iOS 7 is a refreshingly new, but comfortably familiar experience, and those who have recently installed the update may be eager to learn all of the new operating system’s additions and perks.

We’ve compiled a giant list of some great iOS 7 tips and tricks to help you navigate your phone’s new features, and maybe rediscover some old ones along the way! For a more in depth look, check out the complete guide to iOS 7 here, or learn about your phone and operating system with iPhone 101.

Visual Effects

iOS 7 already looks good, but who says it can’t look better? Here are some minor tweaks you can make to improve your visual experience with your iPhone or iPad.

Make your phone’s text bolder

iPhones might have some nice typography, but the text can be a little thin for some people’s eyes to comfortably read. Use this feature to make the text bolder and improve readability.

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on General
3. Tap on Accessibility
4. Turn on Bold Text
5. Restart your phone when prompted

Change your phone’s text size

Maybe it’s not the font’s weight, but its size, that’s making it harder to read. Change it easily with these instructions.

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on General
3. Tap on Accessibility
4. Tap on Text Size
5. Use the slider to determine your preferred text size

Turn your phone’s parallax effect off

Feeling seasick from the new 3D effects? Turn off the parallax feature by following these easy steps.

1. Open Settings
2. General
3. Accessibility
4. Reduce Motion
5. Turn off Reduce Motion

Siri Features

Siri keeps getting better every year, but there’s always room for improvement and personal preference. Here are some quick fixes.

Fix the way Siri pronounces your name

If you’re finally tired of Siri mispronouncing your name, even for comedic effect, now you have the option to correct it.

1. Wait until next time Siri pronounces your name wrong
2. Tap on Siri’s button and speak: “You did not pronounce my name correctly”
3. When Siri asks you how to say your name, speak your name correctly
4. Listen to the three pronunciation options Siri will offer
5. Pick the correct option
6. If there is no correct option, tell Siri you’re not satisfied with these pronunciations to repeat the process

Change Siri’s voice to sound male

Siri’s voice has been conventionally female sounding, but now you can change it to sound male.

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on General
3. Tap on Siri
4. Tap on Voice Gender
5. Tap on Male

Make Siri to read your voicemail

1. Hold down the Home button and listen for the beeping sounds
2. Tell Siri to play your new voicemail

You can also ask Siri for a variety of other voicemail options.

“Do I have any voicemail from [NAME]?”
“Play the last voicemail from [NAME].
“Do I have any voicemail from [PHONE NUMBER]?”
“Play my voicemail from [DATE].”

Ask Siri to read Twitter

In addition to reading your voicemail, Siri will also keep you up to date on Twitter. Here are some things you can ask it:

“What’s [TWITTER HANDLE] saying?”
“What’s trending on Twitter?”
“Search for hashtag [KEYWORD].”

Ask Siri to read your email

Before, Siri could only tell you if you had new email. Now, it can read those emails too! Here are some things you can ask it:

“Read my email.”
“Do I have any emails from [NAME]?”
“Read my second email.”
“Read my most recent email.”

Ask Siri to search using a specific search engine

If Bing isn’t your search engine of choice like it is Siri’s, you can now ask it to search using the engine you want. Here are some things you can ask it:

Bing: “Search the web for Citizen Kane.”
Google: “Search Google for Citizen Kane.”
Wikipedia: “Search Wikipedia for Citizen Kane.”

Ask Siri to play music

You can ask Siri to play a band or genre, instantly from iTunes Radio. The wording to make this work is fairly specific:

“Play iTunes Radio Beyonce.”
“Play iTunes Radio hip-hop.”

Ask Siri to quickly exit navigation

Navigation is such a useful feature, but it can drain your battery life if you forget that it’s on. If you’ve reached a point in your route where you don’t need the feature on anymore, just tell Siri to turn it off by saying:

“Cancel navigation.”

Ask Siri to tweak your settings

Asking Siri to change your settings is easy if you know the name of the setting you need to change, but it’s easy even if you just know what you want Siri to do.

“Make the font bolder.”
“Turn off the parallax effects.”

Safari Features

Add a new website to your favorites

1. Tap on the Share icon
2. Tap on the Bookmark button
3. Tap on Location
4. Tap on Favorites
5. Tap the Save button located in the upper right corner

Move and remove tabs

Older versions of iOS kept a limit of eight tabs in Safari. In iOS 7, there is no tab limit, meaning things can get a little overwhelming if you’re someone who browses a lot. Because of this, organizing and removing tabs is easier too.

1. Tap on the Tabs icon
2. Hold down on the tab you want to select
3. Slide in tab in the up or down direction
4. Release or “drop” the tab to place it

Removing a tab is even simpler:

1. Swipe the tab you want to delete to the left
2. Tap on the x icon to close it

Remove all the tabs:

1. Tap on the Tabs icon
2. Tap the private button located in the lower left
3. Tap the Close All button

Camera

Shoot multiple images using burst mode

In iOS 6, capturing photos in burst mode required the user to continuously tap on the capture photo button. Now, all you need to do is press and hold the capture button to continue capturing multiple photos.

Take square photos

If for some reason, you want to take square photos, all you have to do is open up the iOS 7 Camera app and swipe to the right. It will then take you to square picture taking mode. You can also swipe to see different capture modes, like Video and Panorama.

Add live filters before you take a photo

Have you ever taken a photo, felt unhappy with the way it turned out, went and applied some quick filters to it and then ended up even more unhappy with the result? Not only did iOS 7 add a bunch of image filters into their built-in camera app, but now you can apply them live, and see what your picture will look like with the filter before you even take it!

All you need to do is tap on the icon in the lower right corner, with the three overlapping circles.

Auto focus using the shutter button

This feature is limited to the iPhone 5S only. It allows you to auto focus when preparing to take a photo, without having to actually touch the screen! All you need to do is press the volume up button, and you’ll see the auto focus square appear.

Keyboard Shortcuts For the iPad

Need a quick and efficient way to get things done? This list of hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts for the iPad are here to save the day!

Text editing shortcuts

Command + Z – Undo changes
Command + Shift + Z – Redo changes
Command + C – Copy text
Command + V – Paste text
Command + X – Cut text
Command + Delete – Delete text up to the beginning of the line
Ctrl + K – Delete text up to the end of the line
Option + Delete – Delete the word on the left of the cursor
Shift + Arrow Key – Select text in a certain direction

Shortcuts for Safari

Command – Stop loading the current page
Command + T – Open a new tab
Command + R – Refresh page in the current tab
Command + W – Close the current tab
Command + L – Highlights the address bar
Command + G or ⇧G – Cycle through Find In Page results

Shortcuts for Mail

Command + N – Create a new email message
Command + ⇧D – Send an email message from the compose screen

Privacy Settings

Anyone with a smart phone knows how prevalent information is in this digital era. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t want a little privacy every now and then!

Block calls and other messages from certain people

Blocking a person you don’t like requires them to actually be in your phone book, a small price to pay to get someone possibly bothersome out of your life. Just find their entry in your contacts list and tap the “block this contact” button.

Hide your notifications on the home screen

Finally, a way to change the notification system so people can’t read snippets of your texts from the home screen! Even with a password, sensitive information can still be visible to others just from your iPhone’s front page. Now you can change it, or turn it off completely.

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on Notification Center
3. Find “Access on Lock Screen”
4. Disable the features you want to remove
5. To turn the Notification Center off entirely, turn off “Today View” and “Notifications View”

Enable “Do Not Track” in Safari

You can use Safari’s “Do Not Track” feature to prevent certain websites from using cookies.

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on Safari
3. Locate the option under “Privacy & Security”

Erase all of your data following too many failed password attempts

This might seem like a drastic measure, but if the risk of having your phone stolen is high, and you absolutely don’t want to risk anyone going through your personal information, this is the feature for you. What it does is wipe all the data on your phone after 10 failed password attempts, meaning even if the thief manages to crack your code, they’ll have nothing to find. Better back your information up!

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on General
3. Tap on Passcode Lock
4. Scroll down to find the Erase Data option
5. Enable the Erase Data option

Miscellaneous

Check out your most visited areas

Kind of cool, possibly a little weird depending on how it’s used, but nevertheless, you can do it!

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on Privacy
3. Tap on Location Services
4. Tap on System Services
5. Scroll down for Frequent Locations

Display time stamps on your messages

If you’ve ever wanted to know when a specific message was received or sent, just swipe your texts to the right to reveal its time stamp!

Save money with audio-only FaceTime calls

You can call other iOS users without spending any of your valuable minutes using the FaceTime app. Just call them, but instead of clicking the video camera icon, select the phone instead. The call will go through audio only and be just like a regular phone call, only using the free app instead!

Swipe to go back

Instead of having to continually press the back arrow to go back a screen, in settings, contacts, mail, and more, now you can just swipe the page the page to the right.

Unlimited number of apps in a folder

In older versions of iOS, folders could only hold a limited number of apps, the exact number dependent on which version of iOS you were using. In iOS 7, you can have an unlimited number of apps in your folders!

Add dynamic wallpapers to your phone

Want some cool, animated wallpapers that respond to device movement on your phone?

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on Wallpapers & Brightness
3. Tap on Choose Wallpapers
4. Tap on Dynamic
5. Pick the dynamic wallpaper that you want to display

Enable or disable the Control Center in the lock screen or in apps

1. Open Settings
2. Tap on Control Center
3. Enable or disable access

If you’re an iOS developer looking for some programming courses and other iOS guides, you might want to check out some of the classes and tutorials below:

30+ iOS 7 Tips and Tricks Every iPhone and iPad User Needs to Know