64 tips for using iOS 7 on your iPad & iPhone

iOS 7 brings a whole new look and feel to iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. But, as well as the new look, Apple has introduced lots of new features with iOS 7, many of them not immediately obvious. iOS 7.1, which was released in March, also added further new features including new Siri voices, accessibility tools and Calendar options. Here, we share 14 new tips for iOS 7.1 as well as a whopping 50 iOS 7 hints and tips. There’s bound to be a trick you’ve never tried in this list.

Above: A video showing a closer look at some of the new features in iOS 7.1 and how to use them.

This feature was based on iOS 7, although many of the features are still available in iOS 8. Don’t miss our top iOS 8 tips article here: 29 iOS 8 tips & tricks: Get to know iOS 8’s best new features

iOS 7.1 hints & tips

1. Control your iPhone with your face

You can actually control your iPhone just by moving your head in iOS 7.1. Apple has added a new feature to accessibility settings in the update that means you can turn the device’s front-facing camera into a switch.

To try it for yourself, go to General > Accessibility > Switch Control, and then tap the slider so that Switch Control is activated. Add a new switch by tapping Switches and then Add New Switch, and choose Camera.

You can pick what you want to use the camera for. Choosing tap, for example, means each time you move your head in the direction you’ve chosen you’ll tap on the highlighted area on the screen. Choosing Home button means you can press the Home button just by looking to the left or to the right, choosing Siri will activate Siri, and so on. Give it a go!

2. Play YouTube audio in the background

You can play YouTube audio in the background in iOS 7.1, so if you’re listening to a new song on the video streaming service and don’t need to see the accompanying visuals you can go about other tasks without the sound being interrupted.

Find out how to play YouTube audio in the background in our handy tutorial.

3. Open the most recent audio source from Control Centre

You can now discover which app is playing audio by swiping up on Control Centre. The last app to play audio will remain there, which makes for a handy shortcut to iPlayer, Spotify or similar. Just swipe up in Control Centre, and tap on the music source to open that app.

4. Turn off parallax effect on background wallpaper

If you are one of those who were suffering from seasickness due to the parallax effect on the background wallpaper, you can now easily turn off Perspective Zoom. Go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness. Now find the wallpaper you wish to use and when you have selected it tap Perspective Zoom: Off. You can trial it from the Move and Scale screen to see, or rather not see, the effect. This effect can still be turned of if you choose to Reduce Motion, another setting in Accessibility.

5. Darken the colour of buttons & more in iOS 7.1

Perhaps you aren’t too keen on the reds, blues, and greens around the iOS interface. You can make these slightly darker. Go to General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Darken Colours. As a result the buttons and pointers around the OS will appear slightly darker.

6. Make white less dazzling

You can now reduce the white point (which dulls the white elements on the display). Go to General > Accessibility and toggle Reduce White Point in General. The effect will slightly darken the screen.

7. Never miss a button

When Apple redesigned iOS it made the buttons less like buttons. Instead of tapping a symbol designed to illustrate open or close, you tap on the word open or close. Button Shapes in Accessibility brings back some of this interface functionality. Go to Accessibility and toggle on Button Shapes. Now any buttons will gain a grey shading around them, which will presumably not only make them easier to see if you have poor vision but may also be a more appealing option for other users.

8. View all your appointments in Calendar

You can now view your appointments for the next few days from the month screen in the Calendar app.

Previously if you tapped on a day you would be taken to a separate screen that showed the day view with any appointments, but the only way to get a view of your upcoming meetings was to turn your iPhone on its side to view the week in landscape mode. Rather than viewing each day’s appointments on separate screens you can now tap through the days to see what appointments you have lined up while staying in the month view.

To view the calendar in this way tap the button with the box and two lines under it (next to the search icon) in the month view. If you don’t select this view when you tap a day in the Month view of the Calendar you will be taken to a view of the appointments you have booked over the next few days, and you can scroll through them to see what’s coming up.

9. View bank holidays in Calendar

Apple has now added country specific holidays to the Calendar in iOS 7.1. Previously we had synced with a calendar that gave us access to UK holiday dates, since the iOS 7.1 update we now have access to all the upcoming bank holidays in the UK, including some more random ones, like Battle of the Boyne, which is observed on 14 July. 

10. Turn off Passcode

It’s now slightly easier to access the setting regarding your Passcode in iOS 7.1. The Passcode Lock option was previously found in Settings > General. Now you can find it in the third section of options on the Settings page. Tap Passcode to go straight to Passcode options. Enter your passcode and you can make various changes like Turn Passcode Off or Change Passcode.

11. Change Siri’s voice to female

Finally the UK Siri gets a female voice. To switch it over go to Settings > General > Siri. Then tap Voice Gender and choose Female.

12. Use the new male voice in Siri

You may have noticed that the Male voice has changed, too. If you don’t like the new voice, see our how do I get the old Siri voice back article. There’s a new male voice in Siri. Hold down the home button to activate Siri and ask it something.

13. Let Siri know you have finished talking

Hold the home button when talking to Siri and release it when you have finished to let Siri know when you have no more to say. We love this new feature, it’s much easier to manually control Siri’s listening time rather than waiting for the voice assistant to notice when you’ve stopped talking.

14. Let your iPhone 5s decide when to use HDR

The new HDR Auto setting on the camera will allow the app to automatically choose to use the HDR setting on only those occasions when it thinks it will be of benefit. This is a great bonus to those who frequently turn HDR on and off because they don’t want to use the HDR mode all the time. It’s also handy if you would normally keep both HDR and non-HDR shots on your camera roll but you’d prefer not to fill up your phone with duplicate images (you can set the phone to do this in Settings > Photos & Camera > Keep Normal Photo).

In addition to the 14 iOS 7.1 tips listed above, there are lots of tips and tricks for both iOS 7 and iOS 7.1 that you might not know about. Continue reading to find out more about Multitasking, AirDrop, time stamps, call blocking and more.

iOS 7 hints, tips and tricks. How many of them did you already know?

Apple’s iOS 7 brings hundreds of new features to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. All these new features plus the new user interface design means there’s lots to learn about iOS 7. Here, we share 50 iOS 7 tips to help you master the new mobile operating system.

Find out more about iOS 7 in our iOS 7 review.

Above: A video showing a closer look at 10 iOS 7 tips.

1. Close running apps in multitasking – how to close apps in iOS 7

One of the disadvantages of multitasking – the iPhone‘s ability to run apps in the background so that when you return to them they don’t need to reload – is that apps can continue to use battery power and cellular data in the background. Due to this we frequently close running apps when we are finished with them.

In iOS 6 this was accomplished by double pressing the home button and revealing a dock of all of the running app at the bottom of the screen. We would then press and hold an icon until a small cross appeared in the corner of the running apps, allowing us to close each one individually.

In iOS 7 double tapping the home button brings up a completely different view that shows the screen of each running app, along with the icon for that app.

It’s very useful to see the screen as that may tell you all you need to know about the app, but many have been baffled by how to close the app. We watched someone on a train as they tried to press and hold the icon expecting to see the cross appear.

To close open apps in iOS 7 you need to double tap the home button, and then drag the page previews upwards. We thought this would take longer than with iOS 6, but you can actually close two or three pages at a time this way. 

2. AirDrop

Airdrop is a new feature that will make it easy to send photos and the like to friends with iPhones or iPads.

Turn on Airdrop in Control Panel (accessed by swiping up from the bottom of your phone). You and your friend need to tap the word AirDrop and choose whether to be discoverable by just your Contacts or Everyone.

If the iCloud details of the friend you are trying to AirDrop to aren’t in your contacts list you will need to add those details. Now that AirDrop is running you need to go to the photo you wanted to share, tap the Share icon (a box with an arrow pointing out of it), and select AirDrop. The friend you want to share with, and other people nearby who have AirDrop set up will show up.  

Select the image, tap the icon for that friend. Then your friend should receive an alert saying you would like to share a photo. They can tap Accept (or Decline) and the photo will be added to their Photos. When you finish using AirDrop we advise you to turn it off from Control Panel as it uses Bluetooth and leaving it on will be sure to drain your battery – you’ll also need to turn off Bluetooth (which can also be done via Control Panel).

Find our more about AirDrop in our AirDrop for iOS 7 review

3. Access the spirit level

Next time you are building Ikea furniture your iPhone or iPad running iOS 7 will come in handy. There is now a spirit level hidden away on a second screen in Apple’s Compass app.

Open Compass and after calibrating (now a case of turning the phone around in your hand) swipe from left to right. There are two spirit levels to choose from, place your phone flat on your MDF shelving and when the inclination is spot on the screen will turn green. Place the phone upright and you can measure the incline or make sure that wall you just plastered is completely perpendicular. 

4. Check cellular data use – restrict data hogs to WiFi

Earlier this year we started getting alerts from our mobile network around the end of the month telling us that we were nearing the end of our data allowance.

In iOS 7 managing the greedy data hogging apps is easy. Go to Settings > Cellular and scroll down to see the Cellular Data Usage (we make a habit of resetting this each month when our contract renews) and, new in iOS 7, a break down of which apps have been using cellular data. If any of those numbers raise alarm bells you can toggle the switch and stop them using cellular data. You can also assess the System Services and their data use on the next page (tap System Services).

5.  See time stamps in iMessage

Drag your finger from right to left and you will see the time that each message was sent. Handy if you want to know if someone is inviting you to lunch today or tomorrow, for example. 

6. Delete an iMessage

Another thing that doesn’t seem so straightforward in iOS 7 when compared to iOS 6 is deleting individual text or iMessages. In iOS 6 you could tap the Share icon (or was it Edit) Edit button at the top of an iMessage chain, and that would give you the option to select a message to delete or clear all the messages. Now in its place you see the word Contact, which lets you call or Facetime your friend, or press the i to add to their Info.

So how do you delete those embarrassing texts now? Press and hold the offending text message and select More… Now you can choose to delete that message, or choose Delete All, which now appears as an option at the top of the screen. This won’t delete the message from your friends phone. Once a message is sent, it’s sent; you can’t hold Apple responsible for drunken texting.

7. Delete emails

Just as with Messages, people have been wondering how to delete emails, and particularly how to delete emails. As with iOS 6 you can delete multiple emails by tapping Edit at the top of the screen and then tapping on the circles beside the emails you wish to delete and then tapping Trash. However, if it’s just one email that you want to delete the gesture is slightly different to in iOS 6.

You now swipe from right to left where you now get the option to Trash or More. Tap More and you can Reply, Forward, Flag, Mark as Unread, Move to Junk, or Move Message. If you select a message that is part of a Thread you won’t get the option to Reply or Forward. You need to tap on the message to access the thread to view the individual messages first.

8. Adjust text sizes and properties

When iOS 7 was first previewed back in June people were split over the fonts with some people complaining that the thinner font that was being used throughout the beta of iOS 7 at that time was too difficult to read. Apple not only responded by changing the weight of the font, so it’s a little thicker, it’s also made it possible for iOS 7 users to make changes to the fonts themselves. 

Access the text size properties under Settings > General > Text Size. Here you can adjust the reading size of fonts by dragging the slider. This won’t make every word on your screen bigger, just the fonts within apps, but it does mean that you can change it so that the text in Messages and Mail are bigger. Not all apps support this right now, but many may in future.

9. Block someone from calling you

Back in the days of iOS 6 we wrote an article on how to block nuisance callers. It was based on a workaround because it was not possible to actually block a caller. Now in iOS 7 you can actually block a caller.

Read our How to block a nuisance caller’s number article to find out how.

10. Place FaceTime audio calls

We love the idea of saving our mobile phone contract minutes by using FaceTime, but sometimes you don’t want to feel like you need to give that person all your attention by appearing on camera while you are speaking to them. Now in iOS 7 it is possible to place an audio call in FaceTime (which we find also has the benefit of providing better audio quality than a mobile call does).

To place an audio FaceTIme call, tap on a contact listing and tap the telephone icon to the right of the FaceTime option. While this will save you cash if you are on WiFi, note that if you make a call this way over 3G or 4G it will come out of your data allowance. You’ll also notice that everyone in your Contacts list will have a FaceTime and handset icon, even if they don’t have an iPhone, iPad, or iCloud account. If you tap the handset icon you will get a notification saying “This person is not available for FaceTime Audio”.

Above: A video taking a closer look at even more iOS 7 tips and tricks.

More iOS 7 hints, tips and tricks

11. Use Burst Mode

Compact and SLR cameras usually offer a continuous shooting mode so that you can take a series of shots in quick succession. This is perfect at a sport event, or when you are want to get the perfect snap of a baby or a cat that keeps moving. In iOS 7 you can shoot in Burst Mode. The phone will take photos in quick succession and you can pick the one you like the best. Open the Camera, and just tap and hold the shutter button.

There’s also a more advanced Burst Mode that’s only available on the iPhone 5s. Here the iPhone will take up to 10 pictures a second and save the non-blurry pictures to your camera roll.

12. Take a still while videoing

Another new feature in the Camera in iOS 7 for iPhone 5s is the ability to take still photos while shooting. As soon as you start shooting video a white button will appear on the screen, tap that to take still photographs. These photographs are taken using the full screen, so they have the same 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio as the video you are taking, unlike the standard 4:3 aspect ratio of the photographs you take in the standard photo shooting mode. We wonder why Apple hasn’t added a widescreen shot option to the Video, Photo, Square, Pano options offered by the camera.

13. Repeat an album in iOS 7

The Music app has been given a complete makeover in iOS 7, but a quick search on Google reveals many people asking what happened to the repeat album option. It’s still there, though, it is a bit of a faff to get to.

Open the Music app and tap the More tab in the bottom-right corner. Next, tap the Albums option at the top to access a list of the albums on your device. Scroll through this until you reach the one you want to listen to. Open it and you’ll be taken to a track list. Click a song and you’ll be taken to the screen below. Tap Repeat in the bottom-left corner and you’ll be shown a list of options, including Repeat Album. Tap this and you’re done.

14. Access control panel

You can quickly and easily access the control panel, or Control Centre as it’s officially known, by sliding up from the bottom of your iPad or iPhone’s display. From here, whether your iPhone is locked or unlocked, you can turn on/off Airplane more, WiFi, Bluetooth or Do Not Disturb.

Additionally, the Control Centre gives you access to brightness controls, music controls, the new torch feature, the timer, calculator and camera. You can also turn on or off screen rotation.

15. Turn the torch on & turn off in iOS 7

Speaking of that torch, you may know that you can trigger the flashlight by swiping up on the Control Centre and tapping the torch icon, but did you know that you can turn it off quickly without having to swipe at all?

When the torch is on you can quickly turn it off just by tapping the camera icon in the bottom right of the lock screen. 

16. Turn off parallax effect so iOS 7 doesn’t make you feel sick

iOS 7’s parallax effect turns the screen of your iPhone into something more: a pane of glass behind which users can see a three-dimensional world that shifts and tilts alongside the device itself. Apple’s design guru, British born Jonathan Ive said that he built these three dimentional transitions into iOS 7 to give it depth, but it appears that the movement is causing problems for some people. 

There is a whole  thread on Apple’s support forums about this very matter, some people have even been physically sick due to the transitions. Apparently some people are affected by the transitions that can induce dizziness, vomiting and vertigo-like effects. 

For most iOS 7 users the parallax effect is a fun feature that makes your choice of wallpaper in the background of your iPhone’s home screens move about in the background as you move your iPhone. Another feature of this parallax effect is the way that you return to the home screen after unlocking your phone – you will see the app icons appear to fly into place. 

If you don’t like the parallax effect, you can turn it off by going to Settings > General > Accessibility and tapping “Reduce Motion”. You can now slide the toggle so it appears green, which means that parallax is turned off.

Another reason to turn off the parallax effect is that it can uses up battery – so by turning it off you should be able to extend the battery life of your iPhone.

17. Access extra weather information

With iOS 7, the weather app has been transformed. You’ll now see subtly animated backgrounds that reflect the current weather, as well as information about weather for the rest of the day and week.

When you first open the weather app, you’ll see the location, weather type (e.g sunny), the temperature, an overview of the weather for the next five hours, and weather forecasts for the next five days.

By tapping on the temperature, you can access further information including humidity, chance of rain, wind and what temperature it feels like depending on those factors.

By sliding the area showing the day’s weather, you can see how the weather will change throughout the day. Slide left or right elsewhere in the app to see other locations.

18. See your calendar appointments for today, the week, the month

When you first open the Calendars app in iOS 7, you should see your appointments for the day. You can scroll up and down to see what you should be up to.

If you want to see the rest of your week’s appointments, you can tap the date in the bar at the top to swap between days. Slide that bar to see further back or further ahead.

To see the whole month, you can tap the month in the top left corner. You’ll say a grey dot beneath the date if you’ve got an appointment on that day.

If you turn your device to landscape orientation, you can see a new view of your appointments. This shows you three or four days worth of appointments, depending on the size of your display. Scroll up and down to see appointments that are earlier or later in the day.

Another way to see your appointments is to tap the search button, which looks like a little magnifying glass. Here, you can search for a particular appointment or scroll through an easy to read list and endless of appointments.

19. Share some photos

Photos in iOS 7 are now sorted into Moments. This makes sharing groups of photos easier. Simply go to that Moment and tap the blue Share button. You’ll then have the option to share this moment or share some photos.

Sharing a moment will allow you to send all of the photographs in that moment to a friend. If there are just a few photos in that moment, you can share via a message, email, iCloud, Facebook or Flickr. You can also copy or print from here.

If you’ve got lots of photographs or video to share, you’ll only get the option to send via a message or iCloud, and you won’t be able to print (as printing video could prove to be a little tricky).

To pick and choose photographs, tap the Share button and then select the items you want to share.

If you’re using a newer iPhone such as the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s or iPhone 5c, you’ll also have the AirDrop option here. See more about AirDrop in step one.

20. Set up Photo Stream

Photo Stream allows you to automatically upload new photographs to iCloud as you take them. This means that your photos will be automatically synced to all of your other iCloud devices when you’re connected to WiFi.

To turn on Photo Stream, all you’ll need to do is go to Settings > Photos & Camera and slide the My Photo Stream button to green.

Now, when you take photographs, you’ll see them in the Albums tab in the My Photo Stream album.

You can set up Shared Photo Streams with other users by tapping Shared in the Photos app, and then tapping the plus button. You can name your new stream and then add the contacts that you’d like to share the stream with. Now, whenever you take a new photograph, you can share it with friends via the Shared Photo Stream, by tapping the plus button and choosing a photo.

21. Edit a photo

If you’ve taken a photograph that you’re happy with but haven’t applied any edits yet, you can do this through Apple’s new Photos app.

Go to the photo you want to edit and then tap the Edit button in the top right corner. You’ll be taken to the edit screen where you can rotate an image, auto enhance it, add one of Apple’s eight new filters, get rid of red-eye or crop using the tools in the bar along the bottom.

What’s good about Apple’s photo editing tools is that, even if you’ve saved your edit, you can go back into edit mode on that photograph and revert it back to the original image.

22. Take a panorama 

To take a Panorama photograph, go to the Camera app and swipe left in the centre of your iPhone’s display until you get to Pano. Now, all you need to do is tap the shutter button and move your phone in the direction of the arrow until you either fill up the bar or press the shutter button again. Using this feature, you’ll capture a long, narrow Panorama image.

23. Take a square shot 

Taking a square photograph in iOS 7 is easy. All you need to do is open the Camera app and swipe left once to get to the Square mode. Tap the shutter button and you’ve taken a square shot.

24. Share a location in Maps using AirDrop

If you’re about to head out somewhere and want to share the location with someone who’ll be joining you later, you can do this through AirDrop. If you both have AirDrop turned on, you can go to the Maps app, tap the share button and then tap the person you want to share with. If you can’t see any friends in the AirDrop option, ask them to open Control Centre and turn it on.

25. Delete a note 

If you’ve got a note in your Notes app that you’d like to delete, simply swiped left over that note and tap the red delete button that appears.

From within a note, you can tap the trash can icon at the middle of the bottom toolbar to delete that note.

26. Turn off badges in Notification Centre

If you, like us, are not so keen on the bright red badges that appear on your app icons if you’ve got an update or new message, for example, they you might be pleased to hear that there is a way to turn them off.

If you’d like to turn off badges in Nonfiction Centre you can do so by going to Settings > Notification Centre.

You’ll need to go into individual apps to turn off badges. For example, if you want to turn off Messages badges, you can scroll down and tap Messages, and then use the Badge App Icon slider to turn them off.

READ: H ow to customise iOS Notification Centre to make it less annoying

27. Search

To search your iPad or iPhone, slide down from anywhere on your iPhone or iPad other than the very top (which will show Notifications Centre) or bottom (Control Centre) of the device.

Now you’ll be able to type your search into your device. You can search for apps, contacts, music, mail, notes and more.

You can also use the same swipe gesture to search within apps such as the Notes app and the Mail app.

28. Turn off location services to save battery 

Leaving location services turned on can drain your battery significantly faster than if you turn it off. If you’re not using Maps or an app that requires your location, you can turn location services off.

To do this, you’ll need to go to Settings > Privacy and tap Location Services. From here, you can toggle the feature on or off.

You can turn off Location Services for individual apps too.

39. Swipe to next page in Safari

You can swipe between pages in Safari in iOS 7. If you want to go page to the page you were on previously, just swipe your finger left. To go forwards, swipe right.

30. Turn off background app refresh

As mentioned, thanks to the new multitasking feature in iOS 7, you can have your iPhone or iPad refresh your apps in the background ready for when you want to use them. However, this could cause an increase in data usage and a battery life decrease, so you might want to turn it off.

To turn off background app refresh, go to Settings > General and then slide Background App Refresh to off.

31. Update apps automatically

iOS 7 now has the ability to update your apps automatically, so you don’t have to do it manually. It can also automatically download new purchases that have been made on other devices associated with your Apple ID.

In order to turn this feature on, you’ll need to go to Settings > iTunes & App Store and then scroll down to Automatic Downloads. Here, you can choose to allow automatic downloads of new music, apps and books, and can also turn on the automatic download of updates. Additionally, if you’re happy to use your internet data allowance for this feature, which we wouldn’t recommend unless your allowance is unlimited, you can turn on the Use Cellular Data option.

32. Add apps and music to your Wish List

When you’re browsing the App Store or iTunes Store on your device, you might come across something that you want to download later. Now, you can add these items to your Wish List.

To do so, go to the app or music you want to add and then tap the share icon in the bar along the top. From here, you can tap Add to Wish List.

When you want to look at what’s in your Wish List later, you just need to tap the far right icon in the top bar and tap Wish List.

33. Use Siri to toggle settings

Siri can do more than ever in iOS 7. The voice-activated assistant can now toggle system-wide settings for you, and open the Settings menu for a particular app or command.

You can now tell Siri to “Turn on Bluetooth” for example, or from within an app, you can say “launch settings” to alter the settings yourself.

34. Use Siri to find out what’s Trending on Twitter

Siri also has much closer integration with Twitter. You can ask: “What’s trending on Twitter” and it’ll tell you.

You can also ask what someone is saying on Twitter to see their recent tweets, or search Twitter hash tags, too.

35. Change search engine in Siri

Siri’s default search engine is now Microsoft’s Bing. So if you tell Siri to search the web, it’ll do so via Bing.

If you don’t want to search Bing, you can tell Siri to “Search Google for Macworld,” or “Search Wikipedia for Macworld” for example.

36. Change search engine in Safari

You can also change the search engine in Safari if you want to. To do this, go to Settings > Safari > Search Engine and choose between Google, Yahoo and Bing.

37. Remove a contact from recents in email

When you create a new email in iOS 7, typing in the first letter of a recipient will bring up a list of people you’ve recently emailed. You can remove a contact from the recents list by tapping the ‘i’ next to their name and then choosing Remove From Recents.

38. Open a new tab in Safari

With the Safari improvements comes a new tabs system. You can open up to 24 tabs, or pages, in the Safari app. To access them, you’ll need to tap the square icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

You’ll then see a scrollable 3D view of your tabs. To open a new one, tap the plus button in the centre of the bottom of the screen. You can also open a link in a new tab by tapping and holding on that link and selecting the “Open in New Page” option. 

39. Close a tab in Safari

After tapping the square icon to bring up the view of your tabs, you can close tabs by tapping the cross button.

40. Close all of your Safari tabs at once

Apple hasn’t actually built a ‘Close All Tabs’ option into Safari, but to save you from having to close each one individually, there is a workaround.

In Safari, tap the tabs icon and then tap ‘Private’ and then tap ‘Close All’. You can then turn Private browsing off immediately by tapping the tab button and ‘Private’ again.

41. Find popular apps near you

iOS 7 offers the ability to find and download apps that are popular in your current location. For example, with the Macworld UK offices being situated near King’s Cross, the ‘Popular Near Me’ tab shows the Eurostar app and maps of London.

To access ‘Popular Near Me’, open the App Store and tap ‘Near Me’. You’ll need to have location services turned on.

42. Share a page in Safari

If you come across something you’d like to share in Safari, you can do by tapping the share icon at the bottom of the screen. You’ll need to scroll to the very top or the very bottom of the page to see the navigation and tool bar appear (which is where you’ll find the share button).

From here, you can share in a message, email, Tweet or Facebook status.

43. Turn off Control Centre

Talking of Control Centre, if you find it gets in the way while you’re using an app, you can turn it off by going to Settings > Control Centre. From here you can turn off access to the Control Centre from the Lock Screen and from within apps by tapping the green slider.

44. Use gestures within Messages app

Rather than tapping the back button in Messages, you can now swipe from left to right to return to all Messages.

45. Stop iPhone or iPad from recording locations

If you have Location Services enabled, chances are you’ve also got Frequent Locations enabled, too. If that’s the case, your iPad or iPhone has been recording where you’ve been in order to cache information about what’s nearby, and help improve Maps.

To see what we mean, go to Privacy > Location Services and then scroll right down to the bottom of the list to System Services > Frequent Locations. You’ll now be able to see your recent history (you can clear that history if you choose).

Tap each location and you’ll see that your device knows exactly where you’ve been. To turn this off, you can tap the green slider next to Frequent Locations.

46. See shared links in Safari

Apple has added a new ‘Shared Links’ feature to Safari. It looks at your Twitter feed and bring up a list of links, and the person who shared that link, within Safari, so you can take a look at them.

To see ‘Shared Links’, tap the book icon in the toolbar at the bottom and then tap the @ symbol.

47. Trim voice memos

You can now trim a voice memo in Apple’s Voice Memo app. To do so, open the Voice Memos app then tap on the recording you want to edit. Now tap ‘Edit’, and then the blue square icon on the right of the display just above the play button. There will now be two red lines at either end of the recording. Move them to adjust the length of your clip.

48. Skip to last Christmas photos

The new Photos app means your photographs are sorted a little differently in iOS 7 to the way they were in iOS 6.

Now, if you want to find photographs that were taken last December for example, you can go to Photos and then tap Years.  Then tap the photographs at the bottom of the ‘2012’ group. You’ll be taken to the photographs that were taken latest in the year, which will probably be your Christmas photos.

49. Create a custom vibration

Hidden inside the Sounds menu in Settings is a Create New Vibration option that lets you make a custom vibration if you don’t like the standard Apple one. To do this, go to Settings > Sounds > Ringtones > Vibration > Create New Vibration. Now tap in the pattern that you want the vibration to be. Once you’re happy, you can save the vibration and select it in the Vibration Settings menu beneath the custom header.

50. iOS 7 keyboard tricks

There are some keyboard tricks that, while previously present in iOS 6, some iOS 7 users still aren’t aware of (and it’s because they’re not obvious at all!).

You can double tap the space bar while typing to end a sentence with a full stop and get an automatic space ready for you to start your next sentence. Double tapping the Shift key will leave Caps Lock on and holding down the numbers keyboard key (‘123’) and choosing a number without letting go will mean you’ll revert back to the letters keyboard when you’ve picked the character you want.

If there is a certain punctuation mark or symbol that you can’t find on Apple’s keyboard, try tapping and holding on similar marks and you’ll probably find it’s hidden in the pop up menus.

Not everything about the iOS 7 keyboard is so great, though, particularly in iOS 7.1.