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Check out these 12 hidden iOS 8 tricks

Published Jun 16th, 2014 11:23AM EDT
iOS 8 Features: Hidden Tricks
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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When Apple unveiled iOS 8 at WWDC 2014 two weeks ago, the company only demoed a few of its most important features. The company also listed some of other new iOS 8 capabilities offstage, and left many more to be discovered by iOS 8 beta 1 users. MacRumors has put together a big list of iOS 8 features, revealing several interesting tricks that aren’t obvious at first sight, but could prove to be more than useful for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.

One interesting feature concerns Safari’s password-saving feature, as the application can now share saved login details with other apps. As a result, users will be able to sign into other apps, such as Gmail for example, by simply using the login information stored inside Safari.

When it comes to email, in iOS 8 users will be able to set up notifications for a certain mail thread that may be very important. A “More” tab appears when swiping left on an email message in the inbox, which includes a “Notify Me” option.

One tiny trick inside Calendar allows users to decline events with a comment, making it easier to send responses to event invites.

A “Speak Screen” option is now available inside the “Accessibility” settings. When enabled, the feature will speak the contents of the screen to a user, after a simple two-finger swipe gesture.

Apple has tweaked its location-related features as well, allowing users to further customize the way apps handle their locations. Interestingly, a background location usage app notification will pop up to tell users when a background application is using the user’s location, and to ask whether location tracking is still allowed.

Users will also be able to tell an application when it can access location. Instead of simple on and off toggles, each app has three location access levels including “Never,” “Always,” And “While Using the App.”

Apple has overhauled its Camera app in iOS 8 as well, adding several small, but useful features. For example, users will be able to hide certain images and videos from the Photos app, meaning they will not appear in the albums view. Instead, they’ll only be accessible from a “Hidden” album.

Furthermore, the Camera app will also show a “Recently Deleted” album containing pictures that were deleted. Moreover, users will be able to recover photos in iOS 8, which means that mistakenly deleting photos won’t be a problem anymore.

When adding images to a message, the most recent photos will be available in an image bar in a new menu, allowing the user to quickly select one of the most recently taken images. In iOS 8, photos can also be added to Notes, making the note-taking app all the more useful.

Finally, a photo-related feature inside iMessage will let users batch save or delete all the images that have been sent in a conversation.

A full run-down of new iOS 8 features, as listed by MacRumors, is available at the source link after the article, while images showing some of these handy iOS 8 tricks follow below.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.