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Scrub Through Years of Photos
If you have a lot of photographs, the new Photos app may seem cumbersome. Rest assured, there’s a great way to quickly browse through photos. Tap on Collections and then Years at the top of the screen. From the Years view, hold down your finger on a small thumbnail, and slowly move it around. You will be able to see enlarged previews of each miniature thumbnail. Releasing your finger will select the photo.
Photos: Display Where Photo Was Taken on a Map
Apple did a great job redesigning Photos. By default, iOS 7 is geo-tagging your photos and organizing them by location. If you want to see where the photo was taken on a Map, simply tap the name of the location in the Moments view. A “stack” of photos appears on a Map, indicating where the pictures were taken. If you want to disable photo geo-tagging, navigate to Settings > Privacy > Location Services, then turn off Camera.
Force Reminders to Sync Update
I use Reminders quite often. One annoying defect is that it doesn’t always update from iCloud. For example, if I update a Reminders list on my iPad, sometimes the changes aren’t reflected on my iPhone. You can restart or reset the device — this might work. Occasionally, I have forced Reminders to update by switching off WiFi, which makes the device use my carrier’s network. After a lot of experimentation, the most effective way to force Reminders to sync an update is to tap the edit button, add an item to the list, and then tap done. Within a few moments, you will see network activity and your list will update. You can then delete this extra item.
This is clearly a bug and it has been a problem since iOS 7 was released. For more information on iOS 7 bugs and workarounds, please read this article.
Schedule Do Not Disturb
For those who value sleep, you can now schedule your iPhone’s Do Not Disturb feature. Navigate to Settings > Do Not Disturb, then turn on Scheduled. Drill down into Scheduled, and you can set a time. This is also great for meetings, movies, and other times when you don’t want your phone to ring. You can set this ahead of time so you don’t forget, and it will also go back its normal, noisy state automatically. Keep in mind that Do Not Disturb allows calls from Favorites and repeat callers by default. If you really need to keep your iPhone silent, make sure to adjust these settings. I personally prefer to use the silence slider on the side of my iPhone.
Siri: Male or Female Voice
Siri has been improved in iOS 7. It now has higher quality voices and the ability to choose the gender of your assistant. Navigate to General > Siri > Voice Gender to select a male or female voice.
Block Callers
The iPhone now has a handy feature to block callers. Previously, you would need to contact your carrier to do this, or use their app, if available. First, make sure the caller is in Contacts. Next, go to Settings > Phone > Blocked and tap “Add New”. Select the contact from the list. This will block phone calls, SMS, iMessages and FaceTime access from this contact. It does not block emails. You can remove the block by swiping to the left on each blocked entry and tap “Unblock”. You can also block a contact from the Messages app. Tap on the message and then tap Contact on the top right. Next, tap info (the “i” in a circle) and choose “Block this Caller” at the bottom of the screen.
As you can see, iOS 7 is a huge leap forward. There are many more tips and tricks for iOS 7. The tips in this article are what I feel to be the most useful and least obvious. For more information on iOS 7, feel free to explore hundreds of articles on Appledystopia using the top navigation, site map, and search features.