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If you were tempted to treat yourself to the latest iPhone this Christmas or you plan to gift one to someone else in your family, you might be wondering what the most cost-effective way to do it is. Saving as much money as possible is paramount if you’re wanting to regularly upgrade to the best iPhone which is why subsidizing your next phone by selling your current one is such a great idea. But how do you get the most money back for your existing device?

Well, there are numerous ways to trade in an old iPhone and earn hundreds toward your new one, but each option has its own list of pros and cons. Fret not, though, as we’re here to help guide you through the process. We’ve put together a list of the best places to sell, so you can work out the best iPhone deal for you. Below, you’ll find three different ways you can make some cash, as well as when to make the sale and what you can expect from the process.

1. Sell it to a buy-back service

Looking for a quick and easy option? Consider selling your old device to a buy-back service. Although it’s not entirely without risk — if the old iPhone isn’t in the condition you said it was, for example if it is a broken iPhone, you may not get the full value quoted by the buyer — it does minimize the time and hassle, especially compared with trying to sell it yourself on, say, eBay or Craigslist.

There are traditional trade-in options like those offered by Apple and Best Buy (see the next section), and then there are buy-and-sell marketplaces like those listed below. Before you spend a lot of time hopping from one to another to get quotes, head to Flipsy, which compares US trade-in values at multiple buy-back stores. It shows you the payment methods, price-lock duration (that’s how long you have before you need to send the phone in) and price based on the condition of the old device. (Because each buyback program and store is little different when it comes to “condition” definitions, Flipsy doesn’t drill down beyond phone model, carrier and storage.) SellCell is another price-comparison service for anyone looking to score top dollar for an old iPhone.

If you’d rather check out some individual marketplaces yourself, below are a few options that are worth a look. The sample quotes are based on iPhone 13 trade-ins for “good” condition devices in December 2022 and were correct at the time of writing.

An honorable mention goes to Swappa, which has a sky-high TrustPilot score (4.8) but isn’t really a buyback service. Rather, it’s a marketplace designed to connect buyers and sellers. Think eBay, but with a focus on devices like your iPad, iPhone or other Apple product. To list your older iPhone (which doesn’t guarantee a sale), you must first create a Swappa account and then connect a PayPal account. You also set your asking price, which necessarily includes a sale fee, but not any additional PayPal fees that may apply.

Worth the extra effort? Perhaps: Swappa recommended a sale price of $646 for my iPhone 13, while noting that the same phone had recently sold for $596 — still higher than most buy-back services and more than enough extra to put towards a couple of new iPhone cases for your next phone. But a marketplace is almost always going to net you a higher profit (see below).

2. Trade in for credit toward a new one

Want to cut out the middleman, so to speak? You can start by going back to the source. That can be either the manufacturer or a big-box retailer, the largest of which generally offer solid trade-in options for a new device. Consider two of the biggest fish in the pond: Apple and Best Buy.

The key takeaway here: Shop around. There are plenty of services with program options that will buy your old iPhone or take it in trade, but you might do better selling it yourself.

3. Sell it yourself

Selling an iPhone yourself will usually net you the most profit, but it’s not without risks and hassles.

When to sell your old iPhone

Your old phone is losing market value by the day, so the best time to sell it is always as soon as possible. It’s estimated that within 24 hours of a new iPhone’s unveiling, your old phone loses up to 30% of its trade-in value so you can try to time it right and sell it in the weeks leading up to an iPhone event if you’re smart.

One concern is that if you sell your old smartphone immediately, you’ll be phoneless until the new one arrives. Thankfully, many of the aforementioned buy-back and trade-in services give you a grace period (also known as a “price lock”) of up 30 days after selling your phone before you have to send it in — time enough, hopefully, to purchase and receive your new phone and get everything migrated over (including the SIM card — don’t forget that!). Since the iPhone 14 is just a few months old, this is less of an issue currently.

What to know before you sell your old iPhone

Whether you sell by yourself or trade to a third-party company, make sure you prep your iPhone properly before selling it
. Here are some tips:

• Back it up: Back up all of your important data — including contact, photos, videos and apps — using Apple’s iCloud service or a third-party cloud storage service.
• Turn off Find My: Apple’s Find My app (formerly known as Find My iPhone) is a security feature that must be turned off before you sell your phone — or nobody else will be able to use or reset it. To turn off Find My, open the Settings app on your iPhone and go to Settings > [Your username] > Find My and turn it off.
• Wipe it: Sign out of all apps, services and connected accounts (like your iCloud account). Then, open the Settings app and go to General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings to erase everything from your iPhone. Once this is complete, you can also go to General > Reset > Reset All Settings to restore the iPhone to factory settings, just in case.
• Remove the SIM card: Don’t forget to pop out your SIM card, which you’ll likely need for the new phone to keep your existing number and service.

You’ll receive the most money for your phone if it’s in tip-top shape, but you can still do well if it’s in “good” condition: No cracked screen, no big dents or scratches in the casing, no water damage, and everything working well (meaning the phone turns on, holds a charge and so forth).

If your phone is damaged, you can probably still get something for it, even if the device doesn’t turn on. It’s not worth it to repair a cracked phone screen before you sell, but if your screen is only slightly damaged — a small hairline crack in the corner, for example — you may want to sell it on your own instead of trading it in. An individual may be willing to overlook superficial screen damage for a good price.

More from 12 Days of Tips

• Received the New iPhone 14 as a Gift? Here’s How to Transfer Your Data
• The Best Way to Repurpose That Old Phone: Turn it Into a Security Camera

• Keep Your Old Tech Out of the Trash: How to Recycle Outdated Gadgets for Free

For most of the two months that Elon Musk has owned Twitter, the social media site has been embroiled in controversy. Musk laid off thousands of employees, rolled out a botched blue-check verification system and then suspended the jet tracking account he claimed he’d never suspend.

On Dec. 15, Twitter reached a boiling point when the site suspended several journalists who report on or have been critical of Elon Musk. Twitter reinstated some accounts, but other reporters who did not delete certain tweets are still locked out of the site two weeks later, and more have joined them.

Today, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Gil Duran reported that he’s been banned from Twitter for more than 10 days for tweeting a question about the other suspended reporters: “Is tweeting about a banned account now prohibited? How about tweeting about an account that was banned for tweeting about a banned account?”

For several of those journalists formerly on Twitter, you can now only read their full stories on Mastodon.

Learn more about Mastodon and how to find the accounts of the reporters who’ve been locked out of Twitter. You can also find a step-by-step process for creating a Mastodon account and participating on the growing social network. For more about social media, here’s how to delete your Twitter account and how to download your Twitter archive before you do.

Which reporters and accounts were suspended by Twitter?

On Dec. 14, Twitter suspended @elonjet, a bot account that tracked the private flights of Elon Musk. It’s run by University of Central Florida student Jack Sweeney, whose personal account and other bot accounts were also suspended. Musk had criticized Sweeney’s account but also pledged not to ban it in a now infamous tweet from Nov. 6.

To justify its suspension of Sweeney’s accounts, Twitter updated its private information and media policy on Wednesday to prohibit “live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes.”

The following day, the official Twitter account for Mastodon was suspended, apparently for sharing a link to the Elonjet account on mastodon.social.

Later in the day on Dec. 15, around 4:30 p.m. PT, several technology reporters found their Twitter accounts had been suspended. Some, but not all, of the accounts had posted links to the Elonjet account on Mastodon.

In response to news of the suspensions, Musk tweeted, “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.” Suspensions of other reporters who tweeted about Musk continued through the evening. Musk posted two Twitter polls asking when the journalists should be allowed back on Twitter, and the “Now” response won both polls. Several, but not all, journalists had their Twitter accounts reinstated after deleting certain tweets. Others have refused to delete tweets, and others yet have been suspended for uncertain reasons.

Most of the major Twitter accounts that were suspended on Twitter have created accounts on the decentralized social media network Mastodon, with differing levels of participation. Here are the links to their official accounts on Mastodon:

• Elonjet flight tracker
• Elonjet owner Jack Sweeney
• Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell
• CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan
• Mashable reporter Matt Binder
• Intercept reporter Micah Lee
• Voice of America correspondent Steve Herman
• Independent journalist Tony Webster
• Business Insider reporter Linette Lopez
• Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz
• Independent journalist Aaron Rupar
• New York Times reporter Ryan Mac
• CNN reporter Jim Acosta

• San Francisco Chronicle reporter Gil Duran

Other famous Twitter accounts that are now on Mastodon include:

• English actor Stephen Fry
• Climate activist Greta Thunberg
• Comedian Kathy Griffin
• Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn
• Actor and director Alex Winter
• New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman
• Actress Morgan Fairchild
• Actor George Takei

How can I follow someone on Mastodon without joining?

Almost all Mastodon servers allow public posts on the network to be viewed by anyone, regardless of whether you have a Mastodon account. You can simply point your web browser to any user’s profile and scroll through their posts.

If you want a centralized way to track multiple Mastodon users, the easiest way is to join a Mastodon server and follow people as you would on Twitter or any other social network (see more below). However, if you really don’t want to join Mastodon, you can also follow accounts using an RSS reader.

Every account on Mastodon automatically publishes an RSS feed that can be followed, For example, you can see an RSS feed of my original Mastodon posts at mas.to/@peterbutler.rss.

How do I join Mastodon?

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is not a single website: It’s a decentralized network made up of thousands of websites talking to each other. To start posting on Mastodon (which until quite recently was called “tooting“) and following other people, you’ll need to create an account on a specific Mastodon server or “instance.”

To start following people and posting messages on the Mastodon social service, you begin by joining one specific instance. Each server (if open for registration) has its own sign-up process, but the majority only require a username, email address and password.

Once you’ve joined a Mastodon instance, however, you’re not limited to just following people and posts on that server. You can follow, favorite, reblog or reply to any Mastodon account that’s connected to the larger Fediverse.

How do I choose a Mastodon server?

The Mastodon organization provides a partial list of servers — about 100 — on its joinmastodon.org site. You can filter the servers by geographic region, language, topic registration process and whether or not they’re hosted by individuals or organizations. All servers on the official Mastodon site have agreed to follow the best practices of the Mastodon Server Covenant.

If you’re just testing Mastodon out, you might consider one of the official server instances run by the Mastodon organization. The first and biggest — mastodon.social — has been inundated with new users and has spawned a second mastodon.online server to pick up the slack.

If you want a bigger list of Mastodon servers to review, your best bet right now is instances.social, which offers a sortable list of more than 17,000 Mastodon servers, as well as a wizard-style app that helps you choose a server that fits your requirements.

The site provides useful data about each Mastodon instance, including number of users, number of “statuses” (posts), server uptime percentage and which versions of the Mastodon software it is running. It also lets you filter servers by language; minimum/maximum number of users; and prohibited/allowed content such as nudity, pornography, advertisements or entertainment spoilers. You can also click any instance name — fosstodon.org, for example, a server devoted to open-source software — to read a brief description of the community.

Once you’re actually on a Mastodon site, you can learn about the instance from its “about” page, browse community users on its “explore” page or view recent posts on its “public” page.

You should read the server rules for each Mastodon instance to make sure it’s a good fit, but don’t worry too much about which server you join. You can follow users on other servers and join and leave as many Mastodon servers as you’d like. If you do move around, Mastodon allows you to migrate all of your followers and lists with you.

How do I join a Mastodon server?

Each Mastodon instance will have its own sign-up process, but the vast majority are the same. You provide a username, email address and password, check the box agreeing to the terms of service and server rules, and click “Sign Up.”

You’ll then see a notification asking you to check your email for a verification message. Click the “Verify email address” in that email message, and you’re done. You can now start posting on your Mastodon server and follow anyone in the Fediverse.

Because of the increased traffic to Mastodon servers since Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, some of those registration emails are taking a long time to show up or never arriving at all.

When I registered for the mas.to server, I got a confirmation email in about 15 minutes. Be patient, and try a new server if you can’t complete the registration for another.

After you verify your email address, your Mastodon account should be up and running. You can start posting or following people, though it will take a while to build up your feed. Web tools like Debirdify and FediFinder can jump-start the process by helping you find your Twitter contacts on Mastodon.

While most Mastodon servers offer the quick registration process described above, other, more private instances will ask that you apply for an invitation to the instance, which requires a manual review and longer registration time.

If you do decide to register on a Mastodon server and make it through the process, come visit me @peterbutler@mas.to to say hi.

For more, learn how social media could be hurting your mental health.

Your Android phone is like your car — it requires regular maintenance so you can identify any major issues, prevent future problems and keep it running at its best.

To start, you can give the exterior of your phone a good clean, since you’re likely putting it close to your face every day. Dust, dirt and gunk can quickly collect in the charging ports and speakers, and it’s not only bad for your hygiene — it can also shorten your phone’s lifespan.

But the most important upkeep work is under the hood, and it includes changing phone settings you may never have touched before.

An investment of just a few minutes can turn your Android phone into something that looks and feels new — at least until you’re able to upgrade. Read on to find five simple tips for decluttering, reorganizing and customizing your Android phone to keep it in tip-top shape.

And if you’re interested in getting a completely new device, check out the best Android phones for this year.

Android Pro Tip – Regularly clean your phone with this $10 kit.

As we mentioned above, part of making your Android phone feel new again is to also clean up the hardware. This $10 Amazon cleaning kit comes with the tools you need to clean your screen and all the stubborn dirt stuck in all the ports. And the best part is the kit can be used for any phone, as well as your headphones, laptop, tablet and more.

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Delete all of your forgotten apps

Take a few minutes to go through your home screen or app drawer and delete any and all apps you no longer use. Not only do those apps take up precious storage, but they potentially have access the personal information or permissions you approved when the app was first launched.

How you go about deleting an app can vary based on who makes your device, but I covered all the bases in this post. Give it a read if you don’t see an uninstall option after long-pressing on the app’s icon.

Eliminate old files to free up storage

After removing any old apps, free up more storage by going through the files saved on your Android phone. It’s far too easy to forget about all of the files you’ve randomly downloaded — like the takeout menu of the new place down the road or a GIF a friend sent. And those files add up. The quickest and easiest way to manage your phone’s storage is to use the Files app that comes preinstalled.

Actually, some phones use a variation of that same app. On Samsung, for example, it’s called My Files. On the Pixel lineup, it’s just Files. On the OnePlus 10 Pro, it’s File Manager — you get the point.

I recommend opening the app drawer on your phone and reaching for “files.” Odds are that will reveal whatever your phone-maker calls the app.

Start with checking the Downloads folder, where you can either delete the files you no longer want or move them somewhere like Google Drive.

Most file apps will also reveal any large files that are saved on your device. For instance, the OnePlus 10 Pro’s File Manager app has a dedicated section in the app for files that are taking up a lot of space.

Tweak home screen settings for a new look

One of the best parts of Android is how much you can customize the entire look of your phone. From installing app icon packs to completely replacing the launcher your phone uses, there are plenty of options to personalize your phone.

While you can definitely jump into tweaking launchers and installing app icons, start by digging into the home screen settings your phone already provides. I do this once in a while and it’s surprising how subtle tweaks to aspects like app layout can make it feel like an entirely new phone.

Long-press on a blank area of your home screen, then select Home settings (or some variation of that). That will open the options for your home screen, where you can customize various settings.

Settings like the size of the app grid. It may seem like a small change to go from a grid of 4×5 apps to 5×5, but that extra column can make a big difference (the same can be said about shrinking the grid).

This is also where you’ll find settings for things like swiping down on the home screen to view notifications instead of having to swipe from the top of the screen.

Go through the respective settings your phone has and experiment with your home screen setup.

Optimize your device settings

Speaking of settings, now is a good time to go through and change any settings that have been annoying you. I have a roundup of settings you’ll want to change and customize on any Android phone to get the most out of it.

For example, turning on dark mode not only makes the app look better, but it saves battery life. And yes, I even show you how to stop app icons from automatically appearing on your home screen.

Customize your privacy options

Before you take a break, do yourself and your Android phone one last favor — double-check your privacy settings.

Open the Settings app then tap Privacy > Permissions Manager. Go through each category to see which apps currently have access to which treasure trove of your personal data. Find an app you don’t want to have access to your location? Turn it off. The same goes for contacts, calendar or camera.

It doesn’t take long to go through each section, and even if it did, it’s well worth the effort.

The iPhone 14 is only a few months old, but I’m already curious to see what’s in store for the iPhone 15. Apple gave us many of the upgrades we’ve been waiting for with the iPhone 14 — especially on the Pro models. Such features include an always-on display for showing the time at a glance and better multitasking through the Dynamic Island.

Still, there are a few ways Apple could take things further with the iPhone 15. For example, the company could do a better job of bringing certain Pro-exclusive features down to its less-expensive iPhone models. Samsung frequently does this with its cheaper phones, and I’d like to see Apple embrace this approach more fully, too. The Dynamic Island also shows a lot of promise already, but Apple could make it an even more integral part of the iPhone experience.

Apple typically announces its new iPhones in September and releases them shortly thereafter. Here’s what I’m hoping to see from the iPhone 15 next year.

Now playing:Watch this:How to Pick the Best iPhone for You

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USB-C charging

The Lightning connector has been around for 10 years, and it’s time for a change. With so many Apple products making the switch to USB-C, there’s never been a bigger need for one charger that powers all devices. Apple currently has four different types of chargers on the market: Lightning (for iPhones, the 2021 iPad, AirPods and a few other accessories), USB-C (for most new iPads and MacBooks), MagSafe (the wireless magnetic charger for iPhones) and MagSafe 3 (the magnetic charger for the 2022 MacBook Air, 14-inch MacBook Pro and 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro).

Making new iPhones compatible with USB-C instead of Lightning means you could use the same cable to charge your new phone, the Mac and new iPads. There’s a good chance most of your other electronics use USB-C too.

The good news is that a USB-C iPhone may not be very far away. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, confirmed that the company would comply with the European Union’s mandate that all phones sold in the region would need to have a USB-C charging port. He made the comments during an interview at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference. Apple has also previously tested USB-C iPhones, according to Bloomberg.

However, Apple has not revealed any specifics about its plans. We don’t know if Apple will begin making the switch to USB-C with the iPhone 15 or if it will wait until the following year, since the new rules require USB-C by the end of 2024. Apple also has not said whether USB-C will be coming to all iPhones or just European models, although analysts expect Apple to make a complete shift to USB-C.

Higher refresh rates on the regular iPhone 15

Starting with last year’s iPhone 13 Pro, Apple added higher refresh rates to the displays on its premium smartphones. The iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have a feature Apple calls ProMotion, which can boost the screen’s refresh rate as high as 120Hz depending on what’s being shown. This results in more fluid scrolling and smoother animations.

It’s a small touch, but one that makes the experience feel more pleasant — as my colleague Patrick Holland wrote in his review of the iPhone 13 Pro. While having a high refresh rate isn’t a deal breaker, it’s become standard on most smartphones. Google’s $599 Pixel 7 has a 90Hz refresh rate and Samsung’s $800 Galaxy S22 includes a 120Hz refresh rate, for instance. Even the $450 Galaxy A53 5G has a 120Hz display, making its absence on the $799 iPhone 14 feel even more noticeable.

More features that use the Dynamic Island

The Dynamic Island, which is available only on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, is essentially a second miniature screen. Instead of getting rid of the notch, Apple gave that space a new purpose by using it to display information from other apps.

For example, you can see music that’s currently playing, timers, and directions in Maps at the top of the screen — eliminating the need to switch between apps. The Dynamic Island makes it easier to multitask on the iPhone 14 Pro, an area in which Apple has traditionally lagged behind Samsung and other Android phones that support split-screen apps.

Now that the Dynamic Island has proven its value, I’d like to see Apple do even more with it next year. It would be interesting to see Apple use this space to make proactive suggestions, like apps that may be useful based on your activity, the time of day or your schedule. Part of the Dynamic Island’s usefulness also depends on what app developers decide to do with it, too. There are already a handful of apps that incorporate the Dynamic Island, such as Pixel Pals, which essentially looks like a Tamagotchi for your iPhone. But I’m hoping to see more practical use cases for the Dynamic Island that make it feel like a more critical part of your phone, similar to the iPhone’s home screen widgets.

If Apple does expand the Dynamic Island’s functionality in the future, there’s a chance you may not need the iPhone 15 to take advantage of it. Instead, Apple could build new Dynamic Island features into its next major software update, which is likely to be called iOS 17.

A smaller notch on the regular iPhone 15

If Apple isn’t going to bring the Dynamic Island to the base iPhone 15, I hope it at least makes the notch less intrusive. The notch hasn’t changed all that much since its debut on the iPhone X in 2017, aside from the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. Meanwhile, other smartphone makers like Samsung, Google and OnePlus have found ways to provide edge-to-edge screens on their devices without carving out a large notch for the front-facing camera. Reducing the notch’s size would likely result in more screen space and a more modern look for the iPhone 15.

If Apple does move in this direction, we might have to wait until the iPhone 16 to see it. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with TF International Securities known for his Apple predictions, estimates under-display Face ID and front-facing camera sensors will be coming in 2024.

That said, there are good reasons why the iPhone still has a larger notch than many of its competitors. It mostly comes down to Face ID, which is more sophisticated than the facial recognition systems found on other phones like the Pixel 7, which Google cautions shouldn’t be used for authenticating sensitive data like payment information.

Reverse wireless charging

Many Android phones have reverse wireless charging, which is exactly what it sounds like. You can use the back of phones like the Galaxy S22 and Pixel 7 to charge other devices, like a smartwatch or earbuds. While it’s likely not a must-have for most people, I can imagine it being very useful for avid AirPods users.

No one likes being stuck on their morning commute with a dead pair of AirPods. Having the option to get just enough juice to make it through my 30-minute train ride by placing my AirPods on the back of my phone for a few minutes could be a game changer. Yes, you’ll have to sacrifice some of your phone’s battery. But if you’re traveling to a destination where you’ll easily be able to charge your phone once you arrive — like the office — it might be worth that tradeoff.

The return of Touch ID

While Face ID is convenient in many situations, there are instances in which using your finger to unlock your phone is just more practical. That’s why I’m hoping Touch ID makes a comeback on the iPhone. Maybe you haven’t had time to set up Face ID so that it works with a mask yet, or perhaps you’re just not holding your iPhone at the right angle for Face ID.

Apple clearly sees the value in fingerprint recognition, considering the top button on the latest standard iPad and iPad Air have Touch ID. Doing the same for the iPhone 15 would add more convenience, giving users the choice to use Face ID or Touch ID depending on the situation. Most Android phones have both a fingerprint reader and some form of facial recognition, so it would be great to see iPhone users get the same options.

It’s unclear whether Apple will ever bring Touch ID back to the iPhone. While the analyst Kuo previously predicted that future iPhones would get an under-display fingerprint sensor, he changed his outlook in March 2022.

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max already address many of the previous shortcomings of Apple’s smartphones. The updates I’m hoping to see in the iPhone 15 may not seem revolutionary, but they’re bound to make everyday tasks like charging and unlocking your phone a bit easier.

You’d probably be a little creeped out if someone kept track of where you went each day over the holidays, right? Believe it or not, that’s what Google and other companies routinely do online. Google offers many helpful apps, but if you have one of the tech giant’s apps on your iPhone or Android device, there’s a chance the company knows your location. Even if your Google account’s location history is disabled, some Google apps could still be storing your location with a timestamp.

After a 2018 investigation by the Associated Press, Google added features to make it easier to control what location and other data is saved, and what is deleted with features like Your Data in Maps and Search, which give you quick access to your location controls.

However, Google was sued by several states in January 2022 over its use of location data. The lawsuits alleged that Google makes it “nearly impossible” for people to prevent their location from being tracked. Google defended itself against the accusations, saying that the claims were inaccurate and based on outdated assertions of its settings.

The good news is that there are settings you can check to make sure Google isn’t tracking you. We’ll tell you how to check and turn off Google tracking, and what the outcomes of doing so might be.

Now playing:Watch this:Stop Google from storing your location and data history…

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Turn off Google’s location tracking

Here’s how to stop Google’s ability to log your location.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. Select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Location history inside the History settings box. This opens Activity controls.

5. Beneath Location History, select the button on the right that reads Turn off. This opens a pop-up window.

6. Scroll to the bottom of this window and select Pause.

Turning off location history only removes where you’ve been from the Google Maps Timeline feature, which logs your location with certain data at a specific time. Google’s support page on the matter says that even when turned off, “some location data may continue to be saved in other settings,” like your web and app activity. Google told us that it uses this data to make features more personalized and helpful, and that this information is never shared with third parties or advertisers. But if you still aren’t comfortable with that, with a few more steps, you can stop Google from knowing where you are 24/7.

What does this stop Google from storing?

Pausing this setting prevents Google from storing location markers associated with specific actions and stops storing information collected from searches or other activity. Turning it off keeps your approximate location private and other places you go — like your home address.

Note that to use certain features effectively, like the Maps app, Google will still need to access your location. However, completing the steps above prevents it from storing any future activity. When Google timestamps your activity within a general area, it is within a span of more than 1 square mile with typically more than 1,000 users to protect personal privacy. Google’s help page on the matter says this helps them to detect unusual activity, such as a sign-in from another city, while maintaining personal privacy.

However, you can grant Google permission to use your precise location — your exact location, like a specific address — for the best search results for where you are.

Pros and cons of turning off Google tracking

Turning off this default setting does have some drawbacks. While Google’s settings may seem intrusive to some, they also help cultivate an ultra-personalized online experience, such as helping people find nearby businesses instead of ones in another city, or seeing personalized ads. They help give users more relevant information instead of random information, according to Google.

Turning off tracking means you’ll see less relevant ads, less helpful search recommendations and get a less personalized experience overall using the search engine and its apps and services. For those who enjoy personalized ads, turning off tracking will prevent Google from predicting what you might care about. However, for those who prioritize privacy over everything, turning this setting off may be worth the loss of specificity.

The bottom line: You can maintain your privacy and lose the personalized internet experience, or continue to see relevant ads and search suggestions instead of more random, unfiltered information.

Now playing:Watch this:Google knows where you are

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Delete old location history

Disabling tracking will prevent Google from storing new location information, but it doesn’t delete any prior data gathered. Here’s how to delete that information.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Location history inside the History settings box. This opens Activity controls.

5. Select Manage history near the bottom of the page. This opens a map with a timeline in the top left corner. The map shows where you’ve been and the timeline shows where you were at what time.

6. To delete your location for a certain date, select the date in the timeline. That date will then be displayed below the timeline. Select the trash icon to the right of the date. In the pop-up window, select Delete day.

7. To delete all your location history at once, select the trash icon near the bottom right corner of the map near the Map and Satellite display options.

8. In the pop-up window, select the box that reads I understand and want to delete all Location History. Select Delete location history.

Stop Google from collecting your web and app activity

When you make a new Google account, Google minimizes the amount of data it collects by only keeping 18 months’ worth of web and app activity by default — anything older than that is deleted automatically. Here’s how to stop Google from collecting your future web and app activity.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity inside the History settings box. This opens Activity Controls.

6. Select Turn off underneath Web & App Activity.

7. Scroll to the bottom of the pop-up window and select Pause.

8. Select Got it.

Stop iPhone Apps From Tracking You With This Settings Change

See at CNET

Automatically delete your location and activity history

You can also automatically delete your Google location and activity history if you’d prefer to have your history automatically deleted at certain intervals. Here’s how.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, select your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Select Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity or Location History inside the History settings box. This opens Activity Controls for the setting you want to change.

6. Select Choose an auto-delete option under Auto-delete.

7. Select your desired timeframe (3 months, 18 months or 36 months) from the Auto-delete activity older than drop-down menu.

8. Select Next.

9. Select Got it.

Delete all of your Google web and app activity

Even if you’ve stopped Google from collecting your web and app activity, Google has your data from before. Here’s how to delete your previous web and app activity.

1. Open Google.com on your desktop or mobile browser, and log into your Google account by using the button in the top right corner.

2. After logging in, click your user icon in the top right corner and select Manage your Google account.

3. Click Privacy & personalization.

4. Under Things you’ve done and places you’ve been, select Web & App Activity inside the History settings box. This opens the Activity Controls.

5. Select Manage all Web & App Activity near the bottom of the screen.

6. Under Search your activity, click Delete on the right.

7. The new window will display the options to delete your Web & App Activity from the Last hour, Last day, All time or a Custom range. Select All time.

8. A new window will open and ask you to confirm you would like to delete your activity, which will be displayed. Select Delete.

9. Select Got it.

That’s it. Now Google shouldn’t have any web or app activity on you.

On a chilly Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I was under a patio heater with a group of friends when someone said we should get a group photo. What happened next was surprising. Instead of using his phone to take a commemorative photo, my friend pulled out a point-and-shoot camera. I thought to myself, “Wait. The phone killed the point-and-shoot camera years ago. Why didn’t he just use his iPhone?” Granted it was the high-end Sony RX100 VII, which is an excellent compact camera and one of the few point-and-shoots still made today.

Phones from Apple, Samsung and Google include some of the best phone cameras you can buy, like the iPhone 14 Pro, Google Pixel 7 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. But for professional photographers and filmmakers, that’s not always enough. The holy grail is being able to have a truly large image sensor like the one you’d find in a high-end mirrorless camera and a lens mount that could attach to your phone. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong.

Everyone from Samsung to Panasonic, Sony and Motorola has tried to make this dream a reality in some way. Now Xiaomi, the world’s third largest phone-maker (behind Samsung and Apple) is the latest to rekindle the quest for the phone camera holy grail. The company has a new prototype phone that lets you mount a Leica M lens on it.

But this is just a concept. If you’re wondering whether phones will ever make dedicated pro cameras obsolete the way they did with point-and-shoots, the answer is a resounding no. The past decade has shown us why.

Why phone cameras are limited

First, it’s important to understand how your phone’s camera works. Behind the lens is a tiny image sensor, smaller than a single Lego brick. Sometimes there are headlines that Sony, Sharp or, years ago, Panasonic put a 1-inch sensor in a phone. Sadly, that name doesn’t refer to the actual dimensions and in reality, a 1-inch image sensor is about 0.6 of an inch diagonally or, for the sake of approximation, two Lego bricks. The 1-inch sensor is the hoverboard of cameras, but it’s still one of the largest to be put into a phone.

Dedicated cameras have sensors that are closer to 12 Lego bricks (positioned side-by-side in a four-by-three rectangle) and most come with a lens mount that lets you change lenses. The “holy grail” is to put one of these larger sensors into a phone.

But bigger sensors are more expensive than the little ones used in your iPhone and there are space considerations. A lens for a phone camera sensor is relatively small. But lenses for a full-frame sensor are larger and require more space between the back of the lens and the sensor. Phones simply lack this room without becoming significantly thicker.

Every year we see Apple, Samsung and the like take small steps toward improving phone photography. But phone camera hardware has largely hit a ceiling. Instead of radical camera improvements, we get modest upgrades. This could be a sign that companies have honed in on what consumers want. But it could also be a consequence of space and size limitations of tiny sensors.

Instead smartphone-makers use computational photography to overcome a tiny sensor’s limitations — smaller dynamic range and light sensitivity. Google, Apple, Samsung all use machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to improve the photos you take with your phone.

But hardware is also important. Earlier this month Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, shared a photo on Twitter, above, of a visit to Sony in Japan. While it’s been widely assumed that Apple uses Sony’s image sensors in the iPhone, this is the first time Cook formally acknowledged it. And as CNET readers already know, Sony phones like the Xperia 1 IV have some of the best camera hardware found on any phone sold today.

The Xperia 1 IV won a CNET Innovation award for its telephoto camera, which has miniature lens elements that actually move back and forth, like a real telephoto lens. The result is that you can use the lens to zoom without cropping digitally, which degrades the image. Can you imagine an iPhone 15 Pro with this lens?

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra Leica lens prototype is so 2013

That brings us to Xiaomi, which is the latest company attempting to merge pro-level cameras with your phone. In November, Xiaomi released a video of a phone camera concept that shows a Leica lens mounted on a 12S Ultra phone. This prototype is like a concept car: No matter how cool it is, you’ll never get to drive it.

The Chinese company took the 12S Ultra and added a removable ring around its circular camera bump. The ring covers a thread around the outside edge of the camera bump onto which you can attach an adapter that lets you mount Leica M lenses. The adapter’s thickness is the same distance that a Leica M lens needs to be positioned away from the sensor in order to focus.

A few caveats: The Xiaomi 12S Ultra concept uses an exposed 1-inch sensor, which as I mentioned earlier, isn’t actually 1-inch. Next, this is purely a concept. If something like this actually went on sale, it would cost thousands of dollars. A nice dedicated camera like the Fujifilm X100 V, which has a much bigger sensor, costs $1,399 in comparison.

Xiaomi isn’t the first phone-maker to try this. In 2013, Sony took an image sensor and put it on the back of a lens that has a grip to attach to the back of a phone. The idea is to use your phone’s screen as the viewfinder for the camera system, which you can control through an app. Essentially you bypass your phone’s cameras.

Sony made several different versions of this “lens with a grip” and used sensors that were just a bit bigger than those found in phone cameras. Sony also made the QX-1 camera, which had an APS-C sized sensor that in our Lego approximation is about six bricks positioned side-by-side in a three-by-two rectangle. That’s not as large as a full-frame sensor, but vastly bigger than your phone’s image sensors.

The Sony QX-1 has a Sony E-mount, meaning you can use various E-mount lenses or use adapters for Canon or Nikon lenses. Because the QX-1 is controlled with Bluetooth, you could either attach it to your phone or put it in different places to take photos remotely.

The QX-1 came out in 2014 and cost $350. Imagine having something like this today? I would definitely buy a 2022 version if Sony made it, but sadly the QX-1 was disconitntued a few years after it went on sale. That’s around the time that Red, the company that makes cinema cameras used to film shows and movies like The Hobbit, The Witcher, Midsommar and The Boys, made a phone called the Red Hydrogen One.

Despite being a phone made by one of the best camera companies in the world, the $1,300 Red Hydrogen One’s cameras were on par with those from a $700 Android phone. The back of the phone had pogo pins designed to attach different modules (like Moto Mods), including a “cinema camera module” that housed a large image sensor and a lens mount, according to patent drawings. The idea is that you would use a Hydrogen One and the cinema mod to turn the phone into a mini-Red cinema camera.

Well, that never happened.

The Red Hydrogen One was discontinued and now shows up as a phone prop in films like F9, on the dashboard of Dominic Toretto’s car or in the hands of Leonard DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up.

2023 will show that pro cameras won’t be killed off by our phones

There aren’t any rumors that Apple is making an iPhone with a camera lens mount, nor are there murmurs of a Google mirrorless camera. But if Xiaomi made a prototype of a phone with a professional lens mount, you have to imagine that somewhere in the basement of Apple Park sits an old concept camera that runs an iOS-like interface, is powered by the iPhone’s A-series chip and able to use some of the same computational photography processing. Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe.

How amazing would photos look from a pro-level dedicated camera that uses the same processing tricks that Apple or Google implement on their phones? And how nice would it be to have a phone-like OS to share those photos and videos to Instagram or TikTok?

Turns out, Samsung tried bringing an Android phone’s interface to a camera in 2012. Noticing a theme here? Most of these holy grail phone camera concepts were tried 10 years ago. A few of these, like the Sony QX-1, were truly ahead of their time.

I don’t think Apple will ever release a standalone iOS-powered camera or make an iPhone with a Leica lens mount. The truth is that over the past decade, cameras have gotten smaller. The bulky dSLRs that signified professional cameras for years are quickly heading into the sunset. Mirrorless cameras have risen in popularity. They tend to be smaller, since they don’t need the space for a dSLR mirror box.

If there is a takeaway from all of this, it’s just a reminder of how good the cameras on our phones have gotten in that time. Even if it feels like they’ve plateaued, they’re dependable for most everyday tasks. But they won’t be replacing professional cameras anytime soon.

If you want to step up into a professional camera, find one like the Fujifilm X100 V or Sony A7C, that pack a large image sensor, a sharp lens and can fit into a coat pocket. And next time I’m at a dinner party with friends, I won’t act so shocked when someone wants to take a picture with a camera instead of a phone.

Read more: Pixel 7 Pro Actually Challenges My $10,000 DSLR Camera Setup

iPhone 14 Pro, Pro Max Get the Biggest Changes to Apple’s Phone Lineup

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After a few good years of performance, your old iPhone just isn’t what it used to be. Maybe your display is cracked or your camera is foggy, but aside from the cosmetic damage, there might also be hardware issues, mostly from age, that are affecting how useful your phone is.

And if your iPhone is slow to charge, has trouble maintaining a charge throughout the day or is unexpectedly shutting down, you might have a battery health problem. It’s a common issue to have, because all batteries degrade over time, but is it enough of a problem to consider replacing your battery?

In this story, we’ll show you how to easily check whether or not you need to replace your iPhone battery, as well as what you can do to prolong its health.

Don’t miss: I Replaced My iPhone’s Battery Myself and You Can Too

How to check on your iPhone battery’s health

Your iPhone battery becomes less effective over time, but you could also have a faulty battery on a brand-new iPhone. To quickly check if there’s an issue with your battery health, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging. If you’re running anything below iOS 16.1, the latter will appear as just Battery Health.

At the top, you’ll see the maximum capacity of your battery, which should be 100%, or close to it, if you have a relatively new iPhone.

However, what you want to look at is Peak Performance Capability and the sentence underneath that. If you see Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance, you don’t have any recognized battery issues and you shouldn’t need a replacement.

Do you need to replace your iPhone battery?

If you see any of the following messages, you may need to replace your battery, or at the very least make an appointment with Apple or an authorized service provider to check your battery out:

• This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again/You have manually disabled performance management protections.
• This iPhone is unable to determine battery health. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can service the battery. More about service options.
• Your battery’s health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options.

Depending on whether you have insurance (third-party or AppleCare+) or not, you may not have to spend any money at all to replace your iPhone’s battery. If your iPhone is new, you have at least a one-year warranty to replace a defective battery. If you do not have insurance, Apple charges an estimated $49 to $99 to replace your battery. Additionally, you can check out the Apple Service Programs page to see any replacement or repair programs are available for your device.

Is there anything you can do to prolong your iPhone battery’s life?

The quicker your go through your daily battery life, the quicker your battery’s overall lifespan degrades, so here are some tips to follow, according to Apple:

• Update to the latest software available.
• Adjust your screen brightness (manually or automatically) as needed.
• Use Wi-Fi when available.
• Enable Low Power Mode as needed.
• Turn off Background App Refresh (overall or an on a per-app basis).
• Turn off Location Services (overall or on a per-app basis).
• Turn off Allow Notifications.
• Turn on Airplane Mode when applicable.
• When you charge your phone with your computer, make sure your computer is plugged in.

If you need more battery-saving tips for your iPhone, check out 8 ways to improve iPhone battery life, 2 iOS 16 features to disable to save battery and what happens if you keep your iPhone in Low Power Mode all the time.

The background wallpaper isn’t the only way that you can personalize your iPhone’s home screen.

Thanks to a built-in application, as well as a third-party one that you can download for free from the App Store, you can pretty easily create themes for your home screen, allowing you to create your own unique app icons and widgets.

If you really want to make your iPhone your own, you’ll want to read on to learn how to customize your home screen.

For more about personalizing your iPhone, check out the best iPhone cases in 2022 and how to get rid of some of the most annoying features on iOS 16.

How to change your app icons on your iPhone

The applications that live on the home screen have their own logos, but you can use a native iOS feature to change the look of any app icon:

1. Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone (it’s already preinstalled).
2. Tap the plus icon in the top right corner.
3. Select Add Action.
4. In the search bar, type Open app and select the Open App action.
5. Next, tap App and select the app you want to customize.
6. Then tap the downward-facing arrow next to Open App at the top.
7. From the menu, tap Add to Home Screen.
8. Where it says Home Screen Name and Icon, rename the shortcut to anything you’d like.
9. Next, go into your web browser of choice and find a new icon image. You can search for something like “Facebook icon aesthetic.” When you find an image you like, save it to your photos.
10. Go back to the Shortcuts app and tap the icon under Home Screen Name and Icon. Select Choose Photo and tap on the image you just saved. You can zoom in or out on the image. Tap Choose.
11. Finally, hit Add.

Now you have a customized app on your phone (it’s actually a bookmark). You can delete the original app from your home screen, but you’ll easily be able to find it in your App Library.

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There’s really no better way to personalize your iPhone than with a colorful phone case. FireNova has a silicone case in a variety of colors — sky blue, midnight green and teal — for the iPhone 14.

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Customize the widgets on your iPhone home screen

Apps aren’t the only think you can customize. With the help of this third-party app, you can also add a little flavor to your widgets:

1. Download the Widgetsmith app on your iPhone.
2. In the app, select the size of the widget you’d like to customize — your options are small, medium and large.
3. Tap the widget to customize it. You can change the font and colors. Go back once you’re done and tap Save.
4. Go to your home screen and hold and press down anywhere on the screen.
5. Once you’re in edit mode, tap the plus icon in the top left corner and search for Widgetsmith. Tap the icon.
6. Select the widget size you’d like to add to your home screen and tap Add Widget.
7. You can change the widget by pressing down on the app and selecting Edit Widget. That’s all! Now your home screen has different-size icons for a customized look.

You can create widgets for certain features and applications, including photos, time, date, Weather (paid), Health, battery, Calendar, Reminders, tides (paid), and astronomy.

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Here’s a good New Year’s resolution: Clean out your iPhone’s storage. Those apps, photos, playlists and videos can pile up quickly, and our phones can only hold so much. Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to maximize your phone’s capacity.

The best way to save local storage is to invest in a cloud storage service like Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, Box or Dropbox to offload some of your files. But there are also certain settings you can change to make sure you’re using your iPhone’s storage capacity to its fullest. Now that iOS 16 launched, your iPhone will also be able to detect duplicate photos, which should make it easier to keep your image library lean and organized.

See below to learn more about how to free up storage space on your iPhone.

Apple iPhone 14

$799 at Apple

First, see what’s taking up the most space on your iPhone

To maximize your iPhone’s storage, you need to know what’s occupying your device in the first place. Take a look at what’s eating up your storage so that you know where to get started. Launch Settings, tap General and scroll down to iPhone Storage. Choose this option to see a breakdown of the types of files and media that are taking up space on your iPhone. Apple might also make some recommendations about how to free up space, such as reviewing videos stored on your device as shown below.

Make sure your iPhone is optimizing photo storage

Photos are among the biggest offenders when it comes to gobbling up space on your iPhone. But the iPhone’s settings menu has an option that enables your device to save smaller photo files locally if your device is low on space instead of the original versions. These full-resolution photos and videos are instead stored in iCloud, and you can download them as needed. To make sure this feature is turned on, start by opening the Settings app. Then scroll down to Photos and make sure there’s a blue checkmark next to the Optimize iPhone Storage option.

Read more: The Best iPhone 14 and 14 Pro Cases

Save photos and videos to a cloud service instead of on your device

The best way to free up space on your iPhone is to remove files you don’t need to store on your device. But that doesn’t mean you have to downsize your photo library. Instead, try storing them in a third-party cloud storage service like Google Photos rather than on your device. It’s a quick way to free up a lot of storage without requiring you to part with old memories.

But before you delete anything, make sure the photos you want to save have been backed up or transferred to Google Photos. If your photos and videos are not backed up to another service like Google Photos, Dropbox, Box or OneDrive before being deleted, they’ll be permanently erased. This guide walks you through how to copy over your entire iCloud photo library to Google Photos, but just note that the unlimited free storage option is no longer available.

You might be wondering why you need to use a separate cloud service if your photos are already stored in iCloud. That’s because deleting your photos from your iPhone erases them from iCloud as well, so you’ll want to use another service if you plan to delete images from your device.

Read more: Best iPhone 14 Fast Chargers

Delete apps you no longer use

Another great way to clear out your iPhone is to get rid of apps you no longer use. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at which apps you haven’t used in a long time. Open your iPhone’s Settings menu, tap General and go to iPhone Storage. You’ll see a list of your apps along with how much space each app occupies and the last time you used it. Scroll through the list and try deleting apps that you haven’t used in a long time.

Offload apps you don’t use all the time

If you don’t want to completely delete an app, you can offload it instead. Offloading it lets you retain the documents and data associated with that app so that you can reinstall it anytime and quickly pick up right where you left off. Navigate back to the list mentioned above by opening Settings, pressing General and choosing iPhone Storage. Tap any app in the list and select Offload App. You can also set your iPhone to do this automatically by opening Settings, tapping the App Store option and making sure the Offload Unused Apps switch is toggled on.

Automatically delete old messages

It’s not just photos, videos and apps that may be clogging your iPhone’s storage. Getting rid of old text messages can be helpful as well. You can set your iPhone to automatically delete your message history by opening Settings, choosing Messages and tapping the Keep Messages option under Message History. From there, select if you’d like your iPhone to retain text messages for 30 days, one year or forever.

Delete videos and music from apps

You probably have videos and music stored offline in multiple apps on your phone, and fortunately, there’s an easy way to find those files and delete them. Launch Settings, choose General and select iPhone Storage. Search for an app that you’ve downloaded offline content from, such as Netflix. You’ll then see storage information about the app, such as its size and buttons for deleting or offloading it.

If you’ve downloaded offline videos, you’ll also see a section for this content underneath the Delete App button. Place your finger on a downloaded video and swipe it all the way over to the left side of the screen to delete it.

More from 12 Days of Tips:

• The Best Places to Trade In Your Old iPhone
• Buying the New iPhone 14? Here’s How to Transfer Your Data
• Stop iPhone Apps From Tracking You With This Setting Change

Clear out your web browser cache

You can always try cleaning out your web browser cache if you’re really scrounging for space, although deleting apps and media will make a much bigger difference. But doing so could give your iPhone a bit of a speed boost when web browsing, so it’s worth trying if you’re low on storage and are experiencing sluggish browser performance. But just remember that it will sign you out of websites you’ve logged into.

Open Settings, choose Safari and tap Clear History and Website Data.

If you use Google Chrome, tap the three dots at the bottom of the screen, choose History and tap Clear Browsing Data. You should see a check mark next to three categories: Browsing History, Cookies, Site Data and Cached Images and Files. If you want to only delete browsing data for a certain time period, tap the Time Range option near the top of the screen before hitting Clear Browsing Data at the bottom.

Looking for more iPhone tips? Check out our guide to iOS 16. Plus, here’s how to delete your iPhone’s cache.

There’s a lot to discover in iOS 16. As you probably know by now, you can unsend and edit text messages, as well as emails, and easily crop people or objects from photos with a single press. There are also several hidden features you might not know about, like how to find all your saved Wi-Fi passwords.

But not every new iOS 16 feature is universally loved. For example, the new iPhone home screen search button and unexpected photo pop-ups are are not everyone’s cup of tea.

Want to improve your cybersecurity?

We’ll teach you why protecting your identity and data is important. Plus, get recommendations for VPNs, Password Managers and Antivirus Software.

Fortunately, most of these iOS 16 features and settings can be disabled or removed altogether.

I’ll help walk you through how to “fix” the most widely unloved new iOS 16 features. And while you’re here, make sure you’ve changed these clutch iPhone settings and brushed up on these two new Apple Maps features.

Read more: Best iPhone 14 Cases So Far

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Strip the new search button from your iPhone’s home screen

Your iPhone’s search feature lets you quickly find a text message, third-party app, file, note or location — pretty much anything on your device or on the web. As you know, to get the search bar, you just swipe down anywhere on the screen, and it appears.

With iOS 16, Apple adds another way to access Search from the home screen, via a small button right above your dock.

However, the new search button is easy to accidentally trigger, because it’s near where your thumb might go when you swipe between your various home pages.

But, like many new features on iOS 16, you can turn this setting off. Simply launch the Settings app, go to Home Screen and toggle off Show on Home Screen to remove the search button from your home screen.

The Search bubble should disappear, replaced by a few small dots representing your various home screens.

Stop unexpected (and embarrassing) photo popups on your iPhone screen

Apple’s artificial intelligence helps surface photos and videos in various places across your iPhone, as a reminder of family vacations, couple photos and holidays — but you may not always want your personal pictures to pop up unexpectedly, especially if they’re private, embarrassing or inappropriate.

With iOS 16, you can now prevent Featured Photos, as well as curated collections known as Memories, from appearing in photo widgets on your home screen and the Search and For You sections in Photos.

To block these tailored photos, launch the Settings app, go into Photos and toggle off Show Featured Content. All featured content will no longer appear across your device — instead, it’ll only be available in your photo library and albums.

Keep from accidentally ending your own phone calls

The side/power button on the side of your iPhone allows you to quickly sleep and wake up your device, but if you accidentally hit it during a phone call, you’ll prematurely end your call. If that’s something you’ve encountered in the past, iOS 16 finally allows you to prevent that from happening.

In Settings, go to Accessibility > Touch and toggle off Lock to End Call to prevent the side button from ending your calls. If you do hit the side button accidentally, your screen will go to sleep, but you’ll stay on your phone call, uninterrupted.

Go back to using old iPhone lock screen notifications

Apple’s latest redesign brings widgets, customizable fonts and colors, a wallpaper gallery and stylized date and time to the lock screen, as well as one overlooked change to notifications. Instead of appearing at the top of your lock screen, notifications now appear at the bottom, which you can then tap on to appear full screen.

However, not everyone may be happy with this change. If you want to go back to the way notifications appeared on iOS 15, launch the Settings application and go to Notifications > Display As. You’ll then see three options:

• Count: Notifications appear as a numbered count at the bottom of the screen.
• Stack: Notifications appear in a stack at the bottom of the screen.
• List: Notifications appear fully across your screen.

To go back to the old notification style, choose the List option.