The iPhone tricks you didn’t know about – and one of the hacks can even help you get to sleep
Three little-known iPhone features are delighting users who previously had no idea they were available.
Most are functions of the phone’s camera, such as identifying a plant or animal species from a single photo, or copying and pasting text.
By taking a photo of text in a foreign language, users can also have that text translated via a built-in translator.
Finally, users have discovered a feature in the Control Center that turns the phone into a white noise machine.
Here’s how to discover the fun features.
Identify plants and animals with an iPhone camera
iPhone users can identify a plant or animal by taking a photo of it with the device’s camera, clicking the info button after opening the photo and pressing Lookup
iPhone owners can identify plants and animals by accessing the device’s camera.
A TikTok user named Tony proved that this iPhone trick works in one video he posted on the social media platform on May 16, showing him taking a walk.
To learn more about the plants and animals he encountered during his outing, Tony opened his app and took a picture of some berries.
After opening the photo and pressing Lookup, he clicked the info button and was able to discover the species of the plant, which appeared on the screen.
Copy text with an iPhone camera
A TikTok user known as Tech Social 101 showed how to do this trick on an iPhone by just going to his settings or the device’s control center
Anyone who needs help understanding something written in a foreign language can use the camera app to take a photo and translate any message in seconds.
PTC Repair showed step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this a TikTok video the user posted in 2023.
PTC Repair took a photo of a document in Spanish and tapped the three-line document icon in the bottom right corner of the iPhone screen.
The user then pressed translate and the words were immediately translated into English.
iPhone owners can also select other languages ββfor translation and open the translated words in the Translate app.
Make a white noise machine
A TikTok user known as Tech Social 101 showed how to do this trick on an iPhone by just going to his settings or the device’s control center
All iPhone users can turn their smartphone into a white noise machine to help them relax and sleep.
A TikTok user known as Tech Social 101 showed how to do this trick by going into his settings in a video he posted last year.
Similar to TikToker, iPhone owners just need to go into the settings to create a white noise machine with their devices, press Accessibility, click Audio & Visual and turn on the background sounds.
After you turn it on, a sound will go off and from there iPhone users can choose from five sounds including rain, dark sound, and streaming.