Features
Roderick Scott 0

Now that iOS 8 is officially out there is a slew of new features added to the mix to make your iDevice better.  Some of you may have to grab the update to storage issues or that U2 album folks are crying over.  While there are plenty of new things to do and add now, some aren't as obvious while others choose to hide in plain sight.  We got a few tips to help you get settled into the newness of iOS 8.  

 

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Adjusting Camera Exposure

 
Within the camera app,you can improve the exposure in the photo by simply tapping on the subject.  But now you can manually make it lighter or darker.  When you tap on the subject, there's a sunlight icon and you can drag it up to raise exposure or drag it down to lower it.  This can easily help improving your iPhone photography.  

 

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Employing Camera Timer

 
Also new to the iOS 8 Photo app is a timer feature.  This can be used when trying to get the right pose for a selfie or a coordinated photo.  When you press the button, you have the option of 3 or 10 seconds before it takes a photo.  It is a sort of clock-like icon that sits in-between the HDR & button to switch between front + rear-facing shooters.  

iOS 8 battery apps

  

 Finding Battery-Draining Apps

 
This is important for those of you running older devices.  New to iOS is the ability to see which app is doing the most damage to your battery.  Insert Android rip-off here.  Simply go to Settings > General > Usage > Battery Usage.  You can see what in the app is doing as mostly the case will be Background Activity or Low Signal.  It will show you apps at work form the last 24-hours and then up to the last week.  

iOS 8 keyboard

Installing New Keyboards

 
So now iOS 8 introduces new keyboards that's not Apple's new QuickType keyboard.  There are only a few available at the moment but that list will grow.  To get started, you need to download the keyboard form the App Store. Then go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard to add whichever ones you downloaded.  If you grabbed SwiftKey, you're gonna have to open the app before being to access it.  You'll need to hit or long-press the Globe icon in the keyboard to access or switch between keyboards.  

iOS NC widgets

Setting Up Widgets

 
Now that the Notification Center supports widgets, let's help you get some up there.  Just like the keyboards, you need to install the desired app or at least update it.  Then pull down the Notification Center and go to the bottom where you should see the Edit button.  There you can select which widgets you want to add or remove by hitting the Green + button or Red - button.  Then hit Done and that's it.  

iOS 8 group convo

Mute Or Leave Group Chats

 
One of my and many others pet peeve about iOS is the fact that you couldn't leave a group chat.  This can get rather annoying after the group chat has passed its time of usefulness.  You can now do so selecting that annoying chat you want desperately leave.  Go to Details and then scroll down just before the group's photo attachments.  You have the options to mute them by hitting the Do Not Disturb toggle or hit Leave This Conversation.  Unfortunately you can only leave convos you started but you can still mute the others.  
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Categories: Features

Author: Roderick Scott

Father. Husband. Creative. Mild foodie. Batman in my dreams.