As it’s been a while since I made a post, today I’m going to talk about something that no one has been talking about lately. The new IOS7 operating system for the iPhone is out and with the release of this update, Apple did a lot of under-the-hood changes on how apps behave. One of these changes is the addition of shortcuts.

What are shortcuts? They are basically little blue icons that live on your homescreen and represent an action that you can do with an app. For example, the Safari shortcut takes you to your homepage, the Mail shortcut opens a new email, and so on. There are a ton of them built in and you can also make your own.

How to make a phone call

One of my favorite shortcuts is the phone app. To make a call, all you have to do is press and hold the call button. This will bring up your favorites list (or your recent calls if you don’t have any favorites). From there, just select the person you want to call and release the button.

How to send a text message

If you want to send a new text, press and hold on the messages button. Same as the call button, this will bring up your favorites and show you recently contacted people (if there aren’t any recent contacts, it will just show all of your contacts). Once you select the person, next to their name it will say “Text” click on it to start a new conversation, type your message and press send.

How to create a reminder

This shortcut is pretty straight forward. Press and hold the reminders button and choose from one of your lists or create a new list by clicking the “+”. After you select where you want to place the reminder you can input the details and press “Done”.

How to access search

If you don’t like using spotlight on your home screen, there is a shortcut built in which allows you to search your phone and open apps. To use it, click on the “search” button on your homescreen. This will bring up a list of apps that have the word you are searching for. This works really well, but if you want to search something more specific like “notes” or “reminders” you can do this by clicking on the magnifying glass button at the bottom of the screen. This brings up spotlight which allows you to type whatever it is your looking for.

How to get rid of bottom bar on iphone

One of the complaints about IOS7 is that Apple got rid of the bottom bar. This is easily fixed though. Just swipe up from the bottom of your screen and the bar will disappear. To bring it back, just swipe down from the top of your screen.

How to send a text message

One of the new features in IOS7 is that you can access your contacts list directly from many of the apps by using an “activator” button. This allows you to get rid of extra steps and get to where you want faster. To do this, click on the “add” button which is represented by a “+” sign. To text somebody, press the “messages” button after you have selected your contact.

Conclusion

I hope this was useful for you to understand how shortcuts work. I know it is something that takes a little time to get used to, but once you do it becomes second nature. Just remember there is no need to use the extra taps and swipes now since these shortcuts allow you to go from one place to another by holding your finger down for a little longer. Thanks for reading!