10 tips and tricks to get the best out of your iPhone X

So you’ve just spend the annual GDP of a developing nation on Apple’s latest and greatest iPhone – are you sure you’re getting the best from it? An iPhone is an iPhone, after all. Or is it? Not when it’s an iPhone X, the first Apple handset to ditch the home button in favour of on-screen swipes and gestures. Oh, and let’s not forget swapping finger-sensing TouchID for facial scanning. It’s a brave new world out there, with lots to learn for even the most die-hard Apple fan. Or it would be, if we hadn’t done all the hard work for you. Here’s every tip and trick we’ve got for mastering the iPhone X.

1) LEARN ALL THOSE NEW GESTURES

With no home button, using the iPhone X is an all-finger affair. Whenever you see a little line at the bottom of the screen, that’s your cue to swipe up and go back to the home screen. It’s always there, whether you’re in portrait or landscape, but sometimes it fades slightly (or disappears altogether) depending on the app you’re in. Swipe up from the bottom once and it’ll show up, then swipe again and you’ll jump back to the home screen.

2) GET YOUR SWITCH ON WITH A SWIPE

If you like having all your open apps just a tap or two away, the App Switcher is perfect: it holds everything in suspended animation while you’re not using it, ready to jump straight back in where you left off the moment you open an app again. But with no home button, how the heck do you get to it? Don’t panic, just swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold your finger in place, roughly around the middle of the screen until you feel a vibration. Do it in one smooth motion and the app switcher will appear.

3) CLOSE OLD APPS ONCE YOU’RE DONE WITH ‘EM

This tip isn’t all that important for saving battery life, as iOS doesn’t drain any extra power if you’ve got loads of apps open at once. Still, no-one likes a messy app switcher screen, so feel free to force-close the apps you’re not using a lot. Head to the App Switcher screen, and then long-press on an open app. This’ll stick a tiny red close icon at the top left corner of the app preview. Tap it to close an app completely. Changed your mind? Then tap anywhere else onscreen and the close icon will vanish again.

4) WAKE UP SIRI WITH A SQUEEZE

With no home button, there’s no double-tapping for Siri on the iPhone X. Instead, you’ve got to give the button on the right side of the phone a loving squeeze. OK, maybe the loving part isn’t a crucial step, but long-press it for a second and Siri will wake up, ready to answer your inane questions about why cats lick themselves or what’s the capital city of Bolivia.

5) PAY WITH A DOUBLE-TAP

Give the side button the ol’ one-two and it’ll activate Apple Pay, assuming you’ve registered a credit or debit card through the Wallet app. Apple Pay now authenticates using your face (or a password) instead of a fingerpint now, so you’ll need to hold the phone up to get a clear view of your mug before you’ll be ready to transfer any cash through the airwaves.

6) TAKE CONTROL OF CONTROL CENTRE

On an iPhone X, you need to drag down from the top-right corner of the screen access Control Centre. It works pretty much the same here as it does on any other iPhone. This is also the only place you’ll be able to see your battery percentage: it’s hidden on the home screen, but appears at the top here to show how much juice you’ve got left. A lot of these widgets get smarter if you give ’em a 3D touch, too.

7) SNAG A SCREENSHOT WITH THIS BUTTON COMBO

To snap a record of whatever’s on your display, tap the right side button and the volume up key on the left of the phone. The pic is then shown as a thumbnail at the bottom of the screen: ignore it and it’ll disappear, saved to your camera roll, but if you tap it, you can then edit it before you save it. Crop tools, pens, pencils, colours and shapes can be doodled on top of whatever you’ve snapped, which is handy for making annotated notes – or giving all your friends some scribbled bunny ears.

8) POWER DOWN TO SAVE ON BATTERY

It’s hard to switch off when there’s no dedicated power button. Instead, you’ve got to pull off some finger yoga and hold down two buttons – then swipe to fully power down. Press and hold the right side button and either of the volume keys (not both) for two seconds, until a prompt appears onscreen. Slide to the right and the iPhone X will shut down. To wake it up again, just hold the button on the right side of the phone.

9) CATCH UP WITH THE COVER SHEET

By default, the iPhone X hides your notifications away from prying eyes, only revealing them when it detects your face (and your face only). Older notifications disappear from the lock screen once you’ve swiped up, but you can always go back and check on them with the Cover Sheet. To bring it up, you’ve got to swipe down from the top-left of the screen. This’ll let you scroll through old notifications, clear individual ones, or wipe off entire days from your recents list to bring things into order.

10) MAKE A POOP TALK WITH ANIMOJI

Open a message, or create a new one, then tap on the monkey icon at the bottom of the screen. This will open up the Animoji pane, letting you choose which emoji to turn into a talking, emoting character by wiggling your face bits about. Tapping the up arrow fills the screen, and sliding vertically picks different animals. Hold your phone up so it can properly scan your face, and then all your movements will be translated onscreen by your avatar.