Guide to iPhone and iPad settings: how to use all the iOS Settings UPDATED
We're going to be updating this guide with more information as we work through all the settings in the Settings app, so be sure to come back to find out more.
(If you'd like to know more about the next version of iOS, take a look at our iOS 9 release date rumours article.)
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
How to change Settings in iOS 8Control CentreAirplane ModeWi-Fi, Bluetooth, data romingNotifications
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
GeneralBackground App RefreshHandoffPrivacy settingsiTunes settingsiCloud settingsPersonal HotspotsSiriSpotlightHandoffRestrictions
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more
In-App PurchasesLocation ServicesKeyboard settingsWiFi syncingShortcuts and DictationSyncingResetting settingsControlling the Parallax effectGuided AccessDisplay and BrightnessAdjusting AlertsAccessibility optionsTouch IDChanging the passcodeLock screenPrivacy settingsSharingCloud optionsFamily sharing
Read these advanced iOS 8 tips you don't know yet and 30 iOS 8 tips & tricks you ought to know
And here are some Geeky pranks to play on your Mac using friends
If you are new to the iPhone (or iPad) you may not know that it is possible to make various adjustments to the settings of your device. To do so, tap on the Settings icon on your Home Screen, the one that looks like a cog.
By default, the icon for the Settings app is the last one on the main Home screen on your iPhone or iPad, and you can view the various options that it contains just by tapping on it like any other app.
Apple recognized some time ago that Settings was getting a bit complicated, so it added a new feature called Control Centre to iOS 7 last year.
You can activate Control Centre by placing your finger on the solid border below the bottom edge of the screen, and then swiping your finger upwards onto the screen.
That gesture pulls the Control Centre panel up from the bottom of the screen and gives you instant access to a number of important settings.
These easy-access settings include screen brightness and volume, On/Off controls for WiFi and Bluetooth, and the ability to activate the camera.
The Control Centre is available at all times - even on the Lock screen - so you can get at the main controls for your device whenever you need to.
Control Centre only shows a few of the options available within the main Settings app, so let's tap on Settings now to take a closer look. The various settings are arranged into groups, apparently reflecting Apple's idea of the main priorities for daily use. So top of the list is Airplane Mode - because, of course, we are all rich Apple executives who spend all of our time jetting off to meetings with Bono and Dr Dre.
We also use Airplane mode as a last resource when we are running low on battery as it stops some of the processes on your phone that could use up your final 10%.
Read: How to save battery power on the iPhone.
Next on the list are other key settings, such as WiFi and Bluetooth, and on the iPhone and iPads with mobile broadband there are settings for your mobile network and data communications.
One really important option that you'll find within the Cellular settings panel is for Data Roaming. Turning Data Roaming off restricts your data and Internet connection to WiFi only, so that you don't run up a big bill by accidentally trying to use mobile broadband when you're overseas.
Read: How to avoid data roaming charges when abroad
Next on the Settings list is a group of options that relate to your device's Lock screen. These include the ability to deactivate Control Centre on the Lock Screen, and to set up the Do Not Disturb option, which can be used to silence incoming calls and notifications.
You can also activate Do Not Disturb by using Control Centre - it's the crescent moon icon right at the top - or even set up a schedule so that Do Not Disturb turns itself on and off at certain times of day.
But the most important option here is Notifications. Many of the apps on your iPhone or iPad can send you 'notifications' - messages that pop up on screen to announce that you've just received a new message in Mail, or perhaps a breaking news story from the BBC News app.
It's useful to know when an important email has arrived, of course, but many notifications can just be plain annoying - yes, Plants Versus Zombies 2, we're looking at you.
The Notifications panel shows a list of all apps that can send notifications, and allows you to turn notifications on or off for each individual app. You can also fine-tune notifications - perhaps blocking them from the Lock screen, but allowing them to appear when the device is unlocked and in use.
Read: How to use iOS 8 Notification Centre
Read on for the General settings on the iPad and iPhone...
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more
This is the second page of our complete guide to iPhone and iPad Settings.
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more
The Notifications and Lock screen settings are followed by a ragtag set of options that cover some of the most basic functions of your iPhone or iPad.
The General panel doesn't sound all that important, but actually includes major functions such as Software Update - so that you can download the weekly bug fixes for iOS 8 - as well as the Auto-Lock security feature, and the Usage panel, which displays information about both battery usage and the amount of storage used by all the apps on your iPhone or iPad.
One option that it's useful to know about is the Background Refresh panel. Many apps, such as newspapers and magazines, or weather and stock prices, can automatically update themselves with new information even when you're not actually using them.
Allowing apps to download data in the background can save time if you're a real news junkie or if you want to make a killing on the stock market, but it can also drain your battery more quickly, so you might want to turn this option off for some of your less essential apps.
The General panel also includes settings for Handoff - the new feature that allows you to start a document or message on one device and then switch and finish it off on a Mac or another iOS device. We've not been able to test Handoff properly yet, as it requires Yosemite on a Mac to work properly, so that's something we can come back to later. Read more about Handoff here: Complete guide to Continuity in iOS 8
The General settings panel is followed by a number of other options that control the basic hardware of the iPhone or iPad. Many of these are quite straightforward, such as controls for the screen brightness, ringtones and other warning sounds. But, rather oddly tucked away at the bottom of this list, is the all-important Privacy panel.
There are lots of different security and privacy settings in iOS 8, but this particular settings panel focuses specifically on 'third-party' (non-Apple) apps that want access to information such as location data, your camera roll and contacts, and even medical data gathered by the new HealthKit features in iOS 8.
Every app that requests access to your personal information is listed here, and you can choose whether or not to allow access for each app individually. It's a bit of a chore going through them all, but it's worth making the effort to keep your personal data private.
Read: How to set up the best privacy settings in iOS 8
The next two settings panels provide controls for iCloud and your iTunes account. The iTunes options are straightforward enough, although you might want to turn off the Cellular Data option that uses your mobile broadband to automatically download items purchased on other devices - downloading Game Of Thrones Season 4 in HD will bust your mobile broadband data cap in no time flat.
Read: Apple Home Kit release date
The iCloud panel is a bit of a biggie - so big that we'll run a future article to cover more complex features such as iCloud Drive and Family Sharing in more detail. However, the essentials here are the ability to turn iCloud syncing on or off for a variety of different apps.
You can use iCloud to share photos, emails and contacts, as well as files created in apps such as Pages, Numbers and Keynote. One really useful iCloud option is Find My iPhone, which can be used to locate any device that's logged into your iCloud account. I mislay my phone around the house all the time, so I often use this feature to find it again - but, more importantly, Find My iPhone works with iPads and Macs too, and can be used to locate your devices if they get lost or stolen.
After iCloud and iTunes you'll find settings for a variety of individual apps. These include the standard apps, such as Mail and Contacts that are built into your iPhone or iPad, but there are also settings for other apps that you buy and install yourself, so these will obviously vary from person to person.
The first group of settings is fairly straightforward, allowing you to turn on basic features such as wifi and Bluetooth, but there's one option that can come in really handy. I travel around quite a lot with my MacBook laptop, and it can be frustrating when the wifi coverage in many locations is slow or doesn't work properly at all. The Personal Hotspot feature has come to my rescue on a number of occasions, as it allows you to share the mobile broadband on an iPhone or iPad with your laptop or other devices. Turning on Personal Hotspot prompts you to choose from two different options. You can connect your iPhone to your computer by using a USB cable - which is a little untidy, but uses less battery power. Alternatively, you can activate the wifi and Bluetooth on your iPhone and link to it using either of those connections. The connection is also password protected to make sure that nobody else can use your Internet connection without your permission. If you've got Yosemite running on your Mac you can even detect when your iPhone is nearby and use your Mac to turn on Personal Hotspot on your iPhone without even having to unlock it.
Read: How to create a personal Hotspot, share connection from iPhone to Mac
As we discovered last time, the General settings panel is a bit of a hodge-podge, so it's worth taking a closer look at some of the options hidden in here. One neat new feature in iOS 8 is 'Hey Siri', which allows you to activate Siri without pressing the Home button and just using your voice. When this option is turned on and the iPhone or iPad is also connected to a power source, you can just say 'Hey Siri' to activate Siri and ask it questions or issue commands. Leaving Siri turned on all the time so that it can listen for your voice commands can drain your battery faster, which is why Apple thinks that you need to be charging the device to use this option (although there is a workaround that will make 'Hey Siri' work without power, which we'll come back to another time). There are a few other Siri options here as well, such as changing the language, or switching between male and female voices for Siri.
Read: Complete guide to Siri, how to use Siri in iOS 8
Right after Siri in the General settings panel is Spotlight Search, which allows you to control how Spotlight works on your iPhone or iPad. You activate Spotlight by pulling your finger downwards on any of the device's Home screens. By default, Spotlight will only do a 'local' search, looking for information or apps stored directly on your iPhone or iPad. So typing in 'key' will show me Keynote, as well as songs from my favourite Stevie Wonder album, Songs In The Key Of Life. However, you can fine-tune Spotlight by telling it to ignore certain types of information - such as all those song names. You can also turn on another option called 'Spotlight Suggestions', which will also tell Spotlight to look for info on the Internet, or for relevant apps on the App Store.
Read: Is it possible to get a free iPad The truth about free iPad scams
Next after Spotlight is HandOff, which is one of the top new features in iOS 8 and Yosemite on the Mac. When activated, HandOff allows you to start using an app, such as Pages or Keynote, on one device and then switch to the same app on another device so that you can carry on working on the same document straight away. You can even pick up a phone call on your Mac when your iPhone rings, or use FaceTime on your Mac to make a phone call via your iPhone.
To be honest, HandOff is a bit of a HandFull, and it takes a little effort to get it working properly, but before you can even start you need to turn HandOff on in this settings panel. Once that's done you'll see a little icon displayed on the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad, indicating any apps that are using HandOff and waiting for you to pick up where you left off.
Read: Switch between iPhone, iPad and Mac using Handoff
A key set of options found within the General settings panel - and one that is particularly important for parents with young children - is Restrictions. By default, all restrictions are disabled - which means that all your apps run normally - and if you want to enable restrictions you first need to enter the passcode for your iPhone or iPad. Once that's done you'll see several different sets of controls that you can use to limit your child's access to apps, making purchases, and unsuitable content.
Under the heading 'Allow:' you'll see a list of apps - including Safari, the Camera and FaceTime - that you can block altogether. You can also restrict access to the iTunes Store and iBooks Store, so that your kids don't run up a huge bill without your permission. When you block these apps they disappear from the iPhone or iPad Home screen altogether, so your kids won't even know that they exist. The one exception here is the iBooks app, which remains visible and will allow anyone to read books that you've already purchased - but which will no longer allow access to the iBooks Store for making any new purchases.
We've all heard stories about kids spending a fortune on IAPs (in-app purchases), so iOS 8 adds new restrictions for these as well. Scroll down a little and you'll see two options that allow you to prevent anyone from installing new apps or deleting any of your existing apps. Next on the list is the option to completely block in-app purchases as well. But, oddly, there's no option here to simply restrict access to the App Store in the same way that you can restrict the iTunes or iBook stores.
In fact, it is possible to do this, but for some reason this option is hidden a bit further down on the Restrictions panel. Keep scrolling down until you see a section called 'Allowed Content'. The controls in this section allow you to apply ratings controls for music, video and other types of content - such as age ratings for films, or blocking music that contains adult language. There's also an option here that allows you to prevent any new apps being installed, or perhaps limiting new app purchases to apps that are suitable for a particular age group.
Read: How to stop kids making expensive in app purchases and The 7 most expensive in app purchases
Last time around we saw how to completely disable Siri, as well as other apps such as Safari, that you might not want young children to use. If you do decide to leave Siri turned on you can still make sure that it doesn't accidentally slip in any unsuitable language or material. Go back into the Restrictions section within Settings, and scroll down to 'Allowed Content' once more. Just below the ratings controls for music, videos and apps, you'll see an entry for Siri. Tap on this and you'll see two options that you can turn on or off.
Siri will never use adult language in response to a question, but it may repeat bad language that is spoken by others. Turning off the explicit language option will ensure that this sort of language is bleeped out or printed as asterisks on the screen. Turning off the web search option will prevent Siri from looking up information on Wikipedia, Twitter or Bing - which is the only search engine that Siri is currently allowed to use.
Read our Complete guide to Siri plus, Funny things to ask Siri
Read on for information abour privacy settings on the iPhone and iPad...
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more
This is the third page of our complete guide to iPhone and iPad Settings.
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more
Right underneath Siri in the Allowed Content controls is the Website option, which allows you to limit the web sites that can be viewed in Safari. By default, this is set to allow 'all web sites', but tapping on Limit Adult Content will automatically filter out most adult web sites. However, you can still allow or block access to specific web sites by entering the address in the 'always allow' or 'never allow' panels.
Read: Tips for using Safari in iOS 8
The second option, labeled Specific Websites Only, is the safest bet for young children as it blocks all web sites apart from a few kid-friendly sites that have been approved by Apple - such as Disney and Apple's own web site. If you need to override these restrictions at any time you can still type a web address into Safari and then tell it to allow that web site by entering your password.
Read: Siri troubleshooting guide
We've already looked at the various options that allow you to restrict in-app purchases, or to completely block all types of purchases from the iBooks and iTunes Stores altogether. But, rather oddly, there's another purchasing option that Apple adds in here, even though it's completely separated from all the other purchasing controls in the Restrictions list.
The Require Password option determines whether or not you need to use a password when making purchases on your iPhone or iPad. If you select 'Immediately' then you'll need to enter your password for every single purchase or download. The 15 minutes option gives you a slight breathing space, so you can enter your password for one purchase, and you can then purchase additional apps, music or video for the next 15 minutes without having to enter your password again. There's an important safeguard here, though, as you or your kids will still need to enter the password in order to make any in-app purchases even within 15 minutes of initially buying an app.
Read: How to recover a forgotten iCloud password
The next important section within Restrictions is the Privacy controls. There's a long list of options here, which might look a bit daunting, but most of these options work in essentially the same way so we don't need to overload you with too much information all at once.
A the top of the Privacy list is Location Services, which uses a combination of GPS, wifi and Bluetooth features to determine your location. If you're really worried about Big Brother tracking your movements then you can simply switch off Location Services altogether. The only exception here is that - in an emergency - using Find My iPhone will reactivate location services so that you can actually find your lost iPhone or iPad.
Read: How to set up the best privacy settings in iOS 8
Right below the main On/Off button for Location Services is a feature labeled Share My Location. This gives you two options for telling people your location when you contact them using Messages or Find My Friends. If you select Send My Current Location when sending a message you will just send a one-off message telling them your location at that precise minute. Alternatively, Share My Location will allow the message recipient to follow your movements for just one hour, until the end of the day, or to keep following you indefinitely. That's obviously handy if you want to keep an eye on your kids, or you're waiting for friends or family to arrive somewhere.
Read: How to use Find My Friends
It's good that you can turn of location services if you want to. But, of course, apps such as Maps or Weather do need to know your location in order to work properly, so you also have the ability to control location services for each app individually. Any app that tries to use your location info is listed in the Location Services panel, and if you tap on the name of an app you'll see two straightforward options. The 'Never' option simply blocks the app from using location services at all. The other option is 'While Using the App' - which only allows the app to check your location when you actually have the app running on screen. I chose the BBC Weather app for this example, but the privacy controls are the same for all the other apps that may want to use location services.
Read: The best iPhone weather apps
One handy option here is the entry marked 'Don't Allow Changes'. You can set up location services for your main apps - for me it's the BBC Weather and Maps - and then tap 'Don't Allow Changes'. This locks the settings for those apps so that they work the way you want, but automatically blocks any new apps that you might download from having access to location services. If you ever change your mind you can just tap 'Allow Changes' to change the location settings for all your apps once more.
One of the big changes introduced in iOS 8 was the ability to use third-party keyboards as well as the standard on-screen keyboard that is built into iOS 8. When you download a new keyboard from the iTunes Store it will appear on the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad just like any other app. However, you also need to go into Settings in order to activate each keyboard that you want to use.
Go into Keyboard settings and then tap Keyboards at the top of the screen. You'll see the standard iOS English keyboard listed, along with the Emoji keyboard that displays smiley faces and other symbols. Beneath those is the option to 'Add New Keyboard'. Tap on this and you'll see whatever keyboard apps you have installed. We've downloaded two new keyboards - Fleksy and Swype - that we want to try out.
Tap the name of the keyboard and you'll be asked if you want to give the keyboard 'full access'. Some people worry about this, as it means that the keyboard app could record everything you type and send it off to the developer of the app. But any app that did this wouldn't sell very well, so developers generally don't abuse the access that you grant them.
Read: Best Keyboard apps for iPhone
The next option in Keyboard settings is Shortcuts, which gives you a quick way to type out common words or phrases. There's one shortcut already built into iOS 8 to help you get started - it lets you type 'omw' and then expands that into 'on my way'. You can add other shortcuts of your own for things like email or web addresses, so we'll add 'mw' as a shortcut that will allow us to automatically type out macworld.co.uk whenever we need to.
The keyboard settings in iOS 8 also include a new option that allows you to activate speech-to-text dictation on your keyboard (which used to be part of Siri). Turning this on displays a microphone icon on the keyboard so that you can talk instead of typing. Just remember that dictation requires an Internet connection while you're using it, and that it only works with the standard iOS 8 keyboard so we can't use it with the third-party keyboards we installed just now.
There are a few other options in the Keyboard settings as well, but these are mostly straightforward On/Off controls for things like the automatic spelling-checker and the Caps Lock button.
When iTunes was first launched more than a decade ago, the idea was that you would buy music and video using iTunes on your Mac and then download your purchases onto ye olde iPod using a USB cable connection. Nowadays, though, many of us do everything on our iPhones and iPads, including buying apps, music and videos, and we often forget to back-up our purchases onto our Macs.
But, just below the Keyboard settings you'll see an option called iTunes Wifi Sync. Somewhat ironically, you still have to use a USB cable to connect your iOS device to your Mac and then select the Wifi Sync option within iTunes on your Mac in order to activate it on your iOS device. However, you only have to do that the first time, and after that you can sync all your purchases back to your Mac via wifi. However, Wifi Sync only works if your iPhone or iPad is being charged at the time, is on the same wifi network as your Mac, and you have iTunes open on your Mac.
Read: How to troubleshoot WiFi problems
It might sound like a confusing bit of techno-jargon, but VPN - virtual private network - is an important networking tool that can be useful for both big business organizations and ordinary home users. Business users will often set up a VPN for their staff as it helps to keep email and other information more secure when you're away from the office and you have to use wifi hotspots or other public networks.
Your IT manager can show you how to configure the VPN features that are built into iOS, but it's also possible to download a number of VPN apps from the App Store. Business users will probably avoid these third-party apps and set up VPN themselves, but these apps can also be used for distinctly non-businessy tasks, such as gaining access to the US version of Netflix.
The last option in the General settings panel is one that you will probably never use - until you decide that it's time to get rid of your iPhone or iPad altogether.
The Reset command actually provides a number of different options. The first is 'reset all settings', which leaves all your apps, music and other content alone, and just resets personal preferences, such as new keyboards or VPN settings that you might have added. We've heard that this particular option can be a bit buggy, though, so it's worth backing up your iPhone or iPad onto your Mac before resetting it.
The next option is to 'erase all content and settings'. This is the nuclear option that gets rid of all your personal preferences and settings, along with all apps, music, videos and photos. This is the option that you'd use if you were selling your iPhone or iPad and you wanted to remove all your personal information first (for more details on this option take a look at Apple's help file).
There are some other options in here as well, although they're a lot less drastic than a complete reset. The network reset simply tells your iPhone or iPad to forget details such as wifi passwords. One reset option that might be worth using occasionally is the Location And Privacy option. This resets the location and privacy settings for all your apps, which means that any app that tries to access your location, contacts or other information will have to ask permission all over again.
Find out how to make space on an iPhone when you need it
Plus, if you want to erase the contents of your iPhone because you are selling it, or because it's not working properly, here's how to reset an iPhone, erase the contents of an iPhone and restore from a backup.
It's taken us quite a while to cover the long list of options that are crammed together in the General settings panel on iOS devices, but there's one complete group of settings that we won't include here. Like Macs, iOS devices include a number of Accessibility features that are designed to help people who have problems with vision, hearing or motor skills. (We are planning to cover them in a separate article, coming soon!)
However, there are a few features found in the Accessibility settings that it's worth mentioning here as they can be useful for many people regardless of whether or not they have visual or other problems. For instance, the infamous 'parallax' effect on the Home screen that makes a lot of people feel sea-sick can be turned off by selecting the 'Reduce Motion' option within the Accessibility settings panel.
Another useful feature found within the Accessibility settings is the Guided Access option. When you activate Guided Access you can lock down your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch so that it only runs one specific app. This can be useful for teachers who only want their students to have access to a particular app during a lesson. You can also block specific features within that app, which is useful for parents who might want to be extra sure that they've blocked in-app purchases, or perhaps online features that you might feel are unsuitable for young children.
You start by turning on Guided Access in the Accessibility settings, and then launching the app that you want to run. Quickly press the Home button three times, and you'll see the Accessibility menu, which allows you to activate either the on-screen Zoom function or Guided Access. Select Guided Access and you will be prompted to use your finger to draw around the buttons or other parts of the screen that you want to block. We'll launch iBooks and then block the features - greyed out at the bottom of the screen - that would allow someone to gain access to the iBookstore and start spending money.
Read: How to sell books on iBookstore
Guided Access provides a number of other useful options too, such as the ability to limit the time a child can spend playing a game. And the only way to turn off Guided Access and leave iBooks so that you can use other apps is by entering your passcode.
So, moving on from General Settings at long last, the next option that we come across is the Display And Brightness option. This is fairly straightforward, as it provides a simple slider control for adjusting the brightness of your screen. However, the Auto-Brightness option can be a bit unpredictable, so there's a couple of things that are worth mentioning here.
As the name implies, Auto-Brightness uses the light sensor in your iPhone or iPad to check the ambient light levels around you, and then automatically attempts to adjust the screen brightness for you. The aim is to maintain visibility, whilst also lowering the brightness wherever possible in order to preserve battery power. It doesn't always work though, and some people simply prefer to turn off Auto-Brightness altogether. However, you can modify the way Auto-Brightness works by leaving it turned on and then using the slider control to increase or decrease the brightness. The Auto-Brightness setting will then note that you prefer the brightness to be higher or lower and will use your settings rather than its automatic default setting.
Read: How to save battery life on the iPhone
The Display And Brightness Settings also include a number of controls for enhancing screen visibility, which are separate from the more specialised tools found in the Accessibility settings. The Display Zoom allows you to choose Standard and Zoomed views of screen elements such as icons and buttons, while the text controls can be used to increase the standard size of text and to add a bold effect to the text as well.
However, these text controls only work with apps that have been written to specifically support the 'Dynamic Type' feature that is part of iOS itself. As you'd expect, Apple's own apps support Dynamic Type, so you'll see larger text in Mail, Notes and the other apps that are built into iOS. Unfortunately, there are quite a few apps that don't work with Dynamic Type, which is why Apple includes additional Zoom and magnification features within the Accessibility settings.
The Wallpaper settings panel is simple enough, just allowing you to change the wallpaper displayed on the background of your Home screen. You can use Apple's ready-made wallpapers, or import your own photos from your Camera Roll or photo-streams, but there are no hidden surprises in there.
The Sounds settings are largely straightforward too, as they mostly just allow you to choose which sounds play whenever your iPhone or iPad receives calls, emails and other messages that need your attention. But there is one useful option in here that people sometimes miss. It used to annoy me that turning down the volume on my iPhone would sometimes cause me to miss messages because I couldn't hear the alert sound properly. Then I realised that you can set the volume level for alert sounds separately from the volume level for playing music or listening to video in other apps.
The Ringer And Alerts setting provides a simple slider control so that you can set the volume level for alert sounds. There's also an option called Change With Buttons. This option is turned on by default and it means that the volume level for alert sounds gets turned up and down along with the volume for everything else when you use the volume buttons on the edge of your iPhone or iPad. But if you turn this option off the volume for alerts remains fixed at the level that you set with the slider, regardless of the volume level used by other apps.
The settings for TouchID and Passcode are actually quite straightforward - which in itself is pretty remarkable when you think about the complex technology that's being used here. However, there are a few options that are worth looking at in a little more detail.
As you're probably aware, TouchID uses your fingerprint(s) as an alternative to your normal passcode when unlocking your iPhone. But that doesn't mean that you can forget about your passcode altogether - apart from anything else you'll need it every time you want to enter the TouchID settings panel.
Once you've got into these settings you can also tell your iPhone to use TouchID to authorize your purchases on iTunes or the App Store, which is a handy timesaver if you've got a strong-but-complicated password for your iTunes account.
If your iPhone has TouchID then it will prompt you to scan your finger when you set the phone up for the first time. Don't forget, though, that you can add multiple fingerprints whenever you want. This is a good idea, as I've found that I prefer to use different fingers at different times. I use the thumb on my right hand when holding the iPhone, but I use a different finger - and sometimes a different hand - when I've got the iPhone sitting on a desk in front of me.
You can scan up to five fingers, which should be enough for most people, and you can also delete fingers as well. We've seen workarounds on the web that allow you to scan more than five fingers, but we wouldn't recommend doing that as it could muck up your iPhone's security settings.
Once you've set up TouchID it is possible to turn off your passcode altogether. But you should remember that the passcode isn't used just to unlock your iPhone. It also restricts access to many important settings on your iPhone, as well as passwords and even credit card details that you might have stored in Safari and other apps.
There's an option here to change your passcode if you want, and you can also turn off the 'simple' four-digit passcode and use a longer passcode that can contain numbers, letters and symbols too. And, if you scroll right down to the bottom of this panel, you'll find the 'Erase Data' option - the ultimate security option that deletes all data on the iPhone after 10 failed attempts at guessing the password.
One other thing to remember is that, even with TouchID activated, you'll still be asked to enter your passcode each time you restart your iPhone after being completely turned off, or if you haven't used your iPhone for 48 hours.
This settings panel also includes a few options that aren't directly related to either TouchID or your passcode, but which do affect how the Lock screen works when your phone is still locked.
You can turn the Today and Notifications views on or off in order to prevent anyone from seeing recent messages that you might have received, and you can turn Siri off here too. The Passbook option can be turned off too, which ensures that no one else can use Passbook to spend your money or use your airline tickets (unless they've got your passcode or one of your fingers.).
The next section in iOS Settings is Privacy. This is a key set of features, obviously, but we've actually looked at some of these settings already, as the Privacy panel duplicates several of the settings that can be found in the Restrictions panel within General Settings. We covered the Location Services options when we looked at Restrictions earlier, so we don't need to repeat that information here.
However, your iPhone or iPad apps can share more than just location data. The standard apps that are built into iOS - including the Contacts, Calendar, Photos and Health, can share extensive personal data with other third-party apps that you install on your devices. Any app that wants access to your data - such as Google Maps asking for address info from Contacts - should ask your permission when you first install the app. However, keeping track of all the different apps that you install can get tricky after a while, so the Privacy settings shown here allow you to get a quick overview of all the info that you might be sharing.
The iOS apps that can share your personal info are all listed in Privacy, and if you tap on the name of each app you can see exactly which other third-party apps have asked for permission to share your data.
Some of these might surprise you too - it might make sense for Google Maps to ask for address info from Contacts, but you probably didn't realize that Google Maps has a 'voice search' option that can control your microphone too. That's a legitimate use for the microphone, and of course a wonderful company like Google would never, ever dream of infringing anyone's personal privacy. But in the hands of someone less scrupulous your microphone could potentially be turned into a bugging device that listens to every word you say.
So it's worth checking these Privacy settings every now and then, and turning off any sharing options that don't seem to be absolutely essential.
It's also worth remembering that the ability to share data between apps is a two-way street. Apple's Health app, for instance, allows third-party health apps to both 'read' and 'write' data. I've got the Nike Running app on my iPhone and this can 'write' my workout and running data to Health, so that Health can compile a better overall picture of my physical condition. However, the Nike app can also 'read' other data, such as my heart rate, from Health and let me know when I'm overdoing things a bit.
It may sit quite a long way down the list of options in the iOS Settings panel, but iCloud is now one of the key technologies that sits right at the heart of both iOS and Yosemite. When it was first launched back in 2011, iCloud was really just designed for syncing emails and photos between your iPhone and your Mac. However, it has now matured into a sophisticated cloud storage system that can share all sorts of personal information across multiple devices.
One of the most important new features that was added to iCloud in iOS 8 is Family Sharing. This allows one person - known as the 'organiser' - to create a special 'family group', and to then invite up to five family members to join that group. Family Sharing works on devices running iOS 8, Yosemite on Macs, and even on PCs running Windows (though you'll need to download the iCloud for Windows software from the Apple web site).
The only restriction here is that the organiser has to be an adult, with a credit card linked to their Apple ID account. The organiser agrees to pay for any purchases made by members of the family group, and any purchases made by any member of the group are automatically made available to everyone else in the group. But don't worry - there are options within Family Sharing that can prevent your family going crazy with your credit card.
Once you've created a family group you can then send invitations to the other family members that you want to include in the group. This requires that each family member has their own Apple ID account. In the past, children under the age of 13 weren't allowed to create Apple IDs on their own, but iOS 8 introduced a new system that allows parents to create and control special Apple ID accounts for younger children. There is also a separate option for creating Apple ID accounts for students and older children (see here for more details on setting up Apple ID accounts for children).
These accounts for children also include an option called Ask To Buy that gives parents the ability to approve or block the purchases that their children make. When the child tries to make a purchase - including items that are free to download - they will see a message on the screen of their iOS device telling them that their parent will be informed of the purchase, and asking them if they want to change their mind before going ahead. If they do go ahead with the purchase then another message will be sent to the parent/organiser giving them the option of allowing or blocking the purchase. The Ask To Buy feature is automatically turned on for all children under the age of 13, but you can leave it turned off for older children and other adults in the group.
The Ask To Buy option allows you to stop young children from making unsuitable purchases - such as violent action games, or blood-spattered episodes of Game Of Thrones. However, any purchases made by one member of the family group can be shared with everyone else in the group, which means that purchases made by an adult could still be seen by a child. If you want to prevent this then you'll need to use the Restrictions settings on your child's personal iOS device to set age limits for video, games and other material.
It's also possible to review the purchases made by members of your family group to make sure that nothing unsuitable gets through accidentally. If you tap the More button at the bottom of the screen in the iTunes Store app you'll see an option to view all your purchases, including those made by other members of your family group.
Family Sharing isn't just about spending money on the iTunes Store. When you set up your family group you automatically create a new photo album that is shared by everyone on the group. All group members can upload and share photos, and there's an option to receive a notification whenever other people in the group upload photos too. Most Family Sharing features require iOS 8, but the photo-sharing features work on iOS 7 as well, so kids with older iPads and iPod Touch models can still share photos without you needing to buy a new device that can handle iOS 8.
You can also create a shared calendar that works in a similar fashion, allowing family members to add events and receive notifications for birthdays, appointments and other events. The Reminders app is included here too, so you can send a quick reminder to get some milk without needing to use the full-blown Calendar app.
Your kids will no doubt be thrilled to hear that Family Sharing allows you to keep track of their movements as well. Each person that joins the family group has the option of sharing their location information with the rest of the group.
This location information can be found in a number of different apps, including Find My Friends and Messages, as well as in Find My iPhone in case anyone loses a device while they're out and about.
You can turn this option on or off whenever you want, so that's something that you'll need to discuss with your kids. However, for younger children, it is possible to lock the settings for Location Services, using the password-protected Restrictions settings that we've looked at before. And even if a family member chooses not to share their precise location information, it's still possible to activate a special Lost Mode on iOS devices that can lock the device to protect your personal information.
Lost Mode can also attempt to track the device - but can only do so when it's online with Internet access, so it's best to activate location sharing whenever possible for maximum security.
When you create an Apple ID account you automatically get 5GB of free storage on iCloud, which you can use to store your photos, emails, and your device backups. That's not a huge amount, but the music, videos and apps that you buy from iTunes or the App Store don't count towards the 5GB total, so most people can still get by with that basic amount of storage. I use my iPhone and iPad all the time, and I've still got about 4GB spare. If you want to know how much storage you have left you can see it displayed near the top of the main iCloud settings panel.
But, as iCloud adds more new features, such as iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library, it gets easier and easier to fill up that 5GB of storage. Fortunately, you've got a couple of options for managing your iCloud storage, which you can see just by tapping on Storage in the settings panel.
The Storage Panel shows you how much storage you've got left (above). If you take a lot of photos, or use iCloud Drive to store a lot of work files then you might need to pay for some extra storage. However, there's another option that you can try first. Just tap on Manage Storage and you'll see a detailed list of everything you have stored in iCloud. Your Photo Library comes first, followed by back-ups from all your iOS devices, and then a detailed list of all the files created in other apps such as Keynote and Numbers (below).
I recently moved a load of holiday photos back onto my office Mac, so the Photo Library on my iPhone currently only takes up about 190MB. My iPad backup is bigger, though, taking up 200MB, and there's a number of files that I created in Keynote on my Mac that take up another 190MB on their own. If you're close to your 5GB limit you can see which apps and files are taking up the most space and you might be able to grab back quite a bit of space simply by deleting a few old files that you don't need anymore.
You actually have really fine control over the data that you store in iCloud. Of course, you can delete individual photos and videos from Photos whenever you want, and it doesn't hurt to clear out your email Inbox now and then either. You can also delve into iCloud and delete files from other apps too. Just tap on the name of any app in the Manage Storage panel, and you will see a list of every single file created by that app, along with the size of each file. I wrote an article on Keynote for MacWorld recently, and I've still got a number of large Keynote presentations files that are taking up space in my iCloud storage. But if I tap the Edit button at the top of the screen I can delete individual files that I no longer need, or just use the Delete All command to delete every file created by Keynote.
You can also control which files will be included in future back-ups. If I tap my iPhone in the Backups list I can see a list of every app that I have on my iPhone, and how much data each app will store when I back-up my iPhone to iCloud. You can click the green button to turn off back-ups for individual apps, and as you do this you'll see an updated count of how large the next back-up will be.
After your Photo Library, one of the biggest items that most people upload to iCloud is the daily back-up of their iPhone or iPad data. By default, iOS automatically backs up your iPhone or iPad to iCloud once a day (as long as the device is turned on, connected to power, and connected to a wifi network). But if those back-ups take up too much space on iCloud you can simply turn off the back-up function altogether.
Tap on Delete Backup and you'll see another little window pop up that asks if you want to 'Turn off & Delete'. If you go ahead and do this you will delete any back-ups from that device that are already stored in iCloud, and also turn off any future back-ups as well. You can still back-up your iPhone or iPad by connecting it to your Mac or PC and using the automatic back-up option in iTunes, but those back-ups are stored on your computer's hard disk so they don't take up any of your iCloud storage.
If these space-saving tricks still don't stop you from hitting that 5GB limit then you might just have to bite the bullet and pay for some more storage. Apple's pricing for iCloud storage used to be ridiculously expensive - which is why so many people still use rivals such as Dropbox or Microsoft's OneDrive. However, Apple cut the prices of iCloud storage quite drastically last year, following the introduction of iCloud Drive.
Go back to the main Storage panel and tap Buy More Storage, and you'll see a price list for the different iCloud storage options. You can upgrade to 20GB - and that's 20GB total, not 20GB on top of the original 5GB - for just £0.79 a month. There are also plans for 200GB at £2.99 per month, 500GB for £6.99, and 1TB for £14.99. Rivals such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft's OneDrive are still cheaper - with Microsoft and Google both offering a really handy 15GB of storage for free - but the simplicity of iCloud and its ability to seamlessly share all your important files and data across multiple devices is really useful if you own a lot of Apple products. And, of course, you can use more than one cloud storage service if you want. I mainly use iCloud for syncing photos and emails across my devices, but I also have a free Dropbox account that I use as an emergency back-up for important work files on my office Mac.
Keeping an eye on your iCloud Storage is even more important when using new features such as iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library.
However, the iCloud Settings panel also includes a number of options that determine how iCloud works with individual apps on your iPhone or iPad. If you want to share your Mail messages, Contacts info and Calendar events across all your devices then you need to make sure that you turn on iCloud for each of these apps here. You can also use iCloud to share information from other apps too, such as Reminders and Notes, bookmarks that you have stored in Safari, and also the Passbook app that stores information about airline tickets and for now is your link to Apple Pay. Read: How to use Apple Pay
It's worth being selective here, as not all apps really need to share data and info across your devices. I have lots of web pages bookmarked on the iMac in my office, but I don't want to mix them up with other web pages that I view on my iPhone, so I tend to turn off iCloud sharing for Safari most of the time.
Although there's a simple switch that allows you to turn iCloud On or Off for Mail there's also another set of Mail options that are hidden further down in the iCloud Settings panel. Scroll right down to the 'Advanced' section and tap on the entry for Mail. That opens up a page that contains options for managing multiple email accounts. Scroll down again, and tap on 'Advanced' again, and you'll now see a window that allows you to control how Mail handles different mailboxes. You can actually change which mailboxes are used to store emails that you send and receive. If you're an email obsessive - or Hillary Clinton - you could specify that emails that you discard are archived for future retrieval, rather than going straight into the Trash and being deleted.
You can also specify how long deleted messages stay in the Trash before they are completely removed. You can keep them for one day, one week or one month, or select the 'Never' option which leaves messages in the Trash until you decide to delete them yourself.
Important apps like Mail and Safari get their own individual controls for iCloud, but there's another option in here, simply called Backup, that allows you to store data from a number of additional apps too.
The Backup option is a little confusing, as it overlaps with the iCloud Photo Library to some extent. Turning on iCloud Photo Library stores your entire Photo Library in iCloud and updates it continuously whenever you shoot any new photos and videos. The Backup option works slightly differently - in fact, it's a bit more like doing a Time Machine back-up on your Mac.
When you activate Backup in iCloud Settings your iPhone or iPad will automatically perform one complete back-up every day - but only when the device is locked and not in use, and is being charged and connected to a wifi network at the same time. That daily back-up includes photos and videos, just like the iCloud Photo Library, but it also includes data from other apps too, such as text messages, health data that is stored in HealthKit apps, and even details of how you've organised all your apps on your Home Screens.
Turning off the iCloud Backup option doesn't affect important apps, such as Mail and Contacts, so your most important data is still protected even if this option is turned off. It's still worth using Backup every now and then though, just in case anything goes wrong with your iPhone or iPad. If you don't want to use Backup via wifi - which could take a while - you can also perform a manual back-up by using a USB cable to connect your iPhone or iPad to iTunes on your Mac. That's a good option too, as it allows you to store the back-up on your Mac's hard disk, rather than taking up the limited space in iCloud.
There's one other important type of data that can be stored on iCloud. The iCloud Keychain stores private personal data, such as passwords for email accounts and web sites, and even credit card numbers that you use on sites such as Amazon or eBay. This is very important information, obviously, so you can keep this information extra safe by creating an iCloud Security Code. If someone gets hold of any of your Macs or iOS devices without your permission they would need to know both your normal iCloud password and the extra iCloud Security Code before they could access your Keychain.
I tend to keep Keychain turned off on my iPhone, so that some important passwords that I have on my office iMac aren't shared with the iPhone when I'm away from the office. But if you want to turn Keychain on then you can simply tap Keychain in the iCloud Settings panel and then click the On/Off button that appears. Underneath that button you'll also see the 'Advanced' option, which allows you to set up the additional iCloud Security Code. There are two options here. You could choose to use your normal iPhone Passcode as the Security Code too. But, of course, if someone manages to get hold of your Passcode then your iPhone is completely defenceless. It's better to create a separate Security Code that has no connection with your normal Passcode. You can either opt for a simple four-digit Security Code or let your device generate a longer, random code number for you.
When the iPhone and iPad were first introduced they were initially very dependent on iTunes running on a Mac for making purchases and transferring files. You'd use iTunes on the Mac to buy apps, music and video, and then download them onto your iOS devices using ye olde USB cable.
However, our mobile devices are now much more sophisticated and self-contained, which means that people can end up making purchases on several different devices. I still tend to buy music on my iMac at home, but I download apps directly onto my iPhone all the time, and buy books and magazines on my iPad when I'm slumped on the sofa at home. To help keep track of all your purchases, iOS 8 includes an option called Automatic Downloads, which is tucked inside the iTunes And App Store section of the main Settings panel.
There are four options here, for music, apps, books and software updates. Turning any of these options on ensures that items you purchase on one device are automatically downloaded onto other devices as well. I recently bought the new Muse album, Drones, using iTunes on my Mac. It's not their best album, but it has its moments so I've turned on the Music option in Automatic Downloads, which ensures that the album is automatically downloaded onto my iPhone without me needing to plug it into my Mac.
There's no option to automatically download video files, as the downloads take up too much time and storage space on your mobile devices. However, even smaller audio files and app downloads could still bust your phone's monthly data cap, so this settings panel also includes an option to turn off 'cellular data' (mobile broadband) for automatic downloads. This ensures that you only download purchases when your device is connected to a wifi network. There's a corresponding option in iTunes on the Mac, hidden away in the Store tab of the iTunes preferences panel. This will automatically download any purchases that you make on your iOS devices onto your Mac - and your Mac can also download video purchases that may be too big to keep on your iPhone or iPad.
Right at the bottom of the iTunes And App Store settings panel is a not-very-well-known option called Suggested Apps. If you're out and about with your iPhone, this option can use GPS to keep track of your location and can suggest apps that might be useful in that location. If you turn on My Apps, your iPhone will just look at the apps you already have installed - such as a Starbucks app for ordering and paying for coffee - and display the icon for that app on your lock screen so that you can launch it right away. The App Store option also allows your iPhone to check on the App Store to see if there are other apps available that might be useful, such as airline schedules when you arrive at an airport.
The next section in Settings is for the Passbook and Apple Pay, however we've already looked at Apple Pay in detail following its recent launch in the UK so we won't repeat that info here. That leaves one final section within Settings, which consists of a long list of the individual apps that are installed on your iPhone or iPad.
These are divided into two categories - Apple's own apps, and the third-party apps that you have bought and downloaded from the App Store. The third-party apps will obviously vary from person to person, but it's worth taking a closer look at some of Apple's pre-installed apps as we sometimes take these for granted.
Some of the options here are pretty straightforward - for instance, the Maps app allows you to display distances in either in miles or kilometers, while Compass lets you switch between 'true' north and magnetic north. However, there are a number of key apps that many of us use every day, and which provide a number of useful options that you may not know about.
The three key apps here are the Mail, Contacts and Calendars apps, which are grouped together within a single settings panel. That's a little untidy, but they're probably all put together like this because these are the three main apps that give you the choice to either 'push' or 'fetch' new data.
Most apps go to sleep when you're not actually using them, and only 'fetch' new data when you launch the app once more. When I launch my BBC News app it will check to see if I have an Internet connection and then connect with the BBC servers to see if there are any new headlines that it can 'fetch' for me to read. However, some apps also have a 'push' option that allows new data to automatically be 'pushed' straight into them as soon as it becomes available.
What happens with an app like Mail is that your email server does all the work, and automatically pushes new email messages straight onto your iPhone or iPad without waiting for the app to wake up and fetch the messages for itself. When the app receives a new email it wakes up - even if it's not running on screen at that moment - and can pop a notification on screen to tell you that the message has arrived.
That's obviously very useful, but some people argue that using push technology continuously can drain your battery more quickly, so the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings panel includes an option called Fetch New Data that allows you to turn off the push option so that these three apps will only fetch new data when you tell them to.
There's actually a lot of debate on the internet about whether 'push' or 'fetch' drains your battery more quickly, but Apple's own web site suggests using the Fetch option to maximise battery life, so that's good enough for us. In any event, your wifi usage and screen brightness probably have far more effect on battery life than the push and fetch options, so this isn't something that you need to worry about too much.
There are other apps that can use push technology too, although these apps may sometimes refer to it as 'background refresh' instead. The BBC News app has options for both background refresh and notifications, so that it can give you an on-screen notification if a major news story breaks. Plenty of other apps provide similar options, covering everything from stock prices to special offers at your local supermarket, so you'll need to decide how much of this information you really want to see when you're choosing settings for all your apps.
To be continued...
We're updating this article regulalry as we work our way through all the settings in iOS:
Page 1: Settings, Control Centre, Airplane Mode and more
Page 2: iOS General settings, handoff, privacy, iCloud and more
Page 3: iOS Family settings, syncing, accessibility and more