Five New iOS 7 Tips to Help You Use Your iPhone or iPad Better

If you have an iPhone or iPad, by now you have probably been updated to the new iOS 7 operating system. There are quite a few changes and here are five tips to help you use the new system faster and better.

1. Make the menu text bolder

Personally, I find the new system has a washed-out look. You can improve this by using a new iOS 7 setting that lets you make text for system menus and features a little bolder.

1. Tap “Settings”
2. Tap "General"
3. Tap “Accessibility”
4. Turn the “Bold Text” switch to on
5. Your device will restart

While you are in the Accessibility settings, you can also try turning on “Increase Contrast”. I didn’t find that to be all that useful, however.

2. Block phone calls from individual numbers

You can now block calls on your iPhone that come from a particular phone number.

1. Open the Phone app
2. Tap the “Recents” tab at the bottom of the screen
3. Tap the little “i” next to the number that just called you
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page
5. Tap “Block this Caller”

3. Block apps that use excessive or unnecessary cellular data

Are you using too much of your allotted cellular data? You may have an app that doesn’t need to have access to the Internet all the time and is draining your bandwidth. A new feature in iOS 7 allows you to see a detailed list of which apps are using the most 3G or 4G mobile data and gives you an option to block individual apps from using the network.

1. Tap “Settings”
2. Tap “Cellular”
3. Scroll down to the “Use Cellular Data for…” heading
4. There will be an alphabetical list of installed apps that have recently been using cellular data, with the amount of data used listed just below the name. 
5. Turn the switch next to the app’s name to  “Off”

Just remember that the app will no longer have Internet access.

4. New way to close an app

The way to close an app has been changed.

1. Double-click the Home button in the same fashion as in previous versions of iOS
2. A window with a row of open apps will appear along the bottom but above that is a new feature consisting of card-shaped “previews”. Each card shows a snapshot of what a given app was recently doing.
3. To close an app, tap and hold the app’s preview card, then flick it up.
4. The card for the app should disappear and the app will be closed.

5. Disable frequent locations tracking

On many systems, iOS 7 will keep a record of the places that you most frequently visit. Here’s how to disable location tracking:

1. Tap "Settings"
2. Tap "Privacy"
3. Tap "Location Services"
4. Tap "System Preferences" (not all systems will have this)
5. Tap "Frequent Locations"
6. Change the setting to "Off"