Updated 07:13 AM EDT, Thu, Mar 28, 2024

iOS 8 News: Top 5 Hidden Features & Tips

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Last week saw the release of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as well as Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 8. iOS 8 is more of a minor aesthetic upgrade compared to iOS 7, however, it boasts many awesome new features and functionality under the hood. We've put together a list of how to best take advantage of iOS 8. Check out these hidden features and tips in order to make your iOS experience better than ever. 

Battery Management

iOS 8 now allows you to view which apps are eating up your battery life so you can make adjustments accordingly. Just open the Settings app, then select General > Usage Battery Usage. At this point you will be presented with a screen detailing how much of your battery your apps have used up over the past 24 hours. Pretty neat.

So Long, Google!

The amount of people using Google for all of their web searches is staggering. If you want to avoid using Google on your iOS device, there's a much better alternative than ever before. Previously, iOS users could select Bing or Yahoo for their web searches, in addition to Google, but now you can use DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo might be a preferable alternative to the other major search engines because they don't make a profit from user searches, and it doesn't filter search results like Google does. 

Find My iPhone...Even When it's Off

So, being able to locate your iOS device is nothing new, but now iOS 8 will send you your device's last known location should it's battery die on you. All you have to do to enable this feature is go to Settings > iCloud > find my iPhone/iPad > Send Last Location, and that's it. 

Third-Party Keyboards

iOS 8's QuickType keyboard is supposed to be one of its best features, but what if you want to try something else? Well, before last week that was impossible on an iOS 8 device unless you jailbroke it. Apple has now included support in iOS 8 for the use of keyboards made by someone other than them. Keyboards like Swype and SwiftKey are now available in the App Store. To enable them, just download them from the App Store and then go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard. Just select the new keyboard you've downloaded drag it to the top of the list that appears. That's it. 

Selfie Timer

In what might be the ultimate example of "first world problems," Apple has included a selfie timer in iOS 8, cuz, you know, having to press a button to take a photo might cause the camera to take a blurry photo. And we can't have that. The camera app now has options for either a 3 or 10 second timer when in selfie mode before it snaps a photo. There's also a visible countdown displayed on the screen so you know exactly how long to hold your duck face. 

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