iOS 8 has many new features, some of which perhaps aren’t as widely known. From playing on my iOS device and browsing the browsing the web, I have discovered some of the following hidden gems!
Send your iOS device’s last location to Apple – before your battery drains
If you’ve ever lost or misplaced your iOS device, this new feature allows your device to send its last known location to Apple when the battery drains to a critical level.
This feature was turned off by default on all my devices, to change it you need to:
- Open Settings
- Select iCloud | Find my (device)
- Turn on the option for Send Last Location
How to Improve Battery Life
iOS 8.0 has some great new features, but since updating I have been experiencing battery drain. Apple’s OS updates have been known to suffer from this until the release of v*.1.
Until then, here’s what you can do to improve your iOS device’s battery life.
- Open Settings
- Select General
- Select Usage
- Select Battery Usage
By accessing this feature, which is dependent on what apps you are running, you can reduce battery drain. For example, if you see that the Mail app is using a lot of the battery – then you can change the background refresh settings.
Open Desktop Site webpage instead of Mobile version in Safari
When browsing the internet on my iPad, some websites will load a mobile version.
Fortunately, iOS 8 makes loading the desktop version a lot easier:
- Open Safari
- Navigate to a website as normal
- Once the mobile version loads, tap the address field, then swipe down
- Select the “Request Desktop Site” button that appears