6 Things You Might Not Know Your iPhone Can Do

The iPhone. It was an object I lusted for sometime, having made the mistake of buying a Samsung Android. It was frustrating to see many friends, uncles and aunties, not using the iPhone to its full capacity. Are you one of those who only use your phone for some instant message, emails, social media and perhaps some navigation. Or perhaps an extra thing or two like fitness tracker with your FitBit or Xiaomi wearable?

If you are one of the people we have mentioned about, read on to find how you can be empowered with your iPhone and the list of things your iPhone can do, after the break.

An Introduction

The iPhone is an expensive tool or toy, depending on how you see it. Or it could just be an expensive phone, with a touch screen but used no differently than a Nokia. Just for calls and messages. This is where we come in. To help you understand and use your iPhone well, and in later articles, the corresponding apps and accessories for your iPhone.

1) Things your iPhone can do : Learn a language

I was in Tokyo with my new toy back then, the iPad 1 when we went for dinner with a bunch of photographers. And among them was an American lady, who whipped out her iPhone to practice her Japanese. Unlike her, I had a pocket-sized dictionary with thousands of pages that made creating phrases hard.

Nowadays, to learn Mandarin better, I’m on Pleco, the number 1 software to learn Mandarin on the iPhone and iPad. Together with Anki, the app to help you memorise Mandarin words (and other stuff), I think my mandarin is quite acceptable.

2) Things your iPhone can do : Make or break a habit

Habits are crucial. For the longest time I wanted to instil a regular gym and writing habit but find new year’s resolutions don’t quite work for me. Until I found the Streaks app on the App Store. Streaks was recently listed as the App Store’s Best of 2015 apps, and is an amazing but yet simple app to track, make and break habits

If you are trying to achieve something and don’t have any habits app yet, get Streaks today!

3) Things your iPhone can do : Unlimited notebook

I used to take down written notes on a weekly basis as I go to church or run my business. The problem however would the these notebooks eventually run out of space and a new one had to be purchased, leaving me with dozens of old note books through the years. It was also hard to find some snippet through the stack of notebooks.

With the iPhone, I found note taking software like Evernote and Simplenote to be life savers with their unlimited note taking ability. While Simplenote is not as powerful as Evernote, it is sleek and easy to use.

4) Things your iPhone can do : Get you fit

Fitness on the iPhone is more than just subscribing to the KFit app. For myself, I find apps like the sadistic Carrot and FitStar amazingly helpful in improving my workouts and adding cardio to my regular free weight training in the gym. With instructions going from simple (Carrot) to detailed (FitStar), you can easily work out from the comfort of your home or in the gym.

If you prefer jogging or cycling, apps like Running for Weight Loss Pro and Cycling for Weight Loss Pro by Grinasys tracks your running, helps you track the distance and if you subscribe to their service, even adjusts the music to your tempo! Say goodbye to boring workouts with these apps.

5) Things your iPhone can do : Helps you organise yourself better

Organising ourselves can make a difference between having a productive day and having a messy, unproductive one. After trying out many to-do apps, I found Trello and Todoist as amazing task managers. Having used Trello for my coding work though, I find it more powerful than Todoist, especially in managing teams and projects.

6) Things your iPhone can do : Remember your passwords for you

If you are like me and keep forgetting your password to your email or Facebook account, or perhaps bank account, apps like OneSafe makes things a lot easier nowadays. With cloud storage that will synchronise your information between multiple devices, password apps ensures you don’t use the same password for multiple accounts. Or worse, write your password down in some book somewhere.

Conclusion

Phones have come a long way since the days of just making and receiving phone calls. Nowadays, an iPhone with powerful apps like Pleco and OneSafe, can do wonders. If you have an iPhone and some tip on how use it better, comment below.