New iPhone 11 or 11 Pro: Do these 5 things first
The most important things you need to know how to do on your new iPhone.
The iPhone 11's new camera adds more than just a new lens.
After unboxing your new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max, and setting it up using Apple's new transfer tool, you may be asking yourself... What now?
Well, there are a couple of settings you should double-check before test-driving the iPhone 11's most important update, the camera. We're going to walk you through the most important five.
The iPhone 11 has gained a new camera, with several new features that will up your selfie game and improve photos you take during a night out with your friends. But, first, you should take a few minutes to set up Face ID and turn on a feature that will ensure your iPhone's battery lasts for as long as you own your phone.
Set up Face ID, trust us.
Set up Face ID
If you've upgraded to the iPhone 11 from an iPhone that's three years old or older, it's very likely you've never used Face ID. Face ID replaces the home button and Touch ID found on any iPhone released prior to the iPhone X. It uses Apple's True Depth camera system to project invisible dots on your face, analyze those dots and create a 3D map of your face. Once it's set up, every time you wake the phone, it will scan your face and unlock without you doing anything other than looking at it.
Face ID setup is part of the initial setup process, but if you skipped past it, or your sales rep flew through those steps for you just to get you out of the store, you can still set it up by going to Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Set up Face ID.
The process is simple and takes just a few seconds. After that, unlocking your phone is pretty magical.
iOS 13 will help prolong your iPhone's battery.
Turn on Optimized Battery Charging
This isn't specific to the iPhone 11 or iPhone 11 Pro, but instead, it's a feature included in iOS 13. Optimized Battery Charging learns your nightly charging habits, using any set alarms in the Clock app, to properly charge your iPhone's battery each night and reduce the amount it degrades over time.
More specifically, your iPhone will immediately charge to 80% when you plug it in or place it on a wireless charger when you go to bed. Once it gets to 80%, the battery will stay there until right before you wake up, when it will resume charging to 100%. The end result is a healthier charging cycle for your phone's battery, and a battery that will last longer. Odds are you're going to have your iPhone 11 for a couple of years, right? Take care of the battery starting now.
Turn on Battery Optimization in Settings > Battery > Battery Health > Optimized Battery Charging.
Switching between the iPhone's different cameras is simple.
Take a wide-angle photo
Both iPhone 11 models now have an ultrawide-angle camera for capturing photos and videos with a 120-degree field-of-view. That means you can zoom out to capture more of your surroundings in a shot, without having to physically back up.
There's a little bit of a learning curve to using a wide-angle camera -- a feature some Android phones have had for the past couple of years -- but once you get the general idea of when and where to use the new camera, you'll love it.
Open the Camera app on your iPhone 11 and tap on the .5x or 1x button to switch between cameras. You'll notice a big difference between the two (or three, if you have an iPhone 11 Pro) different cameras. The ultrawide camera adds another potential perspective to photos we take on a daily basis.
Experiment with the new ultrawide-angle camera by getting closer to subjects and capturing more of the peripheral scene, or take advantage of it in a tight space to fit everyone in the same shot.
Take a slofie
The front-facing camera on the iPhone 11 has a few new tricks, including the ability to capture a slofie. That's Apple's name for a 120 frame-per-second slow-motion selfie. As we saw during the event where the iPhone 11 was announced, this can lead to some funny videos.
My slo mo selfie, slofie, slomelfie, also my mental state at end of day #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/CFh0i6B4mW
— Scott Stein (@jetscott) September 10, 2019
Open the Camera app, switch to the front-facing camera and select the Slo-Mo mode. Tap on the shutter button, then move around really fast, jump up and down -- get creative and have fun.
Night Mode is going to change how we think about taking pictures at night.
Take a Night Mode photo
Beyond the additional ultrawide-angle camera, the iPhone 11 has a new Night Mode designed specifically for taking photos in low-light environments.
Your iPhone 11 will automatically detect when Night Mode is necessary based on the amount of light it detects and suggests enabling it by showing a small icon that looks like a moon with a couple of lines through it.
Tap that icon to turn on Night Mode. Next to the icon will be a time, such as "1s" or "5s." That's how long in seconds your iPhone 11 requires to take the Night Mode photo and capture all of the information and light necessary to produce a great-looking shot.
Tap on the shutter button when you're ready to take the photo and try to hold the phone steady until the shutter button is active again. Moving around while a Night Mode photo is captured can lead to blurry shots.
Undoubtedly, Night Mode and the ultrawide-angle camera are going to change the way many iPhone owners take photos and videos.
Alongside the iPhone 11's release, Apple released iOS 13 -- a major update to the software that runs on its phones. Included in the update are new iMessage features, an improved version of Safari, a revamped version of Reminders, plus so much more. We have a complete guide to iOS 13 that's worth bookmarking and checking often.
