaving your initial session, Siri will continue translating in the most recent language you asked for without needing to be directed to use it.

Questions?

If you've got any more questions about using Siri translation in iOS 11, please let us know in the comments.

Dropbox's latest iOS update (version 64.3) adds full support for the Files app in iOS 11.

After you've updated to the latest version of Dropbox, you'll need to re-authenticate in order to access your files using the Files app. It's as simple as opening up Files in iOS, tapping on the Dropbox folder in Locations, and following the prompts to authenticate your account. Afterward you'll be able to access all the files you've stored in Dropbox both within the Files app and in any app that supports iOS 11's new document picker.

The company announced support for the Files app back in June:

You can learn more about the Files app in iOS 11 by checking out our guide!

How to view and organize documents in the Files app in iOS 11

iOS 11 lets you share a storage plan between members of your Family Sharing group on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so that no one runs out of space. For $9.99 a month, your whole family can share 2TB of storage, so everybody has enough space for photos, documents, and more.

Here's how to share!

Note: You must be on the 200GB plan or higher in order to be able to share storage with family.

How to share iCloud storage with family

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your name at the top of the screen.
3. Tap Family Sharing.
4. Tap iCloud Storage.
5. Tap Let your Family Know.

If a family member already pays for storage, they'll be given the option to upgrade to your plan. If they don't pay for storage, they'll automatically be added to your plan if they accept the invitation.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below!

Apple added a feature to the Notes app on the iPad Pro (you might even say it's a new feature on Apple Pencil) that allows you to instantly open up to a new note from the Lock screen. Everything else is still locked down until you enter your passcode or use Touch ID, but you can use it to jot down a quick note without needing to jump through a bunch of steps. Here's how to use it.

• How to enable Instant Notes on iPad Pro in iOS 11
• How to use Instant Notes on iPad Pro with Apple Pencil in iOS 11
• How to customize how long a recently added note is accessible from the Lock screen
• How to disable Instant Notes on iPad Pro in iOS 11

How to enable Instant Notes on iPad Pro in iOS 11

You can open a new note directly in the Notes app from your iPad Pro's Lock screen, but you'll have to enable it first.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPad Pro.
2. Tap Notes.

3. Tap Access Notes from Lock Screen.
4. Select the way you want to open Instant Notes.
   • Always Create New Note
   • Resume Last Note Created on Lock Screen
   • Resume Ladt Note Viewed in Notes App

How to use Instant Notes on iPad Pro with Apple Pencil in iOS 11

Instant Notes is only compatible with the iPad Pro and can only be accessed with an Apple Pencil, so make sure your Apple Pencil is charged up and connected to your iPad Pro.

All you have to do is tap the screen (make sure the screen is awake, but it doesn't have to be unlocked). You'll automatically open a new note. If you want to access a different note or exit the Notes app altogether, you'll have to enter your passcode or use Touch ID to log into your iPad Pro.

How to customize how long a recently created or viewed note is accessible from the Lock screen

With Instant Notes and the Apple Pencil on iPad Pro or with the Notes app in Control Center, you can access the most recent note you wrote for as little as 5 minutes or as long as all day. You can also set it up to always be accessible from the Lock screen or never be accessible from the Lock screen.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPad Pro.
2. Tap Notes.

3. Tap Access from Lock Screen.
4. Tap Resume Last Note Created on Lock Screen or Resume Last Note Viewed in Notes App.
5. Select a duration of Always, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, Once Daily, or Never.

The note you recently created or viewed will appear for the designated amount of time. After that, you'll open a new note instead.

How to disable Instant Notes on iPad Pro in iOS 11

So your friend keeps playing jokes on you and secretly writing you notes when you're not looking. No problem. You can disable Instant Notes.

1. Launch the Settings app on your iPad Pro.
2. Tap Notes.

3. Tap Access Notes from Lock Screen.
4. Tap Off.

This also disables Instant Notes from being accessed from Control Center. You can still use the Notes tool in Control Center, but you'll have to unlock with Touch ID to enter the Notes app.

Any questions?

Do you have any questions about enabling and using Instant Notes? Put them in the comments and we'll help you out.

iOS 11 has some useful new features in Accessibility to help anyone and everyone customize their iPhone and iPad interface to work with them and for them. Here's what's new.

Smart Invert

Smart Invert is a new setting to be added to the Invert Colors section of Accessibility in iOS. Whereas color inversion inverts everything on the screen, Smart Invert inverts only the areas where it may be deemed necessary for someone who requires it. Otherwise, images stay true, and other insignificant elements of the user interface remain unchanged.

To enable Smart Invert:

1. Launch Settings from your Home Screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Accessibility.

4. Tap Display Accommodations.
5. Tap Invert Colors.
6. Tap the switch next to Smart Invert.

Auto-brightness

In the Display Accommodations section of Accessibility, you can now access the Auto-brightness feature to enable or disable it. When enabled, your screen will brighten or dim, depending on the lighting conditions around you. If you disable it, it may affect your overall battery life, but won't mess with your eyes if lighting conditions change suddenly.

1. Launch Settings from your Home Screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Accessibility.
4. Tap Display Accommodations.
5. Tap Invert Colors.
6. Tap the Auto-Brightness switch to enable or disable it.

Improved Text Detection

Now when viewing an image with text in it, iOS 11 will automatically scan the image for text and read it aloud when VoiceOver is enabled — no need for tapping around to find it. This is a huge improvement for folks who have impaired vision.

Improved photo descriptions

Like Text Detection, iOS 11 will automatically scan an image to figure out what it contains and then read aloud a description to you, without needing to be prompted. It'll even describe the setting and the overall tone of the image, like whether it's bright or dark.

Large text enhancements

For folks who have the largest text option selected, enhancements have been made system-wide to better serve the visually impaired. Apple has even been developing new APIs to allow third-party app developers to implement the large text enhancements in their apps.

Type to Siri

Type to Siri is just for searching things when in a quiet room. It's perfect for vocally impaired individuals or those who simply can't use voice assistants. Users with voice control issues will be able to interact with Siri via text simply by holding the Home button, like you already do.

How to use Type to Siri

Drag and drop with VoiceOver support

Drag and drop is coming and VoiceOver will also be integrated so that visually impaired individuals can enjoy the drag 'n' drop experience as well. Tap and hold an item and VoiceOver will read it out and tell you once you've drug it over another app.

That's it for new Accessibility features in iOS 11, but we'll be sure to tell you more if anything comes to light in future betas.

One of the major changes for using an iPad with iOS 11 is the new Dock, which works more like the Dock on a Mac than any previous iOS dock. You can add anywhere from 11-15 apps to the Dock depending on the size of your iPad, bring it up while in any app, and use it for multitasking.

• How to view and hide the Dock
• How to add or remove apps to Dock
• How suggested and recent apps work
• The Dock and multitasking

How to view and hide the Dock

The dock is always showing when you're viewing your iPad's Home screen, but you can call it up while you're in an app as well.

1. Open an app.
2. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen until the Dock appears.
3. Swipe down on the Dock to hide it again.

How to add apps to or remove apps from the Dock

1. Tap and hold on the app that you want to add to the Dock.
2. Drag the app to the Dock.
3. Release the app.

To remove an app, tap and hold it and swipe it up from the Dock.

How suggested and recent apps work

The iOS 11 iPad Dock also has an additional optional section that shows suggested and recent apps. Three of your recent apps will appear to the right side of your other Dock apps. Note that none of these apps will be apps that already live on your Dock.

Importantly, this is also the section used for Continuity and app Handoff on the iPad in iOS 11. When using a compatible app on another iOS device or a Mac that you've signed into with your iCloud account, you'll see that app's icon appear in the suggested apps section with a gray badge on it that has the silhouette of the device that's performing the Handoff action.

The Dock and multitasking

The new Dock plays an integral role in multitasking on the iPad in iOS 11. If you want to know how it works, we've got you covered.

• iPad Drag and Drop, Multitasking, and Split View in iOS 11: Everything you need to know!

Questions?

Let us know if you have any questions about using the Dock in iOS 11.

If you've recently installed iOS 11, you may have noticed that no matter how many times you toggle Bluetooth off in Control Center it's still automatically on when you reboot your phone. It's not just you. Nor is it a bug — that's actually just how the operating system works. Not a huge deal if you're privy to that particular information, but without seeking out the specific support page on Apple's website, most of us who were used to iOS 10 had no way of knowing about this feature change.

Now when you tap to power Bluetooth or Wi-Fi down in the new Control Center, it doesn't shut them off completely. Instead, it just disconnects you from most accessories or devices you may have been connected to and disables auto-join capabilities. To actually turn off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, you have to go into the Settings app and do it there. All of this is because Apple wants to keep users' connection intact so they're able to utilize things like Air Play, Air Drop, Apple Watch and Apple Pencil, even if they wish to disconnect from other devices.

The jury is still out on whether this change to the functionality of Control Center is a positive or negative thing. Most people seem to be feeling touchy about it, and with good reason: leaving Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on willy-nilly can jeopardize the security of your iPhone or iPad, make you an easier target for hacking and other potential attacks. Many Apple users are taking to Twitter to air their grievances:

For a list of everything you can actually do with iOS 11's Control Center, check out our article here.

Thoughts?

Are you a fan of this new feature or do you find it bothersome? How are you feeling about the new Control Center in general? Let us know in the comments!

iOS 10 had Maps learning some new tricks, like extensions, and iOS 11 is by no means an overhaul, but it is bringing a couple neat new features to Apple Maps.

Indoor maps

Yup, just like Google rolled out quite some time ago, Apple is finally bringing indoor mapping to its Maps app. You'll be able to check out detailed maps of local landmarks, malls, airports, and more, with full layouts and different icons for differents types of businesses and bathrooms and whatnot. This'll be particularly helpful in airports, since you'll be able to see gates and terminals.

Lane guidance

We've all been there: there's the exit and we're 5 lanes over with no way to get over in the next 10 feet. Apple Maps is introducing lane guidance with iOS 11, so you'll know which lane you need to be in in order to make that turn or get on the off-ramp. Lane guidance even shows you how many lanes there are on a given roadway and will highlight the lane you need to be in.

Perfect… So long as you're in the U.S. or China. Sorry, rest of the world.

Speed limits

No more excuses for speeding because you didn't see the sign: if you live in the U.S. or U.K., Maps will tell you the speed limit of whatever road you happen to be on. You have to be using turn-by-turn directions for the feature to activate.

Light guidance

If you have a basic idea of where you're headed or you're heading down roads you travel often, you can optionally enable "Light Guidance", which essentially cuts down on the directions you get. You'll just get a trip overview, as well as some alternative routes.

AR Flyover

Flyover in iOS 11 lets you "fly over" cities by tilting and moving your iPhone around, which makes it seem like you're actually in the city you're looking at. You can even rotate your phone 360 degrees to feel like you're right in the center of the action, and it'll even move forward as you walk in real life.

Questions?

Any questions about the new features in Maps? Let us know in the comments below!

As your iPhones and iPads get ready to blossom with iOS 11, apps like infltr are getting a facelift in time for the latest update.

One of the coolest things to come with the launch of the iPhone 7 Plus was Portrait Mode, which essentially turns your iPhone into a DSLR camera, and now with iOS 11, infltr is introducing different Depth Effect filters.

infltr is a leading photography app that has become the very first app to allow editing of depth photos, along with four of the most popular photo types on social media:

• Stills
• Live Photos
• Video
• Animated GIFs

Not only is the app incredibly fun to use while you're editing your pictures and simple to get started with, but with new features like Depth Effect filters that add different filters to the background of photos, the ability to capture photos straight from the app with depth control, support for new files and photo edits, and the ability to drag and drop on your iPad, infltr has your photo editing needs covered front to back with iOS 11.

Think of infltr as the ultimate Instagram for all types of photos: you can now automatically add a different filter to the background and the foreground of your photos containing depth information.

• $1.99 - Download Now

The Files app is new to iOS 11 and is a way for you to house and organize your documents so that you can take your work with you wherever you go. Sure, there are Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, but Files lets you have all that and more in one convenient place.

Here's how to view and organize your documents in the Files app in the iOS 11.

• How to organize and view in list or doc view
• How to create folders
• How to add tags
• How to search for specific files
• How to view recently opened or added files
• How to save files locally

How to organize and view in list or document view

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap Browse at the bottom of the screen if it's not already there.
3. Tap the source you'd like to browse. In this example, I'm using iCloud Drive.

4. Swipe down in the middle of the screen to make the sorting options appear.
5. Tap Sorted by [sorting option]. It may say "Sorted by Name" or date or whatever.
6. Tap the sorting option you'd prefer to use.
   • Name
   • Date
   • Size
   • Tags

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap Browse at the bottom of the screen if it's not already there.
3. Tap the source you'd like to browse. In this example, I'm using iCloud Drive.
4. Swipe down in the middle of the screen to make the sorting options appear.
5. Tap the list button on the upper right side of the screen. It looks like three horizontal lines.

How to create folders

Creating folders in the Files app is a great way to organize like files so that you can keep everything neat and tidy.

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap Browse if it's not on the Browse screen already. It'll always default there when you first open the app, but if it's already been open awhile, it could be anywhere.
3. Tap the source from which you'd like to browse. I'm using iCloud Drive here.

4. Swipe down on the middle of the screen to make the options appear.
5. Tap the add folder button on the upper left of the screen. It's a folder icon with a plus sign on it.
6. Type a name for your folder.
7. Tap Done on the top right of the screen.

How to add tags

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap Browse at the bottom of the screen if it's not already there.
3. Tap a source from which you'd like to browse.

4. Tap a folder.
5. Tap and hold on a document for a few seconds and then release. Don't press at all if you have an iPhone with 3D Touch capabilities.
6. Tap the right arrow twice on the small, black menu that appears.
7. Tap tags.
8. Tap a tag or create a new one. You can tap multiple tags if you like.

Now when you sort by tags, your files will be grouped into the corresponding colors.

How to search for specific files

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap the Search bar.
3. Enter a search query and tap the file that comes up or tap Search in the bottom right corner of the screen.

How to view recently opened or added files

1. Launch the Files app from the Home screen.
2. Tap Recents at the bottom of the screen.

Your recent files will all be displayed and will be sorted based on tags and share documents.

How to save files locally

If you want a "hard copy" of a file on your iPhone or iPad, you can download it from iCloud Drive or wherever you may have it stored.

1. Launch the Files app from your Home screen.
2. Tap Browse at the bottom of the screen if it's not already there.
3. Tap a source from which you'd like to browse.

4. Tap a folder.
5. Tap the download button next to the file you want to save locally. It looks like a cloud with a downward arrow.

Questions?

Any questions about the Files app? Let us know in the comments below.

Apple confirmed in a post today that along with a future update to iOS 11 and watchOS 4, users will be able to send and receive money instantly with Apple Pay, and it'll be as easy as sending a message or saying a few words to Siri. There won't even be an additional app to download — person-to-person Apple Pay will use the cards you already have in your Wallet.

All users will have to do to send some cash is open iMessage, tap the App Store icon, and find Apple Pay in the app drawer. After that they can set the amount of money to send and select which card in their Wallet the money will come from, then authenticate the payment with Touch ID or Face ID, depending on which iPhone model they have. Users can also ask Siri to send money to a contact.

After that, the money will appear in the recipient's Wallet on their Apple Pay Cash card. Then they can use it instantly to buy anything from a bubble tea to an Uber ride. Or, if they'd prefer, they can transfer it to their bank account. And best of all, if you're using a debit card, this whole process is totally free. The only time it'll cost you is if you use a credit card: according to Recode, you'll be charged a 3% fee, which is standard across all peer-to-peer payment apps.

Unfortunately, person-to-person Apple Pay will only be available in the U.S. upon its release. Hopefully they'll be able to roll out the feature in other countries soon, but as of right now Apple hasn't announced any concrete plans.

Thoughts? Questions?

Do you see yourself using Apple Pay's person-to-person feature often instead of other apps like Venmo? Let us know in the comments or tweet at us on Twitter!

If you're someone who's been following along with all the latest announcements at the iPhone launch event, then you probably have a couple of questions about the latest version of iOS 11.

Here's everything you need to know!

What's new about iOS 11?

There were so many hardware announcements at the iPhone Launch event that there was not a lot of new coverage about iOS 11; however, we did learn a few interesting facts including the official release date.

How iOS 11 works on the new iPhone X

The new design of the iPhone X prevents certain aspects of iOS 11 functioning the way we've come to expect, especially the ones that use the Home button. iPhone X has no Home button and Apple gave us a quick look at how the iPhone X will do a couple of basic tasks.

To go to the Home screen on your iPhone X, you'll just swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You can do that from the Lock screen or from inside any app.

To enable multitasking, you will need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold for a split second in the middle of the screen. All the apps that are currently open will then display in multitasking mode like normal.

Obviously, this means the Control Center had to move from the bottom of the screen on the iPhone X. To activate Control Center on the iPhone X, you'll need to swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen where your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and battery life icons live.

Learn more about iOS 11

Since iOS 11 betas have been public for a while now, Rene Ritchie has already combed through the new operating system and dissected a lot of information.

Read iOS 11: First Look

When does iOS 11 officially launch.

September 19th will be the day that Apple will push the official versions of iOS 11 out to all users, and right now it appears Apple has pushed the Golden Master beta versions to people in the beta program.

What do you think about iOS 11?

Are you excited for the latest version of iOS? What other features and products are you pumped about at WWDC? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

It's been a bad year Apple firmware leaks. Last month it was unfiltered HomePod firmware accidentally placed in a public directory. This weekend it was iOS 11 Gold Master (GM) firmware leaked to a news outlet.

Leaks happen. They suck for Apple, which loses the value of surprise at the upcoming keynote, and all the employees who have their weekends shattered, their grand unveilings ruined, and will face yet tighter and less convenient disclosure policies going forward. But, they can also help consumers get an earlier, if murkier, glimpse at what's coming up next, so they can better plan their purchases.

I have no beef with leaks. Revel in them or avoid them as you wish, just like you do movie trailers, script leaks, and episode bootlegs. The choice is entirely yours. Just don't read the spoilers and then claim nothing surprised you and everything was boring. Because that's a dick move.

Which brings me, circuitously, to Animoji.

The power of emoji

A funny thing happened at WWDC 2016. Apple's vice-president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, announced "larger emoji" for the company's iMessage platform, and he got one of the biggest rounds of applause at the event.

Understandably so. Messaging is ludicrously popular on mobile. China basically runs on WeChat, Facebook has launched and bought almost as many messaging services as Google has abandoned. And iMessage is the most popular app on iOS.

People love messaging but, increasingly, they love messaging not just with text but with stickers, emoji, and similar visuals.

That's because text, by itself, is a dry, emotionless, and easily misconstrued. Text someone you'll be late and they're likely to get upset with you. Send them a funny sticker or emoji of you racing their way, though, and you just might get a smile instead.

Rumor has it Apple had an even bigger emojification feature planned for the event — one that would emojify the sender — but weren't quite happy with the results. Animoji, if the leaks are right, seems like a vastly better idea and implementation.

Enter, Animoji

Apple has been experimenting with animated emoji for a while. Apple Watch at launch featured animated faces, hearts, and hands. Animoji take things to the next level.

From 9to5Mac:

The Animoji apparently let you "create custom animated messages that use your voice and reflect your facial expressions."

You'll presumably need the more expensive iPhone X — or iPhone 8, iPhone Edition, iPhone Pro, or whatever Apple ends up calling the next(er)-generation OLED iPhone — for them to work, but that's the point.

Selling iPhones

I'm buying tongue-in-cheek when I say a feature like Animoji will sell iPhones. Kind of. The original iPhone lacked many features found in other smartphones of the day but had a user experience so compelling many people didn't care. They just saw the pinch-to-zoom, CoverFlow, rubber banding, and were blown away.

It's those small but incredibly important little touches that speak to people and influence purchasing decisions. Things that take complex new technologies like multitouch and make them relatable.

Animoji and other fun new features like Face ID will help do that for the new sensors in the new iPhone. They'll take complex new technologies like real-time 3D scanning and make them relatable.

Compelling, even.

Apple occasionally offers updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS as closed developer previews or public betas. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That's why we strongly recommend staying away from developer previews unless you need them for software development, and using the public betas with caution. If you depend on your devices, wait for the final release.

iOS 11 will be introducing some changes to the way that the system interacts with Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) links. AMP helps mobile pages load very quickly by removing the parts of a web page that slow down loading, and it also wraps the site's URL in a Google domain, which is what you see when you share a Google AMP link.

As noted by MacStories editor Federico Viticci on Twitter, Safari in iOS 11 will strip out Google AMP links, restoring the URL to its original state when sharing a link from Safari or saving it to Safari's Reading List:

To understand what's going on here, there are a couple of questions we need to ask.

What is Google AMP?

Google AMP is a publishing format geared specifically towards the mobile web that aims to speed up web page loading to as close as instantaneous as possible. This is achieved by stripping pages of much of the extraneous clutter that slows them down. Additionally, pages are cached in Google's AMP cache, which the company says allows them to load more quickly.

AMP has been adopted by a number of media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, and Fox News.

Why does Safari in iOS 11 strip Google AMP links?

The first thing that should be noted about this is that if you just tap on a Google AMP link in iOS 11, you'll still be taken to the AMP page and see the AMP URL in the address bar. But if you share the link from the Safari share sheet or save it to your reading list, the Google AMP portion of the link will be removed.

As for why, there are a few reasons, but the big one that might surprise you is this: the head of AMP requested this feature himself. Malte Ubl, the creator and technical lead of the AMP project, said as much on Twitter:

Ubl goes on to say that Google's stance is that when possible, browsers should share the canonical (original) links to a page rather than the AMP link. This new feature in iOS 11 makes that possible. Ubl also says that he is advocating for a more generally-available solution. This would likely involve Google taking care of stripping out the AMP ornamentation around a link.

The AMP project has received criticism over its treatment of canonical links in the past, with some publishers complaining that it appears that Google is the source of the links view as AMPs. This can be a problem because links are what the web is all about. Some publishers don't want their identity and brand obfuscated in the name of shaving a few seconds of load time, especially if their mobile site loads quickly already.

Does iOS 11 automatically strip out Google AMP links everywhere?

No, and it's important to understand that AMP link stripping only happens in relation to Safari. Saving to Reading List or using the share sheet to send the AMP site that you're currently viewing to someone in iMessage will result in AMP link removal. However, if you open Messages and paste the link in an iMessage thread, it will still be sent as a Google AMP link.

Questions?

If you need to know anything more about Safari's treatment of Google AMP links in iOS 11, tell us in the comments.

I hope you like talking about dessert-themed technology, because Google's latest mobile operating system, Android Oreo, launched on Tuesday. Its rollout is, like all Android updates, somewhat fractured, though Pixel and Nexus owners can get a taste of the new update right now.

• Android Oreo Review

My Android experience largely begins and ends with my Pixel (which, I'll be honest, mostly lives in a drawer), but I like to keep tabs on the mobile operating system space all the same — just because I prefer iOS doesn't mean that other companies won't have good ideas now and then.

Android Oreo is mostly designed to improve the security and functionality of its devices, and it takes quite a few cues from iOS in doing so — Oreo focuses on limiting what apps can do in the background, gives apps tools for creating adaptive icons, adds wide-gamut color support for third-party apps, audio and WebView enhancement APIs, and more.

But outside of these keynote features, there are also a few unique-to-Android features I'd love to see come to iOS in some form.

Picture in picture on a phone

Picture-in-picture (PiP) mode on the iPad is, frankly, awesome: It gives users flexibility and multitasking options in a way that full-screen video never can. With Oreo, Android smartphones will be able to take advantage of the same feature, though as with iOS, it depends on how third-party apps and services implement it. (YouTube, for instance, restricts PiP on Android to YouTube Red subscribers, and doesn't offer it at all for iPad Pro users.)

It's past time for the iPhone to get some PiP lovin': The iPhone 7 Plus (and honestly, even the iPhone 7) have big enough screens that having a smaller video playing in a corner won't detract from the overall experience, and the upcoming iPhone rumors point to an even more functional screen in that department. Let's put the days of full-screen mobile video behind us, and put our kitten video watching preferences in our own hands.

Notification channels

Oreo introduces an alert feature called Notification Channels, which essentially let you more thoroughly customize certain types of notifications from an app. Want Slack DMs to get the full sound and vibration alert matrix, but regular Slack group channel messages just to appear on screen with no fanfare? With Oreo, you'll be able to individually adjust each channel's alerts (though, of course, it's up to the developer to implement).

iOS has a variation of this for some of its stock apps: Photos, for instance, has separate notification controls for Memories and iCloud Photo Sharing, and alerts can be limited to contacts only for that latter option. But there's been no move to let third-party developers provide more granular notification options — which means every Facebook friend request gets the same weight as your best friend writing on your Facebook wall.

With custom third-party notifications, users get more control over what's important to them. Moreover, Apple could use machine learning to help create initial settings for you, based on the notifications you frequently interact with or dismiss.

Autofill APIs

Autofill is a pretty common sight for all mobile operating systems at this point, but Google's going a step further, allowing third-party apps to register as Autofill services. When a password form appears, users will be able to choose the Autofill service they prefer — whether that's Google's default password manager or a third-party service like LastPass or 1Password.

Apple's iCloud Keychain does a great job at storing and providing password and autofill data in iOS, and the upcoming iOS 11 update will even let it do so inside apps. But third-party apps aren't as easily selected: Apps can custom-build in a link or action extension to an app like 1Password, but it can't yet be done at the system level (pressing the same Autofill button as you would to fill iCloud Keychain).

Obviously, the security here needs to be ironclad for a feature like this to roll out, but it'd be a great addition to continue eliminating the need for lengthy, obnoxious passwords.

Snoozing notifications & notification timeouts

Yes, I'm highlighting another notification-based improvement — no surprise, given Google's past success in creating notification features for its mobile OS. This improvement takes a page from numerous Mail apps, allowing users to "snooze" any type of notification for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, or two hours.

• More on Snoozing Notifications

Apple already has snoozing built in to Reminders notifications, but a snooze feature for other alerts would be equally great — sometimes you don't want to stress about email during lunch, but you'd like to see it later in the day. iOS 11 offers one solution to this by storing your old notifications off your initial lock screen (so you can catch up on them even if you accidentally dismiss the screen), but that can get quickly cluttered; having specific snooze buttons for individual alerts allows them to pop back up — and, if necessary, stay present on the screen — for you to deal with them.

On a related note, Oreo also offers notification timeouts for third-party apps: This lets a developer send a notification that automatically expires after a certain time period; for instance, a Facebook event alert for an evening concert that automatically expires 30 minutes after the concert starts.

I've frequently dismissed alerts like this en masse on both my iPhone and Apple Watch because I didn't check them in time; it'd be a small, but nice improvement to see certain alerts fade because they don't make sense to display any longer.

Anything you want to steal from Android Oreo?

Have you read anything about Google's new operating system, iMore? Any other Android features you'd like to see come to iOS in the future?