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How to Fix Apple iOS 8's Most Annoying Features

by Fox Van Allen on September 25, 2014

iOS 8 on iPad and iPhone 6 PlusWhether you’ve got a new iPhone 6 or you’re happy holding on to your iPhone 5 or 5S, Apple’s mobile operating system update iOS 8 is great. There are a ton of useful new features like Family Sharing, Swipe-to-respond Notifications and the data aggregating Health app. But not everything about the update is sunshine and gumdrops – there are some annoying new features too.

Thankfully, many of these annoyances are just new default settings. You can switch a lot of these defaults back to the way they were in iOS 7, and without much effort. Here are five of the most common complaints people have with Apple’s mobile operating system update, and the five best ways to fix or work around them.

Turn off Handoffs

If you have an Apple iPad, iPod touch or MacBook that uses your Apple ID, you may start to automatically get phone calls on all these devices. You can easily turn this off on some or all of them if you choose. Just enter into each individual gadget’s Settings menu, tap FaceTime and then turn off iPhone Cellular Calls.

Hide Recent Contacts

Personally, I like the upper row of friends and family pictures that come up when I double tap my home button. It provides easy access to your Favorites and those you've contacted recently. But if you don't want people snooping on you've been calling and texting recently or you prefer the old iOS 7 version without those circular pictures, you can shut it off from the Settings menu. Just tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars; then tap Show in App Switcher (under Contacts). Turn off both toggles.

Recently Deleted Photos albumDeleting Your Photos No Longer Actually Deletes Them

The Photos app in iOS 8 now comes with a Recently Deleted folder, which houses the snapshots you’ve chosen to delete for 30 days before they’re completely deleted from your device. This is nice to save you from accidentally deleting important photos, but terrible if there’s a photo you want deleted completely and immediately. Once you delete a snapshot from your main folder, be sure you also go into the Recently Deleted folder to Select it and then Delete it for good.

Stop Voice and Video Messages from Self Destructing

Sending and receiving short audio messages via iMessage is a lot of fun, but due to file size restraints, those items are quickly auto-deleted from your phone. You can change this to save those messages indefinitely by default, if you’d like. Enter your phone’s Settings, tap Messages and then tap Settings. Tap Keep Messages, then change the Audio Messages and Video Expiration time to never.

But before you do, I’d urge you to strongly consider signing up for free cloud storage from a secondary provider to iCloud. I like the 30 GB free allotment currently offered by Microsoft OneDrive. It’s the best way to keep all that media, plus your own personal photos and videos, saved indefinitely without needing to pay for more iCloud storage or pay more for a phone with a larger drive.

Turn off Predictive Text

I found the new Predictive Text feature to be a lot of fun in the first few hours of iOS 8, but its novelty wore off quick when it proved more distracting than useful. Thankfully, it’s easily turned off. Enter your settings app, tap General, then tap Keyboard. Toggle Predictive off, and the deed is done.


Topics

iPhone/iPad Apps, Mobile Apps, Tips & How-Tos, Apple iPad, iPhone 5S, iPhone 6


Discussion loading

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From Buster Chappell on September 25, 2014 :: 1:29 pm


Thanks for the info! Good stuff to know!

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From Carolyn Timmerman on September 29, 2014 :: 8:15 pm


Thanks for sharing these problems & how to correct them!  That predictive text was driving me CRAZY, insisting I cannot spell my own name!  Beyond that, however, have you an easy fix up your sleeve for closing windows?  In order to “X” out, I have to open another window on my iPad to close the first function.  It’s a 3 step process.  Thank you!

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From Maurice McElrea on October 01, 2014 :: 4:23 am


Much appreciated is the help to turn of some annoying features in the current iPhone/ iPad software.

Thanks again

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From Samantha on October 03, 2014 :: 10:52 pm


Well besides the annoying “alternate keyboard” notification every single time I switch to emojji,  The predictive text feature seems to bother me just as much… It was really nice at the beginning… but now it’s just a real pain…I’ve tried turning the feature off in settings… but every time.. I go back to main settings.. or screen… Nothings changed.  It seems to automatically switch itself back on every time I leave the settings or move on to a new text.  It’s driving me mad and i can’t seem to find anything more about it.

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From Faraway on August 20, 2015 :: 9:24 pm


I have the same exact problem when switching between keyboards! Did you ever find a solution ? Aldo my recently used emojis disappear! :(

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From Hu on October 09, 2014 :: 2:24 pm


To say that the recent upgrade has been a nightmare is an understatement.

I’ve lost about 2 GB of usable data on my phone, most of it in the service of apps I never wanted and now can’t remove.

Speaking of the Health App, can you say HIPPA?  Please pay attention to the fact that any stranger, any employer, any police officer, the NSA and Apple itself are correlating your records with you name, address and phone number.  Needless to say, I’d like that space on my hard drive back since I have no trouble controlling my diet and weight using old-fashioned methods.

The iBooks app?  Completely useless—I’ll read a book on my laptop, but who wants to try to keep track on such a tiny screen as my iPhone—but equally immutable to the tiny Gods who now seem to run Apple—and I’ve been a loyal patron since I got my first 2C.

And then there are the “Tips”—and just trying to turn off the push notifications that come with that app!!!  But worst of all, if you have been using gmail only to keep in touch when you were away from your computer, beware.  I just had thousands of emails load (I’m sure you can imagine the data charges my carrier charged to my account!), and, in a mad attempt to free up the tiny amount of shifting free Hard Drive space, I started deleting them: only to discover that Google deletes anything removed from the server from Apple’s Mail program simultaneously.

Frankly, I feel like my privacy have been raped (especially in the face of the fact that the NSA and who knows what other agencies have been using the data both Apple and Google collect for obvious commercial purposes (meaning that they profit, but don’t bother to tell me how or why such data is so precious to them).

But if you’re thrilled to be able to link something my own doctor tells me that a medicalert bracelet probably wouldn’t be noticed in time to save a life, just go ahead and call me paranoid….

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From Rebecca on October 12, 2014 :: 4:41 pm


After updating to IOS 8 I can no longer read my reminders on my iPhone 4S because the text from each of them overlaps the one above, below or both.  And I keep getting an annoying pop-up telling me to sign in to iCloud that I do not need or want.

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From manning on October 14, 2014 :: 1:22 pm


Great tips - very succinct. Thank You!

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From Olga on November 11, 2014 :: 5:35 pm


Will this EVER be solved??? No icon to click on to see the shared photostreams on this awful ios 8! Extreme dissappointment - no more Steve Jobs - no more good products:(

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From Gina on December 03, 2014 :: 1:18 pm


I’m sorry, but a note to “be sure to delete photos twice” isn’t a solution, especially when you delete 500+ pics every day.
I spend hours shopping potential pieces for a clothing store.  After a bit I will take a break to clear my mind - then do a one second glance & delete to narrow it down.
ANYWAY - this stupid folder is a time suck.  I would LOVE to find an actual solution to this issue.

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From Joe on July 27, 2015 :: 1:22 am


Just jailbreak, there’s a fix on Cydia for this…

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From Gina on December 03, 2014 :: 3:04 pm


After searching a little more I found that you can tap “select” in the deleted photos folder & then get a prompt to delete all.
Much better than selecting photos individually & mass deleting.

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From Dale on July 08, 2015 :: 6:39 pm


When I turn my iPhone 6+ sideways, the bookmark page automatically appears and makes it basically impossible to see what I’m doing. Does anyone know how to get rid of this nuisance?

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From Ajarn Spencer Littlewood on August 12, 2015 :: 6:30 am


Considering I delete about 300 photos every day and have to sit for about one hour every two or three days, manually deleting every single image and video clip in the recently deleted folder, one should imagine that a simple ‘select all’, and ‘delete all’  option, would be available within those folder options.
I first noticed this issue when I got my new iPad air two, and it slowed down like hike after a couple of weeks. I looked on my iTunes connecting it to the iMac, and deleted all files but it still showed 60 GB of other files consuming my storage space.  Then I realized that it was all of the recently deleted images I had been deleting over the last couple of weeks which amounted to 60 GB of space. This recently deleted folder consumes storage space on your iPad. I delete images to free up storage space but this does not work because of the recently deleted folder. It cost me hours of unnecessary time every week just manually deleting all of this crap. Why don’t they just put select all, delete all.

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From Patrick on September 27, 2015 :: 1:55 pm


Timer bubble in Message box delete Requested

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From janis on October 31, 2015 :: 2:48 pm


So i deleted all my photos after saving them in drop box but my storage says I’m still using 3.2 gigs of space for photos and videos ???help

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From Josh Kirschner on November 01, 2015 :: 9:01 am


Dropbox doesn’t immediately delete files when you delete them. Instead it removes them from your directories but keeps the file for 30 days in case you want to undelete it. If you want to delete the file more quickly, you must “permanently delete” you files. These instructions will tell you how: https://www.dropbox.com/help/40

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