Tips

Sometimes having to unlock your iPhone to access your Messages app can be a pain, so Apple has added a quick reply feature as part of its "interactive notifications" feature in iOS 8. This allows users to quickly reply to a message from the Lock Screen without having to unlock their iPhone. Here's how it works.

When you receive a notification on your Lock Screen swipe left on the message to reveal the blue Reply button. Tap the button then type your message in message box and hit Send. Your response will then be sent without having to unlock your phone.

Impulse brings brings a new level of control to music playback on jailbroken iOS devices. Once installed, a custom set of gestures can be used to control music while the display is off. This means music can be controlled without unlocking the device, or even pressing the wake button at all.

A simple tap on the dark device screen readies Impulse for further input. Gestures can then be used to play, pause, switch tracks, and change volume with the display off. The tweak is compatible with any app that uses built-in iOS music controls.

Reachability has come to the latest iPhones, to help make the entire display usable with one hand. This is not only a feature limited to iOS 8; Reachability can only be activated on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The jailbreak tweak Reachability7 removes this restriction.

Enabling Reachability on older devices running iOS 7 means installing the tweak and configuring it to work with an Activator gesture. Normally, Reachability would be activated by lightly double tapping the Touch ID button.

There is a potentially life saving feature in iOS 8's new Health app - the emergency Medical ID. If you are ever in an accident, and let's hope you never are, that leaves you unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate, the Medical ID could prove invaluable to emergency medical workers. So, to err on the side of caution you should set yours up. It takes only a few moments, here's how to do it:

1. Open your Health app and tap on Medical ID in the bottom right corner.

iCloud Drive brings new functionality to iCloud for those running iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. Even Windows 7 and later can join in the fun via iCloud for Windows 4.0. While iCloud Drive adds the ability to use Apple's massive data centers for general storage, there are limitations when using iOS 8.

Spoiler alert: there is no Finder equivalent or iCloud Drive app for iOS that provides browse access to all of the files stored in an iCloud account. Individual apps such as the iWork suite are iCloud Drive compatible, and will only provide access to files associated with the app.