With a major software update like Apple's iOS 13, new features tend to fall into three buckets.

In the first bucket, you'll find all the big-ticket items that the company puts on top of its marketing materials, such as iOS 13's Dark Mode (which switches to a dark background in supported apps), adjustable lighting for Portrait Mode photos, and the "Sign in with Apple" feature for using new apps without creating yet another password. If you're updating, there's a good chance you'll be seeking those features out.

The second bucket includes all the passive improvements that don't require any intervention on your part to enjoy. Those include more detail in Apple Maps, a new "only once" option when an app requests location data, and faster app launch times.

Then we have my favorite bucket, which includes all the little tips and tricks that linger beneath the surface. Individually, they don't make a big difference, but as a whole they can make your device much more enjoyable to use. And unless you go looking for them, you might not realize they exist.

Here are some of my favorite new features tucked away in iOS 13:

Siri superpowers: Siri now works with certain third-party music and mapping apps, provided you have them installed. After activating Siri, try saying "Directions to [address] in Google Maps," "Directions to [address] in Waze," or "listen to [artist name] in Pandora." (Spotify doesn't support Siri commands yet, but it will.)

Quicker connections: In Control Center, press and hold the connection menu to expand it, then press and hold the Wi-Fi button to select a network without a trip to the Settings menu. (This also works with the Bluetooth button for switching between paired devices.)

A crude anti-robocall mechanism: To avoid being bothered by numbers that aren't in your contacts list, head to Settings > Phone, then toggle "Silence Unknown Callers." They'll get sent straight to voicemail.

Goodbye, scanner apps: In Apple's Files app, use the new document scanner by pressing the three-dots menu, then hitting "Scan Documents." (On the iPad, you'll find this under the "Browse" sidebar.) Documents will appear in your "On my iPhone/iPad" folder, where you can then move or share them.

Data hog deterrent: Limit mobile data use by heading to Settings > Mobile Data > Mobile Data Options and toggling "Low Data Mode." This will curb background data updates and limit the quality of media streaming in apps that support it. Low Data Mode also works for Wi-Fi networks, which is helpful if you're connecting an iPad or iPod Touch to your phone's mobile hotspot. Head to Settings > Wi-Fi, select the network name, then toggle "Low Data Mode."

Extreme screenshots: In Safari, take a screenshot of an entire webpage (rather than just the visible area) by tapping on the screenshot thumbnail, then selecting "Full Page" at the top of the screen. Try it out with the web version of this newsletter!

No more tab overload: Keep your Safari tab list under control by closing tabs automatically after a while. To enable this, head to Settings > Safari > Close Tabs, then select "After One Day/Week/Month"

Hidden cursor tricks: For more precise text selection, press and hold the spacebar to bring up a cursor that you can move around the text field. You can then highlight text by putting a second finger on the keyboard and using it to drag the cursor.

No more shaking: To undo what you just typed, swipe left on the keyboard with three fingers. (Some apps allow this undo gesture without the keyboard, but it's up to developers to support it.) You can also hold three fingers on the keyboard to bring up a menu with undo, redo, and copy/paste options.

Location stripper for photos: If you want to share a photo, but not include the location in which you took it, hit the little blue "Options" text atop the share menu, then toggle off the Location switch. The photo will still have location information in your own library, but the recipient won't see it.

Easy app deletion: Next time you want to clear out some apps, head to the App Store and hit the account button in the top-right corner. From the list of apps that need updating, you can swipe right on any one and hit "Delete."

Delete more apps: I wouldn't exactly call this a trick, but pressing and holding an icon in iOS 13 no longer brings up the mode where you can move or delete apps. Now, you must take the extra step of selecting "rearrange apps" when you long-press on an app.

Got more iOS 13 questions? Send an email to advisorator@jarednewman.com—or just reply to this email—to get in touch. I'm always happy to hear from you!
 

Whenever I'm trying to pass some idle time on my phone, my first instinct is to check Twitter, but I know it's not always the healthiest or most enlightening option.

A new iPhone app called Tonic is an appropriately-named antidote, not just for social media, but for stress-inducing news cycles in general. Instead of delivering hard news, Tonic focuses on delivering five interesting stories per day, tailored to your interests from a list of human-curated sources. You can then read those articles on the spot, bookmark them for later, or view previous recommendations in the "activity tab."

Notably, Tonic opens articles in a private web browser, and it doesn't upload any information about your reading habits because its recommendation algorithm runs locally on your iPhone. The app is free, but apparently the goal is to license the personalization engine to developers that want to build their own privacy-first apps. Whether anything comes of that or not, at least we've got a useful app to check out in the meantime.
 

Spotify's latest tricks: If you use Spotify for both music and podcasts, now you can create playlists that mix them together. Just hit the three-dots menu button next to any podcast episode, then add it to any new or existing playlist. (You can still have Spotify auto-generate mixed music and podcasts playlists by selecting "Your Daily Drive" under the "Made for You" section on the home screen.)

Spotify is also adding a couple more auto-playlists in the "Made for You" menu for those times when you don't feel like expanding your musical horizons. "On Repeat" plays songs you've been listening to over the last month, and "Repeat Rewind" brings back the tunes you played most over a month ago.

Amazon's new Alexa gear: In what's becoming an annual tradition, Amazon has announced a slew of new devices that run its Alexa voice assistant, including a new Echo speaker ($100) with better sound quality, an 8-inch version of its Echo Show smart display ($130), a $25 Echo speaker that plugs directly into an outlet, a new Echo Dot ($60) that doubles as a digital clock, and a $200 high-end Echo that can provide audio for Fire TV devices and televisions.

Beyond those incremental updates, Amazon's also taking a few stabs at putting Alexa onto wearable devices. The Echo Loop ($130) is a chunky ring that responds to voice commands, but it's missing fitness tracking, which would seem like a no-brainer for this kind of device. The Echo Frames are a $180 set of eyeglass frames that also respond to voice commands, but they only come in one style (black), and while they do support prescription lenses, they probably won't appeal to folks who don't wear glasses in the first place. Echo Buds are the most interesting of the bunch, taking on Apple's AirPods with hands-free Alexa controls and active noise reduction for $130. I can see Amazon selling a lot of them.

More Alexa privacy settings: Meanwhile, Amazon is showing a little more awareness of people's privacy concerns with always-on voice assistants. Next time you hear Alexa blurt out a random response—probably because it misheard some background noise as the "Alexa" wake word—you can say "Alexa, why did you do that?" for an explanation. More importantly, you can now delete voice recordings from Amazon's servers automaticaly when they're more than 3 months or 18 months old. Just head to this page while signed into your Amazon account and look for the "Automatically delete voice recordings" option. You can also enable an "Alexa, delete what I just said" voice command by clicking here.

Painting al Fresco: Adobe is still working on a proper iPad version of Photoshop, but in the meantime it's offering some of the same painting features in a new app called Fresco. If you use it with an Apple Pencil—ideally with an iPad Pro—it's supposed to simulate the look of real oil and watercolor painting, with many of the same brushes that Photoshop offers.

I'm a terrible artist, but I gave it a try and it seems pretty neat. The catch is that you only get a limited brush selection and 2 GB of Adobe's online storage as a free user. To unlock more brushes and storage, you need an Adobe Photoshop subscription (at $10 per month) or a full-blown Creative Cloud subscription (which starts at $53 per month).

Apple's display repair warnings: After announcing last month that it will supply replacement screens and other parts to unauthorized repair shops, Apple has dropped the other shoe. On the iPhones 11, replacing your screen with a non-genuine version will bring up a warning on the lock screen, leading to a message about the potential danger of using unauthorized parts, including potential battery damage and overheating.

As Apple's support page notes, the message will stay on the lock screen for four days, in the main Settings menu for 15 days, and indefinitely in the "About" section of the Settings menu. Not being able to remove the lock screen nag seems a little extreme to me, though it's reasonable for Apple to warn its customers about the potential downsides of using unauthorized parts. Those warnings should encourage repair shops to up-front with their customers about where they source their own screen replacements.

Word count for Google Docs: To me, writing without seeing a word count feels like flying blind, so I'm glad to see that Google Docs has added an option for a persistent word count at the bottom of the screen. Just click Tools > Word Count, then check the "Display count while typing" option. You can also click the word count to see the number of characters and pages in the document, or select text to see how many words are in your selection.
 

Not a lot of great deals about today, but here's what I've found:

• Anker has a sturdy-looking smartphone mount for car vents for $9 with the code SGZM658Y at checkout.
• For Prime members, Amazon is bundling a Ring Video Doorbell Pro and an Echo Show 5 smart display for $200. That's $50 off the regular price for the doorbell alone.
• You can still get Apple's latest iPad with 128 GB of storage for $400, which is $30 off the regular price.

Did you know that you can quickly type on a smartphone by swiping instead of tapping on your keyboard? Just glide your finger over each letter, then lift your finger when you've completed a word. As if by magic—but really, by computer algorithm—the keyboard will recognize what you're writing even when your gestures pass through unwanted letters. In my experience, swipe typing isn't really better than typing with two thumbs, but it's much faster when you've only got one hand free, or otherwise want to use one hand to keep a firmer grasp on your phone. It's also just kind of fun.

Android phones have offered swipe typing for years, with most of them offering it by default (though I prefer Google's Gboard over the version that Samsung uses.) Apple's iOS has supported swipe typing through third-party keyboards since 2014, but it's now built into the main keyboard in iOS 13. That means you don't have to deal with the bugs that sometimes come up with third-party keyboards or give up easy access to Siri's voice dictation button.

If you're new to swipe typing, a few things to keep in mind:

• It's better for longer words: While gesture keyboards are great for long words like "indistinguishable," they can easily confuse short words with similar spellings, like "of" and "off." You can either tap these shorter words to avoid mix-ups, or make a little looping gesture over a letter to signal that you want to enter it twice.
• Know your options: If you accidentally enter the wrong word, you can always hit backspace to delete the whole thing and try again. You can also look above the keyboard for alternative suggestions, or long-press the space bar on iOS to bring up a cursor for fine adjustments. With Gboard on Android, you can swipe left on the spacebar to move the cursor back.
• Stick with it: Because gesture typing is so different from regular typing, it can be pretty disorienting at first. Give it a solid week or two of dedicated use before writing it off.