THIS STORY IS IN PROGRESS. IT WILL BE CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED. 

The iPhone you use does many new things compared to just a few years ago. 

Users love they can browse the internet, have a camera, mailbox, phone, and other conveniences in one place. 

But things are changing quickly. Now you can do things like scan important documents, hold a driver’s license, flight passes, coupons and discounts, and more right on the phone.

Camera resolutions are approaching commercial scanner levels. That means the phone can be used to replace scanners with lots of detail. Add AI into the mix along with native software from Apple, makes scanners and FAX machine not needed. 

And that’s just the camera part. Let’s cover that here and cover some of the other things in later posts. 

Here’s the breakdown of what will be covered here and later posts. 

CAMERA

3d scanning

Magnifier (also disability overcome)

AI - Identify things

CONTROLLER

Unlock a car door

Connects to other devices, like Watch, Pods, Networks, goggles, and other phones. 

Certainly worth looking into how iPhones are becoming the “keys” to things…. 

Like Starting cars and unlocking doors and more things. 

SAFETY

SOS

Finding things

Location aware

CONTACT

FaceTime missed calls. Leave audio or video message for later. 

DOCUMENTS

Apple Pay

SOUNDS

Live listen 

DISABILITY OVERCOME

Accessibility for visually and hearing impaired. 

The advent of Apple’s new Continuity really changes things in terms of using and sharing with iPhone. First up is Handoff. 

It has to be turned on in involved devices and iCloud signed into. Handoff is for “continuing” something from one device on another device. Here’s an example: If you’re looking at your bank statement in Safari on the phone, or you’re working on a chart in freeform.app, on the Mac and need to leave, you can transfer what you’re working on to another Apple product. These only work with the Apple suite of programs so forget about using the feature with something like Word or Quickbooks. 

To use it, just make sure it’s enabled in system settings and you’ll see these new icons in the dock, this new icon shows up on the dock of the device you want to transfer to. Just click it in the dock of the new device and it’ll auto open the file where you left off on the previous device. Not heavily used but can be a timesaver for some. 

The Camera

Here’s where some really knockout features happened. 

Not just with the resolution and features added to new cameras, but the post picture options, tricks and features. Check out this feature. 

The picture on the right is a screenshot made on an iPhone. Screenshots get added to the Photos app. And it’s the Photos app where the magic takes place. If you look at the screen shot of a Home Screen you’ll see that the picture was touched and held for a second. And from that, a word, in this case Health gets selected from within the pixels of the picture. That’s wild. Apple calls it “Live Text”, need to verify that’s it. 

The same thing done here can be done with any picture you take, or even using the iPhone to “look” at an item with words in it. Using AI and onboard Smarts, the phone identifies what things are and lets you do things never before seen. 

In this example, you’ll notice there are Drag Handles around the word. Just grab one of those handles to change the selected words. And what can you do with those selected words? Well you can copy them to the clipboard and paste them in another place. Like a research paper or something else you’re doing. That is a very powerful feature. 

MAGNIFIER

Still using iPhone Camera, Magnifier takes what used to be a zoom in on tiny things to another level. There’s two ways to access Magnifier and it varies with which phone you have. Either look for the “Magnifier” app or use the shortcut like below. Shortcuts normally appear when you slide up from the bottom of the screen to open the Control Center. Hit the little Magnifying glass to open the app. 

First up. It’s a great feature for stuff like looking at menus with tiny type in darkened places. Choose your zoom level with the slider or with pinch and spread with the fingers. And even turn on the flashlight for better viewing if needed. 

And now take a look at the new added feature Magnifier has. It’s that little Text Quote box on the left in the picture below. Hit that and Intelligence prints and speaks what the camera is looking at! Yep that’s right. When Descriptions is turned on the camera tries to describe what is being looked at. This feature can be used to help those with disabilities like Visual to use the phone to tell them what’s ahead. And the description is constantly updated getting closer and closer to what is seen actually. Think of a blind person using this to find the door or avoid running into people. The feature is still young but should improve quickly. 

MORE ITEMS TO COVER HERE. *UPDATES TO THIS PAGE ARE ONGOING. 

Stay tuned for updates on some of these very cool and timesaving tips.