The latest roundup of 25 hidden features of iOS 8 to be a real fruit fan

iOS 8 includes a ton of new features, so if you want to get the most out of the operating system, take a look at the latest roundup of 25 hidden iOS 8 features and be a true fan.

1. First Aid Health ID

First Aid Health ID is a feature that's part of HealthKit, which lets anyone access basic and potentially life-threatening health information from your iPhone's lock screen. To set up the feature, you'll need to open the Health app, tap Medical ID in the lower right, and add as much information as you think is appropriate. Once you've set it up, a first aid icon will appear in the lower left corner of your iPhone's lock screen, and you'll be able to see your medical information and emergency contacts when you tap it.

2. Automatically delete messages

If you've been using your iPhone for a long time, it's bound to have a fair amount of text messages stored on it, which can take up a lot of storage space. Now, iOS 8 allows users to set a period (30 days or 1 year) for the system to automatically delete old messages, which could save you several gigabytes of space. Tap on Settings Messages message history, and then you'll be able to choose how long or less you want to keep your old messages.

3. Snapchat-style photos and videos

You can now send burnable video, audio, and images via iMessage, much like Snapchat. To send a picture, you need to go to the Messages screen and hold down the camera icon on the left-hand side. A small circle will then appear containing the button to take a picture. Note that photos and videos are sent as soon as they're taken - there's no confirmation or editing screen.

4. Individual swipe notifications

Swiping down at the top of the screen reveals the system's notification center, where you'll see a number of different alerts and notifications. If you have a large number of apps installed on your device, it can get pretty cluttered. In the past, you had to either live with them or remove them all. Now, you can swipe left on each notification to clear them individually.

5. Exposure controls

It's no secret that Apple's iSight camera lacks advanced controls, especially when compared to competitors like Nokia and Samsung. Fortunately, Apple seems keen to change that. iOS 8 brings Exposure Controls to the table. After performing a tap to focus while taking a photo, you'll see a sun icon in the focus area, which you can drag up and down to quickly control the exposure value.

#p#Subtitle #e#

6. Hide photos from Photo Stream

If you have photos you don't want others to see, you can now hide them from Photo Stream. All you have to do is find the photo you want to hide, then long-press and tap on the hidden option that appears. The hidden photos will be moved to an album called "Hidden". If you change your mind, you can unhide them in the same way.

7. Turn off Quick Type

The Quick Type feature in iOS 8 was originally designed to provide smart suggestions when users were typing, but it's taken up extra screen real estate, and some users don't think it's useful. Turning off Quick Type's suggestions is actually pretty simple: you just tap anywhere in the suggestion bar and swipe down, and it instantly disappears, leaving only a small gray bar. If you want to see the input suggestions again, just swipe up on that spot.

8. Power usage

If your device is draining too quickly, you can use the battery usage feature to uncover the culprit. Go to Settings General Usage Battery Usage and you will see the power consumption of all the apps.

9. Quickly reply to messages

When you receive a text or iMessage message, you can open a small message window by swiping down on the notification. Here, you can type in what you want to reply to and then quickly send it off.

10. Recover recently deleted photos

By default, iOS 8 puts all the photos you've deleted into an album called Recently Deleted. Photos in that album are kept for 30 days before they're completely deleted. You can see this album in Albums in the lower right corner of the Photos app. If you don't like the 30-day buffer, your only option at this point is to go into the album and manually delete it again.

#p#Subtitle #e#

11. Requesting desktop/mobile pages

When browsing the web on a cell phone, browsers generally display the mobile version of the page by default. But when you're using a device with a big screen like the iPhone 6 Plus, the mobile version of a site isn't always ideal, and Safari now lets you quickly choose between a mobile or desktop version of a web page by tapping the address bar and seeing a button to request a desktop site in the drop-down menu.

12. Mute contacts individually

If you don't want to mute your entire phone, but someone keeps harassing you, you can now mute a single person from your contacts list. To do this, open that person's message window, tap the icon in the upper-right corner, and turn on the "Do Not Disturb" slider. After that, the system won't alert you to any more messages from that contact unless you manually turn it off.

13. Turn your iPhone gray

You can now remove all colors from your iOS device and turn the interface completely gray. This is a great feature for the visually impaired. To activate this feature, you need to go to Settings General Accessibility and then slide the "Gray Scale" slider.

14. Automatically sends your phone's last known location before it runs out of juice

If you can't find your phone, Find My iPhone uses the device's GPS to locate it. However, for this feature to work it requires the phone to remain turned on. But now you can also set your phone to report its last location before it runs out of battery. The feature is turned on in Settings iCloud Find My iPhone.

15.Formatting text and inserting images

The minimalist Memo app for iOS finally gets some useful features, such as formatting options (italics, bold, and underline) and image insertion. For maximum convenience, you can integrate Memos with iCloud (set up iCloud Memos), so you can see updates on any of your own iOS devices.

#p#Subtitle #e#

16. Always-listening Siri

Siri now has some level of always-listening functionality as well, though it's limited to when the device is charging. Instead of the traditional long press on the Home button, you can say "Hey Siri" to activate it while your device is charging. To enable this feature, you need to go to Settings, General Siri, and then turn on the "Allow 'Hey Siri'" feature.

17. Siri Shazam

Siri's capabilities continue to grow in iOS 8, thanks to its recent marriage with Shazam. As we all know, Shazam is the popular music recognition service, and now all you have to do is say "Siri, what song is this?" , and it will then recognize the music that is playing.

18.Share your location

If you're meeting a friend somewhere, you don't have to explain where you are. iOS 8 lets you share your location by tapping in the upper-right corner of the Messages window and choosing to send a screenshot of your current location.

19. Specifying the deletion of Safari history

If you don't want people to see your browser history, but don't want it all deleted, Safari now lets you delete specific pages. You can do this by clicking on the book icon next to Safari's address bar, selecting History, then swiping left on the record you want to delete, and then clicking on the delete icon that appears.

20. The lock screen now has location-based shortcuts

The lock screen in iOS 8 now has location-based shortcuts to apps. For example, when you go to a Starbucks, a Starbucks icon appears in the lower-left corner of the lock screen, so you can quickly open it.

#p#Subtitle #e#

21. Mail swipe options

The Mail app now has more swipe options. With a swipe to the right you can mark an email as read, and with a swipe to the left you can archive it, flag it, or perform more actions. You'll also be able to change the behavior in the Settings Mail, Contacts, and Calendar swipe options. Another new Mail option lets you swipe drafts to the bottom of the screen for some multitasking.

22. Widgets

iOS 8 finally brings widgets, but you can only use them in the Notification Center. Here, you can also delete, add, or edit widgets.

23. New photo editing options

Apple has added a number of additional photo editing options to iOS 8. After taking a photo, you can tap the Edit button in the top right corner, then tap the third icon from the left at the bottom of the screen. You'll then be able to modify light and color settings, such as exposure, highlights, shadows, brightness, contrast, saturation, and more.

24. DuckDuckGo search engine

DuckDuckGo allows for a more personal search function than the mainstream Google and Bing. The search engine has now been added to Safari on iOS 8, and you can activate it in the Safari search engine settings.

25. Scanning credit cards in Safari

Some sites that require payment information, such as Amazon, now allow iOS 8 users to scan their credit or debit card information instead of having to manually enter it. When it's time to add card information, a dialog box asking if you want to enable the scanning feature appears at the bottom of the screen.

#p#Subtitle #e#