Whether you’re using your iPhone or iPad for business, from emailing your clients to documenting with photos, these little known yet useful iOS shortcuts will cut down on time taken and make your work easier.
By the myBusiness techblog team
Send Quick Texts and Emails Quickly
1. Creating shortcut phrases
Typing on the virtual keyboard can sometimes be a hit-and-miss exercise, and an especially frustrating one if you have a long email to write. If you find yourself typing the same phrases several times a day, save yourself the trouble by creating shortcuts for often used phrases.
Go to Settings > General > Keyboard. Scroll down and look for Shortcuts. Enter the phrase and the appropriate shortcut in the two fields. For instance, you could create a second email signature by keying in “sig1″ in the first field and “Jack Siah, Sole Proprietorship, Jack Siah & Son” in the second field. And that’s it. The next time you sign off at the end of your email, just type “sig1″, and “Jack Siah, Sole Proprietorship, Jack Siah & Son” will appear. The shortcut function also works with other languages as well.
2. Extra characters
Say you have business dealings abroad, in countries likes Europe, and would like to ensure the accent over a client’s name is spelled correctly in your email or text. Hold down the letter you need to accent. All the extra characters will appear. Pick what you need and go from there.
3. Read Receipts in iMessage
This is useful if you want to know that important information sent via your iOS email or iMessage has been received and read. Note that this is an opt-in feature, so you will need to activate the Read Receipts function. Go to Settings > Messages, and then turn on Send Read Receipts.
4. Fast track to typing a period
There’s now no need to switch keyboards on your iPhone everytime you need to insert a period to end your sentence. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn on the “.” Shortcut. The next time you write an email or message, just double tap on the space bar. Your phone will type out a period and a space. An overall great time-saver.
Snap and Send Photos Conveniently
5. Get in frame and snap from afar
Most iPhone users would probably know how to use their + Volume button on the side of the phone as a shutter for the camera. The same trick applies for the volume button on your headphones, and here’s a cool find – this applies to your Bluetooth earpiece as well. This can act as a remote camera trigger when you have your iPhone mounted on a tripod stand for photography
6. Embed multiple photos
With iOS 5 and above, it is now easy to embed a photo or video directly within your email message, be it on your iPad or iPhone. Simply double-tap on the typing area to display the selection buttons. From the pop-up bar, select Insert Photo or Video. Choose from the Photo Gallery or Camera Roll and pick the photo or video you want to attach in your email. Your video or photo is now embedded just like that.
Surf the Web Anonymously
7. Private browsing
One of the best things about the iPhone or iPad is the Web surfing experience. However, if you are concerned about privacy, especially when browsing your company Web site which contains confidential data or content, you can enable Private Browsing to prevent the information from being sent out to the World Wide Web. Go to Settings > Safari > Privacy. Then click the tab for Private Browsing.
Enable this and the browser will no longer auto-record everything you do or pull up the last page you visited every time you open the app. You will know that Private Browsing is enabled when the Safari bars appear black or dark instead of blue or gray.
Customise Your Alerts for Critical Calls
8. Set the camera flash for visual alerts
Your iPhone’s LED at the back isn’t just a flash for night photography or an emergency light. You can also set it up as an alerts beacon. For instance, if you are waiting for an urgent message from a supplier regarding critical inventory for your business, you can assign the LED alert to your supplier’s Contacts. When your phone is in silent mode during a client meeting, the LED will flash when the supplier calls. Simply go to Settings > General > Accessibility, turn on the slider for LED Flash for Alerts, and you’re set.
9. Custom vibrations
Typically, we would customise our alert tones for notifications. However, there is one customisation available in iOS 5 that is usually overlooked. This would be customising vibrations and assigning to certain people in Contacts, so the next time the iPhone vibrates you know who is calling. This is great if you’re in an important business meeting, and your phone is on mute to avoid disrupting the meeting.
This cool feature on the iPhone offers several patterns, from heartbeat to SOS, with the option to also create your own pattern. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Custom Vibration. For customised vibrations, scroll to the bottom of the option and press on “Create New Vibration“.
10. Change the default alert times
If you use your Calendar app to key in business appointments, here’s a little less-known shortcut. Rather than stick with the default alert times built into the system, which provide a range that runs from “At time of event” to a maximum of “2 days before”, you can now change this to a longer time frame under All-Day Event. Here, you can schedule an alert for “On day of event (9am)” right up to “1 week before”. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts & Calendar > Default Alert Times > All-Day Event, and adjust accordingly.
We hope this adds to you list of cool iOS shortcuts that can help save you time and improve productivity. So what’s your favourite shortcut and how does it help in your work?
Do note, though, that you will need iOS5 or later to leverage these shortcuts.