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How to set up your new iPhone the right way

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Set Up Your New iPhone: We can get your new iPhone set up easily — no need to phone it in.
Rip that iPhone out of the box right now!
Photo: Apple

The iPhone setup process gets easier every year. So easy, in fact, that there are only a few things you need to do to move from your old iPhone to a new one. You can even directly transfer your data from an Android phone. Setting up a new iPhone from scratch isn’t much harder — you just have a few extra steps you need to go through.

There are still a few tricks that will help things run smoothly, though. Let’s see how to set up your new iPhone the right way.

How to force iPhone reboot with simple Siri command in iOS 16 [Pro Tip]

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How to force iPhone reboot with simple Siri command
Rebooting your iPhone is as easy as asking Siri to do it. And you don't even have to say "please."
Graphic: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Pro-tip-4If your iPhone or iPad locks up, iOS 16/iPadOS 16 will let get out of the jam by rebooting the device with a simple Siri command. It’s the easiest method I’ve found to get the handset or tablet going again when there’s a problem with the touchscreen, or the device is just misbehaving.

Here’s all you have to do.

Get 10 useful iPhone tips and tricks straight from Apple

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Get 10 useful iPhone tips and tricks straight from Apple
Even long-time iPhone users might discover something new in this list of tips and tricks.
Photo: Apple

Apple Support premiered on Wednesday a video with helpful iPhone tips. Sit back, take a few minutes and learn something new you can do with your handset.

With ten tips — plus bonus ones — there’s sure to be something here you didn’t know.

How to switch your Apple Watch to a new iPhone

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How to switch your Apple Watch to a new iPhone
Here’s how to get your Apple Watch ready for your new iPhone.
Photo: Cult of Mac

You just got a shiny new iPhone 12 and of course you want your Apple Watch to play nicely with it. You could reset the Watch to start out fresh, but there’s an easier way switch your Apple Watch to your new iPhone.

Here’s what you do.

Optimize your new iPhone experience with these expert setup tips

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iPhone Xs
Get your new iPhone set up the right way.
Photo: Apple

For many people, iPhone 12 will be radically different from previous iPhone models. Despite this, the iPhone setup process hasn’t changed much. However, while you might find yourself on familiar ground, there are still plenty of little things you really ought to do before you fire up your new phone for the first time (or pretty soon thereafter).

Let’s take a look at all the things you can do to get your iPhone set up exactly how you want it.

How to decline and mute calls with iPhone

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Sweet, sweet silence is just a couple button-taps away when you know how to decline iPhone calls.
Sweet, sweet silence.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Phone calls are so 20th century. Apart from a knock at the door, when else can another person decide to bug you, and then bug you right away, at their own convenience, without getting your permission first?

In the 21st century, we have a name for these people: entitled. Fortunately, it’s easy to bump their presumptuous invasions, and let them know who’s the boss1.

Here’s how to decline iPhone calls (or mute them if you’re feeling particularly passive-aggressive).

Apple’s big earnings surprises [Cult of Mac Magazine No. 308]

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Find out about Apple's big earnings surprises in Cult of Mac Magazine No. 308
We learned something! (A few things, actually.)
Cover: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Apple’s record-breaking revenues weren’t the biggest surprise in this week’s earnings call. Usually tight-lipped Apple execs Tim Cook and Luca Maestri actually uncorked a few shocking revelations!

Read all about it in this week’s totally free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Grab the iOS version now to enjoy it on your iPad, or hit the links below to read in your browser.

You’ll also find plenty of other Apple news, analysis and opinion, including a call for transparency in the wake of Siri’s eavesdropping problem. Plus, we’ve got product reviews and how-tos — like one on cleaning the lint from your filthy iPhone.

3D Touch a folder to see only apps with notifications

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Perhaps the greatest 3D Touch trick ever.
Perhaps the greatest 3D Touch trick ever.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You’re going to L-O-V-E this tip. You know how sometimes you see a folder on your iPhone’s home screen, and there’s a red notification badge on the folder itself? That badge is a summary of all the unread notifications of the apps inside the folder. Of course, at this point you just ignore it, because you don’t want to swipe through the pages of never-used apps inside the folder, just to see which apps have unread alerts.

But what if there was a way to quickly see which apps in that folder have outstanding notifications. Well, there is! And you’re going to kick yourself when you see how easy it is.

How to clean your dirty, lint-stuffed iPhone

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Lint and SIM removal tool
This is the harvest from a single iPhone Lightning port.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Even if you keep your iPhone in a nice case and regularly polish the screen, it is probably a filthy cesspit of germs, fluff and abrasive dust. Fortunately, if you can be bothered to actually do something about it, cleaning your iPhone is easy and rewarding.

Rewarding in the sense that you’ll be rewarded with a pristine slab of glass and steel, instead of having to finger a filth-bomb every time you take your pocket computer out to use it.

Prioritize and cancel app downloads with 3D Touch

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No, not that kind of 3D Touch.
No, not that kind of 3D Touch.
Photo: Rachel Johnson/Flickr CC

Did you ever update a bunch of apps over a slow connection? Maybe you’re on vacation, saving your cellular data, and you’re running your app updates on the free Wi-Fi in a cool beachside bar? Can you cancel that huge update you don’t need?

Or maybe you just restored your iCloud backup to a brand-new iPhone, and now you’re waiting for all the apps to re-download. Isn’t there a way to make your favorite apps jump to the beginning of the queue?

Well, the answer is yes to both! You just need 3D Touch.