10 cool things you can do with your phone

Are you using your smartphone to its full potential? Trick question: no one is. 

There’s so many amazing things you can do with them, it would take a lifetime to learn them all. But to help you, here’s a quick and helpful starter kit. 

Create a wi-fi hotspot 

If you need to connect your laptop or tablet to the web but you’re not in wi-fi range, it’s easy to turn your phone in to a wi-fi hotspot. 

Here’s how you can do it. 

Correct Siri’s pronunciation 

Siri’s great at helping but some names she just has trouble getting right. Here's how you can correct the way she says your and your contacts’ names. 

Use it as a mouse 

If you find yourself mouseless at a computer, there are a few apps you can download to get you over the line. Here's a handy guide with a few options plus instructions on how to use them. 

Measure your heart rate 

There’s heaps of cool health and exercise related applications for your phone, and one of them even checks your pulse. 

With the Instant Heart Rate app (free on both iOS and Android), simply touch the screen with your finger and the phone’s camera will scan your blood flow to calculate your pulse rate. 

Allow remote access from your PC 

Want to see and access the content and apps on your phone from your PC? With a remote access app installed, you can control your phone from a web browser on your desktop. 

Remote desktop apps such as Splashtop 2 Remote Desktop can also control your PC from your phone. 

Use it as a security camera 

You’ve just upgraded to the latest Android smartphone. What do you do with your old one? Don’t just chuck it in a drawer, use it as a security camera to keep an eye on the cats while you’re at work. 

Here’s how you do it. 

Measure things 

If you find yourself in need of a tape measure, but all you have is your phone, both Android and iOS have AR apps that you can use to roughly figure out the length of things. 

It’s not going to be accurate enough to do some woodwork, but perfect for figuring out if that fridge will fit in that corner.  

Location based reminders 

We all need reminding of certain things every now and again, and thanks to GPS, your phone is happy to give you that nudge should you be in a location that you've set a reminder for. Think about walking by the supermarket and getting a ‘Don’t forget the soy sauce!’ pop up. Handy! 

Google Keep is perhaps the most popular option, and is available on IOS and Android. Here's how to use it. 

Shake to undo 

If you make a mistake on your iPhone, whether while writing a text or editing a picture, simply give it a shake to undo. Didn't mean to do that? Shake again to redo. 

Set your favourite song as your ringtone 

No one likes those standard ringtones that come with the phones, especially when you’ve got hundreds of other great tunes already loaded onto your device. 

Here’s how to do it on iPhone and Android.