Phone & tablet tips
Brilliant things to do on your device.
ANDROID & iOS
Find documents faster in Google Photos
The latest update to Google Photos improves the app’s organisation of screenshots and photos you take of items containing text – including documents, posters and receipts. It now uses AI to better identify and categorise these images and sort them into appropriate albums. This makes it much easier to find text-based pictures without having to scroll through your whole photo library.
Tap the Search tab at the bottom of the Photos app and you’ll see a new Documents section between the Places and Things rows (see screenshot below left). Here you’ll find albums with labels such as Screenshots, Posters, Menus, ‘Book cover’ and ‘Identity document’. If you find – as we did – that Google has placed some images in the wrong categories, tap the tick box next to them, then press the three-dot menu button and choose ‘Remove photos’. You can optionally select a reason for removing the picture, to help the app improve its accuracy.
Google now lets you set reminders in your calendar from screenshots and photos that include dates of upcoming events. For example, if you have a screen grab of a train ticket or a picture of a concert flyer, tap ‘Set reminder’ to add the date to your calendar, and get a reminder nearer the time. You can also choose to automatically archive screenshots and documents after 30 days, which will hide them in your main gallery but keep them accessible in the relevant albums.
ANDROID
Capture photos through the Messages app
One of the benefits to using Google’s RCS (Rich Communications Services) technology instead of standard text messages is that you can send people photos without being charged by your mobile network. To make things even easier, Google has updated its RCSenabled Messages app with a camera function. The app comes installed on Android phones and is also available from the Play Store (tinyurl.com/ APC529msg).
The new Camera button is located to the left of the search icon above your Messages inbox (see screenshot above). Tapping it opens the default camera app on your phone, so you can quickly take a photo. Now press the tick button to save the picture, and then select the person
that you want to send it to.
The photo will be inserted in a message, so you can share it for free – provided both you and the recipient have RCS switched on. To check, tap your profile picture in the top-right of the Messages app and choose ‘Messages settings’, then ‘RCS chats’.
Apple has finally agreed to support RCS on iPhones, so you should soon be able to send photos to iMessage users with no loss of quality or network charges.
iOS
Secure your private browsing in Safari
Like most browsers, Safari for iOS and iPadOS has a private-browsing mode that stops details of the websites you visit being stored on your iPhone or iPad. In iOS 17, the Private Browsing feature offers even more protection against prying eyes, both online and off.
It’s now possible to lock your private tabs, so nobody but you can see the sites you’ve been looking at. To activate this option, open the Settings app, tap Safari and scroll down to the ‘Privacy & Security’ section. Switch on the option ‘Require Face ID to Unlock Private Browsing’ (see screenshot below) or ‘Require Touch ID to Unlock Private Browsing’, depending on which method you use to secure your iPhone or iPad. This means your private tabs in Safari can only be unlocked by using your face or fingerprint.
Private Browsing in iOS 17 automatically strips the tracking data from web addresses, so companies can’t follow you around online (a feature recently added to Firefox). To apply this protection to standard browsing too, tap Advanced on the Safari screen in Settings, select ‘Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection’ and choose All Browsing.
Additionally, Safari in iOS 17 lets you change the default search engine in Private Browsing mode. Tap ‘Private Search Engine’ on the Safari screen and choose a more private option – preferably DuckDuckGo.
ANDROID & iOS
Add your email address to WhatsApp WhatsApp has introduced the ability to associate an email address with your account. This enables you to access your WhatsApp account by entering your email addrthey have dozens of reviews on many category pagesess when you’re in an area with no mobile signal, and can’t use your phone number for verification.
To set up the new feature, tap your profile picture in the WhatsApp app and select Account. Tap ‘Email address’, enter your email and press Next. Type in the six-digit verification code that WhatsApp sends you and tap Verify (see screenshot right) to confirm.
At the time of writing, the ‘Email address’ option was available in the WhatsApp app for iOS and its beta version for Android – it should have rolled out to the stable version by the time you read this.
iOS
Share contact details instantly using AirDrop
To share a phone number or email address with someone, you usually need to send the details in a message, jot them down on a piece of paper or read them aloud. A new option in iOS 17 is more convenient than all those methods, letting you share contact details instantly.
It’s called NameDrop and sends data from one iPhone to another using AirDrop, provided both devices have AirDrop enabled. Open the Settings app, choose General, then AirDrop and select ‘Everyone for 10 Minutes’ (see screenshot below).
Hold your phone near the top of the other person’s iPhone, until a glow emerges from both devices to confirm they’re connected. Once ‘NameDrop’ appears on both screens, choose the contact information you want to share and tap Share. This will send your details to that person, and vice versa – or they can opt to Receive Only. To cancel, move the iPhones away from each other before the transfer completes. Note that NameDrop only works for sharing new contact details, not updating an existing contact.
ANDROID & iOS
Hide your location during WhatsApp calls
WhatsApp has added a privacy feature that hides your IP address from people you call – or who call you – via the messaging app. This prevents them from deducing your geographic location, by routing the call through WhatsApp’s own servers rather than connecting you directly to the other person. All calls remain end-to-end encrypted, though WhatApp says the new option will reduce call quality.
To activate it anyway, select Privacy in the app’s settings, tap Advanced and switch on the ‘Protect IP address in calls’ option (see screenshot above). Turn it off again when speaking to people you trust.
ANDROID & iOS
Never lose your place in YouTube videos
There are plenty of new tricks to try in the YouTube mobile app. One tip we didn’t have space forhaven’t mentioned before lets you quickly go back to where you started after you fast-forward or rewind a video.
Previously, when you dragged the time slider left or right to start ‘seeking’ a specific moment in a YouTube video, it was tricky to return to where you left off – without closely examining the progress bar. Now, when you move your finger to the point where you began searching, your phone or tablet will vibrate, and you’ll see a ‘Release to cancel’ message. Lift your finger to resume watching the video in the app.