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your iphone has a secret button do you
see it
it's not there
it's not there either it's actually kind
of under the surface behind the scenes
and it can do a lot of really cool and
useful things in this video i'm breaking
down 12 of the coolest secret hidden and
really useful features of the all-new
iphone 12 lineup and maybe you know one
or two but let's see if you know all 12.
now before we jump into all the secret
features let me clarify that yes some of
these are exclusive just to the newer
iphone 12 some exclusive to just the 12
pro and 12 pro max but there is some
secrets and some hidden features in here
for everybody despite what iphone you
have you don't have to have the latest
iphone to take advantage of this stuff
though if you did just pick up a new
iphone 12 there's a lot more your phone
can do than you probably know about so
first things first we all know about the
personal hotspot feature that lets you
share the data from one phone to a
tablet or to another iphone or other
devices around you that typically works
out well and it's you know been working
for the past couple of years but this
year with 5g and the ability to get
hundreds of megabits down if not over a
thousand megabits down is there a way
that you can share that ultra fast high
speed connection from your new iphone 12
to other devices maybe even other
devices in your house if you live near
some really good 5g tower
yes there is thanks to some improvements
under the hood with that personal
hotspot feature all you got to do is
make sure one setting is turned on or
turned off depending on how your iphone
is set up so head into settings then go
to the personal hotspot option then you
want to make sure that the maximize
compatibility option is toggled off what
this is going to do is force your iphone
to use the 5 gigahertz bands inside
basically the faster bands that are able
to push that fast speeds from 5g over to
your other devices now in years past
apple has been using 2.4 gigahertz which
also works quite well but doesn't have
as high of a ceiling so it can't push as
much data uh and it works better with
older devices the backwards
compatibility in a sense is better so
you might not be able to get you know
that full thousand megabits down to all
your devices but you should be able to
see much higher speeds hundreds of
megabits now on all your devices thanks
to the new personal hotspot feature
that's been tweaked in the new iphone
12. now chances are if you follow anyone
with one of the new iphone 12s or you've
tried to post a video of your own on
social media chances are you've seen
something like this and dolby vision hdr
is great it's awesome to get that extra
dynamic range in better colors but it's
on by default which makes it a little
tough if you want to share that video
with friends and family on social media
there are a couple of steps and things
you can do to convert your hdr video to
non-hdr video but for this video let's
keep it simple let me show you how to
turn that hdr setting off so you can
post your videos on social media without
having any weird sort of bright lighting
effects so head into settings then head
to camera and then tap on where it has
record video with all the different
resolutions and then you should see an
option for hdr video toggle that off now
your video is not going to look worse
with dolby vision hdr turned off but it
is going to be more compatible right now
and more shareable across different
devices and different sites that don't
yet support dolby vision hdr so if
you're recording locally and you don't
mind going through the process to kind
of tweak those uh different videos to
make it work then keep it on but if you
want to share a video not have to deal
with all those weird color issues just
flip it off now the lidar scanner in the
iphone 12 pro and pro max doesn't really
do a whole lot right now it's still sort
of in its infancy but there is a cool
hidden feature built into the iphone
more specifically an app on the iphone
that lets you automatically measure a
person's height without really having to
do anything but point the lidar scanner
at them and then let the phone take care
of the rest kind of weird kind of a
niche useful feature but also kind of
cool let me show you how to do it so
this one's super simple just open up the
measure app and then point your phone at
someone standing up the lidar scanner is
basically going to scan that person and
give you a pretty accurate
representation of their height again
kind of a weird niche feature but also
kind of cool so if you've ever had to
settle a bet or you'll want to measure
how tall someone is now you can do it if
you have the lidar scanner on a new
iphone 12 pro now i can't keep talking
about hidden features in the iphone 12
series without talking about one of the
biggest features and one of the biggest
hidden secrets that we can't take
advantage of just yet that's because
according to some recent filings it
looks like the magsafe portion of the
new iphone 12 series is actually capable
of reverse wireless charging now we have
heard rumors and theories and a lot of
different information on this for years
but it looks like finally there is a
little bit of evidence to support the
fact that apple does have the capability
to do reverse wireless charging in the
iphone 12 it's just not turned on now
apple was really careful to kind of use
very vague and specific verbage by
saying it could be used to charge
potential accessories in the future now
this would make me think that maybe
there's a future version of an airpods
pro case that has a little bit of
magsafe technology built in that would
automatically align to the back of the
phone this would kind of uh fix the
issue that many people have with reverse
wireless charging phones that you set
something on the back but you're not
really hitting the sweet spot maybe
magsafe would kind of use magnets to
align everything and make sure it's
always charging that would be kind of
cool though i'd imagine if it's just
regular qi charging that you could use
anything on there that's g-compatible
and it would work kind of like anything
that's cheat compatible works with the
magsafe charger there's a lot we really
don't know about this i think it would
be really cool to see this feature kind
of become unlocked in a software update
and we have seen apple do this though i
can't remember a time in the last couple
of years that apple has not talked at
all about a feature but then surprise
they released it through a software
update we've heard of apple
pre-announcing things and then shipping
it later but i can't imagine or can't
really remember a time that apple has
not mentioned a feature then it just
kind of popped up over the phone so i
would be curious to see if this is
something that comes next year maybe
it's capable of doing this but it's not
going to be turned on i don't know where
this is going to land but if you were
hoping to see reverse wireless charging
come to the iphone this gives you a
little bit of credit and a little bit of
hope that it could come maybe sometime
soon next is something that everyone can
take advantage of and you want to write
this down because i promise you you will
need it at some point and that is to
easily find your imei on your device
it's basically a unique set of numbers
that are just you know unique and
special to your device to identify it
now you might not think you'd need this
but if you ever decide to sign up for a
developer account or if you're having
issues with your carrier your imei is
going to be helpful in fact kind of a
fun or kind of a weird story when the
iphone 12 pro first launched in the
iphone 12 uh 5g wasn't working on a t i
guess there was some kind of weird issue
where they weren't provisioning people
over to use 5g to fix this you had to go
to the store and then give them your
imei number to kind of fix that and get
everything over switched over manually
so you could use 5g kind of a pain but
that's when you want to know how to
access your imei so let me show you how
to do that so head to the phone app like
you're going to make a call and dial
star pound zero six pound then a little
screen is gonna pop up it's gonna give
you your imei info and a bunch of other
very useful information kind of unique
identifiers for your phone it's gonna
make it great if you have to go to the
store and show your carrier something or
again it's going to be one of those
situations that it's good to remember
that little phrase to punch in to get
that information just be careful who you
share that with though because your imei
does tell a lot about your phone and
giving it to another third-party random
site or a stranger could not be good for
you next up is one of my favorites this
is probably a feature that's been around
for a while but i just discovered it and
it's kind of new to me and i really
wanted to share with you guys so if you
have an iphone with more than two lenses
you can obviously switch back and forth
between those two different focal
lengths just by tapping the different
buttons inside of the camera but if you
ever wanted to go kind of in between one
maybe you don't want to go all the way
to the telephotos max but you want to
kind of go in between the main shooter
and the telephoto or maybe vice versa
something with the main and the
ultrawide or something in between you
can actually dial in exactly the focal
length that you want within the camera
app and you don't have to be locked to
just what apple pre-determines as the
two or three default focal lengths let
me show you how to do that so if you
open up the camera app and you kind of
tap and hold on where the focal links
are and kind of move your finger back
and forth you can kind of see a new
pop-up that shows you all different
focal lengths that you can unlock it's
going to kind of snap into what apple
kind of again predetermines as what
you'd most likely use but you can
basically adjust it to whatever you want
and get a custom focal length that's
going to be perfect for your shot this
works obviously in photo mode it also
works in video mode which is kind of
cool so if you ever wanted to take a
shot and you didn't want a crop you just
wanted to get a little bit more zoomed
in or you wanted to get a little bit
more zoomed out or something in between
those lenses you can in fact use this to
get the perfect focal length for your
photo or your video next let's talk
about 5g now obviously again it's a cool
feature of the phone and apple wants to
tout it as this great thing but because
there are some concerns about its impact
on battery life and this new smart data
mode kind of trying to mitigate that i'm
sure that apple might be a little
aggressive in keeping you off of 5g
unless you really need those speeds but
what if you don't care about battery
life you're paying for 5g you have a 5g
phone you just want to use 5g zero way
to force 5g on your phone to always be
on yes there is you just got to make
sure it's turned on just head into
settings
go to cellular tap cellular data options
voice and data and then switch from 5g
auto to 5g on this is basically going to
force your iphone to always use 5g
whenever possible whenever it detects a
5g signal it's going to force it on
again if you're concerned about battery
life keep this in auto or keep it more
to not skew to 5g but if you want to
take advantage of 5g make sure that's on
and that's going to force the phone to
always use 5g when available speaking of
5g another cool feature is that 5g
unlocks the ability to have 1080p hd
video calls over the cellular 5g network
this was capped before at 720p over lte
though i really don't think that was a
technical limitation because good lte is
basically just as good as 5g but anyways
you can get 1080p hd video calls that
look great all you got to do is make
sure one feature is turned on so head
back into settings go to cellular go to
cellular data options go to data mode
and then go to allow more data on 5g now
keep in mind if you have data caps of
any kind this could kind of eat away at
that but if you're on 5g on all the time
if you're allowing more data on 5g this
should allow you to do 1080p hd video
calls without you having to configure
everything else as long as a lot more
data is on you will get the highest
quality facetime call when you're on 5g
another cool feature of having this on
is you can actually do software update
downloads on the phone over 5g so no
longer having to be locked to wi-fi if
you're out and about and you're near a
nice 5g signal and your phone has the
battery capacity and the bandwidth to do
it it will download a software update
for you on 5g again all you have to do
is make sure allow more data on 5g is on
but if it's on you can do software
update downloads over cellular which is
another nice little feature all right so
you've waited long enough let's talk
about the secret button and it's
actually not a physical button but more
of a simulated software button that uses
some of the haptics and some of the
features of the internals of the phone
to allow you to trigger different things
that kind of work like a button i
actually use this basically every day
every time i sit down and shoot a video
i use this feature to do something cool
that i will show you but first let's
actually turn that button on so head
into settings go to accessibility
touch
back tap
and then pick your action and you're
gonna have two options here a double tap
option and a triple tap option so
basically think of it like two different
buttons that can do a lot of cool things
and there are some like standard options
here you can have it launch the camera
uh take a screenshot stuff like that
things you'd probably want to do
on your phone and it's just a little
easier to do like one single gesture
instead of having to tap a million
things on the screen you also have the
option here to trigger a series shortcut
and if you don't know what a series
shortcut is basically it's an app built
into every ios device that lets you do a
number of cool custom commands that kind
of change the way your phone runs and
can launch different apps can control
different smart appliances around you
basically there's a lot of really cool
stuff that you can do with siri
shortcuts think of it like building
blocks and you don't need to know any
programming or coding there are a bunch
of kind of free built-in templates in
the app that let you do a lot of cool
things and then a lot of templates for
free built by other people that let you
do even more really crazy and advanced
things it is very cool and i use a lot
of them for different things including
automatically starting the screen savers
you see behind me on the two different
macs uh that is something that i have to
do a couple of times during the video
and let me show you how i use that
special button to kind of trigger that
action so to give you a little behind
the scenes into these videos typically
now to give you a little behind the
scenes look into the video sometimes
you'll notice that the screen savers
behind me just kind of go off and they
stop working that's because they're on
like a timer and they go off and very
uninteresting things but to start them
up again i don't have to get up and go
to the computer and use the mouse and
start the screen saver i can do it from
my phone i can do it through the series
shortcuts app like on the ipad or
something else but with the double tap
function with that button i can just tap
this twice
and if i did it correctly the screen
saver behind me on that imac will start
sometimes i have to tap a little harder
does not always work the first time let
me double tap again
there we go i get a little drop down
that says the shortcut started and there
we go the things you know screen saver
is gone and we're good to go uh it's a
little finicky sometimes sometimes you
have to give it a little bit more
pressure than you think sometimes it
just activates uh without a lot of
pressure so
uh be cautious of that try it out a
little bit but this is a really great
way to get a little extra functionality
out of your phoning it kind of gives you
two more buttons on your phone without
having to have any more physical buttons
so turn on that back tap feature it is
super cool another feature which is
maybe a little less cool for some and
more useful for others is the ability to
find out where apps are going usually
when i'm downloading an app from the app
store i'm downloading it with the
intention of using it right away and
lately i've been noticing that i'll
download an app and i can't find it i
have to go to the app library and search
for it and pull it up it is not going to
my home screen why does that happen well
i think it's a way to kind of de-clutter
the home screen but also at the same
time i'd like to change that so that
doesn't happen and there is a setting
you can change to make sure that every
time you download an app from the app
store it doesn't go in the app library
automatically it'll go to your home
screen so you can see it and launch it
so fix this by going into settings go to
home screen and then you can choose
where the apps go if it's to the app
library automatically or if it's going
to stay on your home screen i know this
is a little thing but this is something
i noticed a lot that when i want to get
an app and download it and use it i
don't like to go searching for it i just
want to see it so if you want to go one
way or the other now you have the option
to choose and last but not least it is
really nice to have the app library to
kind of house all the apps you don't
want to see all the time but sometimes
you don't want to go searching for an
app you just want it to be on your home
screen but what if you wanted home
screens to be able to be turned on or
off maybe you had a weekend home screen
that had all your hiking stuff and
travel stuff and you know stuff like
that and then on the work week you had
maybe just a page that had your work
stuff on there uh time tracking invoices
however you want to set those things up
you can actually turn on and off home
screens as you want really simply by
just tapping and holding down
like you're going to move an app on the
home screen and then tapping on the
little dots at the bottom this is going
to kind of bring up a little jiggly
interface of all of your pages and you
can use that check box at the bottom to
turn those on and off so you can have
pages on during the week that you want
to use
for work stuff and then turn those off
on the weekends however you want to do
it if you want a better way to organize
your apps that just aren't in app
library you can use these home screen
functionalities to turn off and on pages
as you want to a great way to kind of
keep apps organized keep them accessible
but kind of keep them uh there when you
need them and out of the way when you
don't need them so that's it those are
12 of the coolest secret hidden features
in the all-new iphone 12 lineup and some
that apply to all other iphones as well
especially some running ios 14
specifically what do you guys think is
there a specific feature in here that i
missed something that you want to see or
one of these features that you really
like and use all the time do you use
that back tap feature what do you have
set up and also what are you hoping that
apple does with that lidar scanner
beyond just measuring a person's height
let me know in the comments down below
let's talk about our favorite features
and discover other hidden ones uh that
we might not know about already as well
thank you guys so much for watching i am
robert rosenfeld from the apple circle
and i will see you in the next one
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you