Guides

Apple's Shortcuts app offers hundreds of pre-written algorithms designed to accomplish tasks that would normally take many steps in just one or a few steps. For example, the Home ETA shortcut uses Maps and Messages to find your location, find a route home, estimate the time that route takes and text that time to whoever you set up the shortcut to send it to, all with a single tap.

Whenever you make a new playlist in Apple Music, it will by default use the cover art from the album that the first song in the playlist is from, or it will have the default music note as its cover. You can, however, change the cover art to a photo from your own collection. Giving your playlists custom cover art not only personalizes your collection, but can also help you identify the playlist you want with just a quick glance. Here's how to change your playlists' cover art on iPhone and iPad:

Numbers is Apple's spreadsheet application that, along with Pages and Keynote, make up the iWork suite. Chances are that the vast majority of spreadsheets you encounter at work or elsewhere are going to be Microsoft Excel files. Opening an Excel file in Numbers will change it to a Numbers file, so if you make changes to it you will probably want to save it as an Excel file if you plan to pass it back to your Excel-using co-workers. This can be easily done on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, here's how:

iPhone and iPad

If you use Instagram you probably share your Stories with family and friends, and probably don't want them shared with people you don't know. Your friends and family, however, can share your stories with others as direct messages. If you have your account set to private it doesn't matter because only your followers will be able to view it, even if it is shared as a direct message.

If you are new to Apple Pay, it is a mobile payment method that uses NFC technology to conduct secure transactions at contactless point-of-sale terminals. In short, you go to any number of retailers that accept Apple Pay, go to the check out and simply wave your phone in front of a scanner after you've authenticated your payment with Touch ID or Face ID, and voilà, your transaction is complete.