I’ve written before how surprised I was about just how good of a phone the iPhone X is. I was one of the naysayers who dismissed it as too little too late when it was unveiled, but upon actually holding and using the device I’ve had to eat my words. It is without a doubt the best phone Apple has ever made and it is easy to argue it is one of the best smartphones ANYONE has ever made. And one of the best things I’ve found is the iPhone X gets even better the more you use it because Apple has built in a lot of smaller features to the device that they just haven’t decided to highlight to the general public. Here are the ones I’ve found so far.
Tap To Wake
With the Home button gone, there are one fewer ways the iPhone X has to wake itself up. Yes, you can still press the side button–but many people think that’s it. Not so, however. Apple has built a tap to wake function into the iPhone X’s display. Simply tap it once to wake it up.
Swipe To Switch Between Apps
Another great feature Apple hasn’t spotlighted is the ability for users to swipe through active apps to switch between them. The way this works is, in an open app at the bottom of the screen where the new swipe bar is at, simply swipe left or right to move through your active apps. It’s a great way to quickly bounce between apps and is a nice compliment to the redesigned app switcher.
Reachability Is Still There
When Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus they added a feature called Reachability that lets the user drop the screen down on the iPhone’s display so they could more easily tap buttons at the top that may be just out of reach of their thumbs. Many had thought this feature was nixed on the iPhone X–but that’s not so. First you do need to enable it, though. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility and under the Interaction section toggle on Reachability. Then from inside any app just swipe down on the new home bar (about half an inch above it) and your entire screen will slide down so you can reach the top elements.
Hide Information In Notifications
This is one of the coolest features of the new Face ID camera tech in the iPhone X–and there’s nothing you need to do to activate it. The iPhone X knows when you are looking at your phone and when you are not. If a notification displays on your screen (say, of a new text message) and you aren’t looking at the display, the preview content of the notification will not show. But when you look at the display, the iPhone X will know you are actively viewing it and automatically show the preview content. This is an awesome feature for those with partners with prying eyes.
Dim Your Screen When Not Looking At It
Similar to the feature above, since the iPhone X knows when you are looking at your display or not, it has the ability to instantly dim your screen the second you look away from it and it also automatically returns the brightness to your standard settings once you look at your screen again. This is great for saving battery life.
Quickly Disable Face ID
Depending on where you live, the police may be able to legally insist you unlock your smartphone on the spot via its facial recognition features. For some reason, facial biometrics aren’t protected in the way fingerprints and passcodes are in some localities. That’s why Apple has built in a feature that lets you quickly disable Face ID in a pinch without going into your settings. Just press the side button five times and Face ID will be disabled and you’ll need to enter your passcode instead to gain access to your phone.
