It’s World Productivity Day, so Chris Costello, Director of Manchester technology hub Sync has shared 5 handy iPhone shortcuts to help free up some valuable time.

Here’s there top 5 iPhone tips:

Apple Shortcut App:

This app, designed for iOS, allows you to choose and create your own list of shortcuts for your favourite apps.

This works with any app that supports Siri Shortcuts, and can allow you to get directions home, tweet the song your listening to or bring up the latest news, with just one tap.



Preview messages, secretly:

Too busy to respond to your messages but keen to know what’s been sent? You can read messages without letting the sender know, even when your read receipts are switched on, and then reply at your leisure!

Use the iPhone 3D touch to press on the new message in the Messages list and hold. The full conversation will come up in a preview box without you having to go into the conversation, meaning you can use the peek feature to preview your message, without the pressure of having to reply straight away. Just don’t press too hard or you’ll open the full message and be found out!

Email attachments:

Need a quick and easy way to send files via email on your iPhone? You’ve found it.

Simply open a blank mail message and double tap in the body to bring up an edit menu. Tap the arrow to the right and you can choose Insert Photo or Video, or Add Attachment. Voila!

Take a photo during a video:

Did you know you can take photos while you’re shooting a video to save any post-shoot editing? Well now you do!

There may be a moment that you want to capture instantly, but you’re busy filming. As you’re capturing a video, you will see a white circle, which is an additional capture button on the bottom right of your screen. You can simply tap to take a photo while you film.

One-hand use:

You’re busy, but you need to reply to that important message as you hold your coffee, climb the stairs to your office or carry your MacBook to your next meeting. Well, this iPhone shortcut lets you do it one handed.

Reachability allows you to bring the user interface down to the bottom of the screen, bringing everything you need within easy reach.

You need to activate Reachability inside your chosen app so that when you go to open it, the interface will be scaled down and you can reach it with just your thumb and one hand!

The mode is then activated by double tapping the surface of the home button.

image courtesy pestoverde/flickr under creative commons license