« November-2019

Whether you just bought a new iPhone or have swiped and tapped on one for years, chances are you're not using the device to its fullest.

Just as people once thought that we use only 10 percent of our brain — not true, but you get the idea — you probably barely scratch the surface of what your iPhone is capable of.

That's not surprising, perhaps, considering many hundreds of features are built into today's smartphones with new ones added during each software update.

Here are 10 lesser-known iPhone tips and tricks to try out:

1. Create custom vibrations

How great would it be to know who's calling, just by the way the iPhone is buzzing in your pocket? You can.

In the Contacts app, select your person of choice and tap Edit. Select Ringtone and you'll see a Vibration option.

Press that and you'll see many options, including a Create New Vibration tool to customize your own buzz.

This way, you can have a different ring for your spouse, kids, or friends and know who's calling without needing to glance at your phone. Similarly, you can create custom ringtones for different people as well as have the iPhone's light flash a unique pattern to know who's calling.

2. Turn ebooks into audiobooks

The iPhone has several Accessibility options. One feature called Speak Screen can read aloud any text on the screen at your command. While designed primarily for the sight impaired, anyone can take advantage of this feature if they want to turn an ebook into an audiobook. Now you can listen while in the car, while closing your eyes on an airplane or when jogging down the street.

To activate it, go to Settings | General | Accessibility | Speech. Now activate Speak Screen.

Then, in any app you have open, swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen to hear the contents of the screen read to you, such as an ebook, email, article or notes.

You can tweak the voice, including gender and language; speaking speed; and more

3. Fix Siri’s pronunciation

Speaking of speech, Apple's voice-controlled personal assistant may be great at giving you information such as the weather, directions and sports scores, but sometimes she just doesn't say things right. This is especially true for some names and places, perhaps with origins in other languages, that may be difficult for Siri to pronounce.

And you can't blame the girl if it's spelled one way but pronounced another. (For example, I have a friend named Alissa, but it's pronounced “Aleesa.")

If Siri says something wrong, just tell her. After she mispronounces something, say, “That's not how you pronounce … “ and insert the mispronounced word. Siri will ask for the correct pronunciation and let you check to make sure she got it right.

4. Shake to delete

When typing words in any application (such as Mail, Messages or Notes), or when using editing tools (Cut, Copy or Paste), you can shake the iPhone to undo your typing. Shake again to redo.

This is much faster than pressing and holding the back/delete button until unwanted text is gone.

And yes, a confirmation message will pop up to double-check you meant to do this, and it wasn't just a sneeze. Tap to confirm or cancel.

If this shake feature accidentally happens more often than you like, deactivate it in Settings. Select General | Accessibility | Shake to Undo, and then tap to turn off.

5. Easily scan QR codes

Once upon a time not too long ago, you needed a dedicated app to scan a Quick Response code, the square two-dimensional bar code better known as a QR code. This took time to locate on your iPhone, launch the app and then point it to the little black and white square.

However, with today's iPhones, your camera now knows whether it is looking at a QR code.

Simply launch your camera and hover over the QR code. It will immediately perform the preprogrammed action, such opening a website, showing you a contact or launching a video.

6. Expand your storage

As you likely know, iPhone doesn't let you expand your storage past what you buy initially, such as 64GB or 256GB. Most Android phones, on the flip side, take a microSD card.

But you're not out of luck.

Products like the SanDisk iXpand, from $22, and Kingston DataTraveler Bolt, from $35, snap into the lightning connector of an iPhone or iPad and let you play content from the drive such as TV shows and movies. You also can back up your device's photos onto this teeny drive so you can delete it all off your iPhone or iPad and start snapping photos again.

7. Track a flight

Air travel can be just as stressful for those picking up from the airport as it is for the fliers themselves.

With your iPhone, you now can type the flight number into Safari's address bar and you'll see details of the flight pop up — no app needed. Tap on the results and not only will you see updated flight times and status but a real-time map of where the plane is in the sky.

Picking up family, friends or colleagues from the airport has never been easier.

8. Use the hidden trackpad

Say you're composing a message, email or note, and you need to change something you typed before sending or saving. With your iPhone, simply press and hold on the keyboard and the cursor will automatically become a mouse-like trackpad.

Now keep your finger or thumb on the screen and drag around the cursor to reach the part of text that you want to tweak. Or to highlight text, just press a little harder while continuing to slide your finger. Then let go for the keyboard to return.

9. Quickly edit, share a screen grab

If you see something you want to save or share on your iPhone, press and hold the Home button and Top or Side button. Or with iPhone X, simultaneously press the Volume up button and Lock button.

Previously, if you wanted to edit or share the screen shot, you had to go to the Camera Roll, select the image, and then do your thing. But now, immediately after the screen capture is taken, it will appear as a small thumbnail in the lower left corner of your iPhone.

Tap it to open the picture, edit if you like (such as crop or annotate) and then share, if desired.

10. Get reminders by location

You probably know Siri can be used to set a time-based reminder, like saying “Siri, remind me to call John Smith at 4 p.m.” But did you know that you can set location-based reminders, too?

You can say, “Remind me to call John Smith when I get home,” and you won't be notified until you step up to your door.

If you haven't done so already, for this to work you'll need to create a Contact card with your info on it, including your name and address.

Similarly, you can say something like this: “Remind me to get gas for the car when I leave here,” and you'll be notified only when you drive away from the area.

Neat, huh?

Marc Saltzman has been a freelance technology journalist for 25 years. His podcast, ‘Tech It Out,’ aims to break down geek speak into street speak.

No one wants to waste food. Yet 90 percent of us are guilty of occasionally throwing out still-fresh food, which makes up the majority of what's dumped in our landfills.

Worse, once there, items from our fridge rot and release methane, a harmful greenhouse gas. At least part of the reason we toss out too much, experts say, is some understandable confusion over when food goes bad and what “best by” or “use by” labels printed on packages actually mean.

With the exception of infant formula, such labels are not federally regulated. "Manufacturers set shelf-life dates to assure quality, but those dates are only best estimates and depend on the food,” says Donald W. Schaffner, an extension specialist in food science and distinguished professor at Rutgers University. “A given food consumed after its ‘best before’ date may taste just fine.”

To help clarify things, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement in May supporting the food industry's efforts to standardize the use of the term “Best If Used By” on packaged food. But if we can't depend on the dates stamped on our food to tell us when it's time to throw it out, how do we decide what to pitch and what to keep?

Use your senses to detect food spoilage

"The best way to detect whether food is still good is by relying on your senses,” says Yvette Cabrera, project manager of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Food Matters initiative, which partners with cities to reduce food waste. “Smell it, taste it. Use what your body gave you in order to figure out if something's spoiled or not.” If you're unsure, don't risk it. “We do want people to not waste food, but our general guideline is: When in doubt throw it out,” says FDA spokesperson Paul Cassell.

Understand that spoiled doesn't mean contaminated

"There is often a misconception that spoiled food will make you sick,” Schaffner says. “Generally, the bacteria that spoil food are not the same bacteria that make us sick. A food can be spoiled but also be pathogen-free. A food may also contain pathogens but not be overtly spoiled.” Milk is a great example. When it's spoiled, it smells and tastes really bad, but because it's pasteurized, drinking it won't make you ill (though it may make you gag). As a matter of fact, sour milk can be great in recipes such as sour-milk corn bread or sour-milk pancakes.

Store food correctly to avoid illness

Optimal storage conditions are more important than sell-by dates when it comes to food safety. Even if the date expires during home storage, the U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines say that a product should be “safe, wholesome and of good quality if handled properly and kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below."

Bacteria multiplies rapidly between 40 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, something that can happen anytime, regardless of the date on the package. If refrigerated at the proper temperature, safe storage ranges for some common items include:

• Ground meats, fresh poultry: 1 to 2 days
• Fresh beef, veal, lamb and pork (roasts, chops and steaks): 3 to 5 days
• Lunch meat, opened package/deli sliced: 3 to 5 days; unopened package: 2 weeks
• Leftovers: 3 to 4 days
• Cut fruit: 4 days
• Hard-boiled eggs: 1 week
• Chopped vegetables stored in an air-tight container: 1 week
• Pasteurized milk: 1 week beyond sell-by date
• Raw eggs in shell: 3 to 5 weeks
• Soft cheese, opened: 2 weeks. If mold develops, toss it.
• Hard cheese, opened: 3 to 4 weeks. If it develops a blue-green mold on the exterior, cut away the mold plus an additional half inch below it.

A note about produce: Visibly aging produce can emit gases that speed the ripening of other produce. Use immediately or compost it.

For expert tips to help feel your best, get AARP’s monthly Health newsletter.

Know that you can't smell or taste contamination

This is where things get tricky. Salmonella, listeria and other foodborne pathogens are stealthy and, unfortunately, older people are more likely to get ill from them. Lessening your risk takes knowledge about the proper handling of food and where such pathogens are most likely to show up.

According to the FDA, deli meats, hot dogs, smoked seafood, anything made with unpasteurized milk, store-prepared deli salads and ready-to-eat foods are at risk of contamination. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends adhering to four chief tenets when handling food to avoid illness: Clean, separate, cook and chill.

• Clean hands, utensils, cutting boards, counters and fresh fruits and veggies even if you plan to cut or peel them. “If a melon has salmonella on the outside, and it's cut, this will transfer the pathogen to the surface of the cut melon,” Schaffner says.
• Separate raw meat, poultry, seafood and eggs from ready-to-eat foods in both your refrigerator and grocery basket, and use separate cutting boards and plates for raw meat, poultry and seafood.
• Cook to the right internal temperature. Use a thermometer and this chart to tell you what that temperature should be.
• Chill perishable food within two hours (one hour if it's above 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside) and thaw frozen food in cold water in the fridge or in the microwave, never on the countertop.

Make good use of your freezer

Doing so can extend the life of some foods up to a year. And the array of foods that can be frozen may surprise you — flour, milk, cheese, eggs (not in their shell), to name a few. Of course, some foods work better than others. Cooked meals tend to freeze well in airtight containers. Foods with high moisture content, such as salad greens, tomatoes or watermelon are not recommended as they tend to become mushy when frozen and thawed. If the texture does change, consider using the food in sauces or other cooked dishes. “Frozen cheese is perfectly fine to melt on a burger or for mac and cheese, but if you're planning to thaw it and eat it by itself, that may not be the best experience for you,” Cassell says.

Most items are easy to freeze — just put them into an airtight container to avoid freezer burn. Fruits and veggies, however, benefit from blanching, which preserves their quality, color and vitamin content. And, as long as you defrost properly, you can actually refreeze food.

So how long can food sit in the freezer before you consume it? Here's a rough guide for some common items:

• Soups, stews and cooked beans: 2 to 3 months
• Cooked or ground meat and poultry: 3 to 6 months
• Berries and chopped fruit: 6 to 8 months
• Vegetables, if blanched: 8 to 12 months (depending on the vegetable)

Get creative

Next time you're about to pitch something, take a moment to think of alternate uses. Mushy and brown fruits and leftover pulp can be used for baking or smoothies. Carrot trimmings, celery leaves, parsley stems, mushroom stems and onion skins can be used to make a stock. Stale bread can be toasted and made into bread crumbs or croutons. Even wilted veggies can be revived by soaking them in ice water for 10 to 20 minutes. Red wine, that has turned acidic can be cooked down into a pasta sauce.