I’m sure you all know that you can take a photo with your iPhone using the volume up button. If not, do it real quick right now, and prepare to have your entire iPhone photo taking experience changed.
No, really, launch the Camera app, flip that iPhone onto its side, putting it into landscape orientation, and then hold it like a traditional point and shoot camera. Press down on the volume up button to snap a picture. Brilliant!
Camera+ was the first non-Apple app to use this control scheme, at least until Apple put a stop to it by rolling the feature into the actual operating system. Now, in iOS 7 beta, Apple’s added another little fun feature. Here’s how to activate it.
Previously, you’d have to tap on the screen in an area to focus your iPhone on that distance. Which is all very well and good when the focus area you want isn’t in the little green square that auto-appears when taking a shot.
If, however, you’re running iOS 7 beta and you’d like to just use the green square as your focus area, hold the volume up button down for a second and the iPhone will auto-focus to that area. No more tapping!
To take the picture, then, simply release the volume up button like you would a real camera, and your iPhone will snap the photo. Hooray!
Now you can keep your dirty fingers off the screen, and use your iPhone in an even more point-and-shoot way.
Thanks to reader Albert G for the tip!
