Not only will the ever-loyal Siri—you know, Apple’s voice-activated digital assistant for iPhone and iPad—cheerfully read your email, set alarms, deliver weather reports and generally be at your beck and call, she’ll even change the sound of her voice if you ask her to. In addition to changing the gender of Siri’s voice, you can also give her a different accent, teach her a new language or even ask her to keep quiet unless you’re using a headset.

The first step: tap Settings, Siri & Search. You can also ask Siri to “change the sound of your voice”; when you do, she’ll give you a shortcut to her voice settings.

1. Change the gender of Siri’s voice

Want to change the sound of Siri’s voice from female to male, or back to female again? Tap the Siri Voice setting (Settings, Siri & Search, Siri Voice), then pick “Male” or “Female” under the Gender heading.

You can change the gender of Siri’s voice or even give her a new accent.

2. Give Siri a new accent

You’ll probably find the Accent setting just above the Gender heading; I say “probably” because not all of Siri’s known languages offer different accents. In English, for example, you can choose between American, Australian, and British accents. If Siri’s speaking French, though, there won’t be any alternate accents to choose from.

Related: 5 tasks that Siri does better than your fingertips can

3. Ask Siri to speak a different language

Speaking of languages, Siri is fluent in everything from Arabic and Chinese to Russian and Turkish. Just back up to the main Siri screen (under Settings, Siri& Search), tap Language, and pick one.

4. Decide how much Siri gets to speak

By default, Siri will speak aloud at all times, even when your device is switched to silent mode. Want to make a change? Easy.

Set Siri’s Voice Feedback setting to “Hands-Free Only” if you want Siri to be quiet most of the time.

Just tap Voice Feedback from the main Siri settings screen, You’ve got three settings to choose from: Always, meaning Siri will speak aloud whenever you talk to her; Control with Ring Switch, which will keep Siri quiet whenever the ring switch is set to “silent”; and Hands-Free Only, which means you’ll only hear Siri’s voice when you’re using a headset. If you want Siri to keep quiet most of the time, go for the Hands-Free Only option.

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The good news, though, is that some of the best new features in iOS 11—from one-handed typing to the ability to quickly scan receipts—will still work on older iPhones and iPads, including the iPhone 6 (circa 2014), the iPhone 5S (from 2013) or even the four-year-old iPad Air. (Click here to see exactly which iPhones and iPads are compatible with iOS 11.)

Read on for 6 new iOS 11 tricks that’ll work on your older iPhone or iPad, starting with…

Scanning QR codes

QR codes—you know, those blocky-looking digital squares that, when scanned, generally refer you to a URL—aren’t quite as ubiquitous as they used to be (although according to some, QR codes are on the way back). However, you’ll still occasionally find them stamped on billboards, magazine ads, movie posters, and other random places.

Thanks to iOS 11, the iPhone’s camera now boasts a built-in QR code scanner.

Until recently, the only way to scan a QR code using your iPhone was with a third-party QR scanner app. With the arrival of iOS 11, though, scanning a QR code with your iPhone or iPad has become much easier.

Instead of scouring the App Store for a QR reader, just fire up your iPhone’s camera and point the camera lens at the QR code. Within a second or so, a “Website QR Code” notification should appear, prompting you to open the URL the code is referring to.

Related: 4 ways to take charge of the new iOS 11 Control Center

Getting help in an emergency

If you’re in distress and you’ve got your iPhone on you, there’s a new and easy way to call an ambulance or the police, assuming you’ve updated your handset to iOS 11.

Need to dial 9-1-1? Just click the iPhone’s power button rapidly five times.

The trick: click your iPhone’s power button five times in quick succession. When you do, a trio of sliders will appear on your iPhone’s lock screen: swiping the first will turn off your phone, the second will call up your Medical ID information (which you can fill out in the iOS Health app), while the third and final one will dial 9-1-1.

If you wish, you can add one or more “emergency contacts” who will automatically be notified if you make an emergency call on your iPhone. To do so, launch the iOS Health app, tap the Medical ID tab, tap Edit, scroll down to the Emergency Contacts section, then tap the green “+” button to start adding contacts.

Last but not least, you can set your iPhone to automatically dial 9-1-1 the moment you click the power button five times. Tap Settings, Emergency SOS, then switch on the Auto Call setting. Of course, you might want to think twice about enabling the Auto Call setting if you’ve got an iPhone-obsessed little one.

Scanning receipts or other documents

I’m a little obsessive-compulsive when it comes to saving my receipts, but I also hate littering my desk with little scraps of paper. That’s why I’ve been scanning all my receipts with my iPhone, but until recently, I’ve had to use a third-party scanning app (Scanbot, in my case).

The Notes app for iOS 11 makes it easy to scan receipts and other documents.

With iOS 11, though, your iPhone or iPad—and yes, even an older one—can scan receipts and other documents without the help of a non-Apple app.

Just open the Notes app, start a new note or open an existing one, tap the “+” button at the bottom of the screen, then tap Scan Documents.

Next, aim your iPhone’s (or iPad’s) camera lens at the document you want to scan. Once the Notes app “sees” the document, it’ll automatically snap a photo and crop the image. You can then tap the Action button (the square one with the upward arrow) to save the scan to your device or your favorite cloud-based service (like iCloud Drive, Dropbox or Google Drive).

Related: How to mark up a web page in Safari for iOS 11

Typing on your iPhone with one hand

I’m still disappointed that the stock iOS keyboard has yet to support gesture typing, which lets you type words by swiping the keyboard rather than tapping it.

Wish it were easier to type on your iPhone with one hand? Just enable iOS 11’s new one-handed typing feature.

With iOS 11, though, Apple has at least embraced one-handed typing—a feature that squishes the keyboard to the left side or the right, making it easier to typing with a single thumb.

To start typing with one hand, open the iOS keyboard (just open any app that supports the keyboard, or tug down on the iOS home screen to reveal the Spotlight search box), then press and hold the globe key or the emoji key. (Don’t see either? Tap Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards, then make sure there are at least two different keyboards listed. If they’re aren’t, tap Add New Keyboard to add one.)

Once you press and hold the globe or emoji button, a Keyboard Settings pop-up will appear, and at the bottom, you’ll see a trio of little keyboard buttons. Tap the left one to squish the keyboard to the left, tap the right one to make it scoot to the right, or tap the center button to return the keyboard to two-handed mode.

Easily typing numbers and symbols on the iPad’s keypad

While the iPad lacks the iPhone’s one-handed mode in iOS 11 (although who needs it, given that you can split the keyboard), it gets another keypad-oriented feature that’s among my favorite iOS 11 improvements.

Just flick a letter key to type a number or a symbol on the iPad’s new QuickType keyboard for iOS 11.

The new “QuickType” keyboard boasts shortcuts to numbers and symbols on the standard letter keys, and it lets you type a number or a symbol by simply swiping down on the appropriate letter key, no Shift key required. That means, for example, you can swipe down on the “Q” key to type the number 1. Pretty neat, once you get the hang of it.

Related: 3 things to know about the new iPad dock in iOS 11

Sharing your Wi-Fi passwords

So, let’s say a friend is visiting you at home, they’ve got no cellular signal on their iPhone and they ask if they can jump on your Wi-Fi network for a minute.

Want to share your Wi-Fi password with a friend? Just open your Wi-Fi settings and bring your iOS devices close together.

Normally, you’d have to go through the business of digging up your Wi-Fi password and reading it to them, one digit at a time—a tedious chore, particularly if you’ve created a strong Wi-Fi password (as you should).

Thanks to iOS 11, though, you can now quickly share your Wi-Fi password with any of your iPhone- or iPad-toting friends, provided they’re nearby and listed in your iOS contacts.

First, make sure your iOS device is connected to the Wi-Fi network you want to share. Next, ask your friend to open their iOS Wi-Fi settings (tap Settings, Wi-Fi) and tap the name of your Wi-Fi network. When they do, iOS will prompt them for your password.

Now, move your iPhone or iPad near their iOS device. With a second or so, a prompt asking whether you want to share your password should appear. Just tap the “Share Password” button to proceed.

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Read on to get the scoop on how to customize the new Control Center for iOS 11, tinker with a few Control Center security settings, learn how to reveal some hidden sliders and buttons, and more.

Reveal the iOS 11 Control Center on iPad

The process of opening the new Control Center on an iPhone remains the same as it did in previous iOS versions; just swipe up from the bottom of the display.

Keep swiping up from the bottom of your iPad’s screen to reveal the new iOS 11 Control Center.

Try that on an unlocked iPad, however, and all you’ll do is reveal the iPad’s new app dock. (Swiping up on the screen of a locked iPad will open Control Center as usual.)

So, what’s the trick for getting to Control Center on an iPad? Easy: swipe up from the bottom of the screen, then keep on sliding your fingertip up.

As you do, Control Center will appear on the right side of the screen, next to a grid of all your open iPad apps.

Related: 8 great iPad tips and tricks

Pick and choose which Control Center widgets to use

The old iOS Control Center was very much a take-it-or-leave-it affair; you got a specific set of controls, such as the Airplane mode button, a Do Not Disturb toggle, a flashlight button, a timer shortcut, and so on, and that was pretty much that.

Don’t want a particular button showing up in Control Center? Just remove it using the Customize setting.

With the iOS 11 Control Center, however, you can customize which buttons, sliders and toggles appear, perfect for anyone who loved the Control Center flashlight but could do without the Calculator shortcuts. Just tap Settings, Control Center, Customize, then start tweaking.

To remove a setting from Control Center, find it in the Include section, tap the red circle next to its name, then tap the Remove button. To add a control, scroll down to More Controls, then tap the green “+” button. You can rearrange your custom Control Center buttons by holding and dragging the three-line handles next to their names.

Keep in mind that you can only customize buttons in the bottom half of the iOS 11 Control Center. The buttons at the top—including the Airplane mode button, the Music panel, the Brightness and Volume sliders, and the Do Not Disturb button—can’t be removed or rearranged.

Tap and hold a Control Center button to see more options

There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to some of the buttons and controls in the new iOS 11 Control Center.

For example, simply tapping the Flashlight button in Control Center on an iPhone will toggle the flashlight on and off. If you tap and hold (or “deep press” on an iPhone 6s or later) the Flashlight button, however, you’ll reveal a five-level slider that lets you adjust the brightness of the flashlight.

Tap and hold a Control Center button to reveal more features—for example, the time slider in the Timer setting.

Tap and hold the Brightness slider, and you’ll find a button for Night Shift, the sleep-friendly iOS feature that adjusts the color of the screen to warmer, eye-soothing temperatures.

Next, tap and hold the Timer button and you’ll get a slider that lets you change the length of the timer by swiping up or down.

If you tap and hold the Camera button, you’ll reveal a pair of handy shortcuts: one for Take Selfie, another for Record Video.

Those are just a few examples; keep tapping and holding to reveal more hidden Control Center functions.

Hide the Control Center from the lock screen

Yes, it’s handy to swipe up on your iPhone’s screen to quickly go into Airplane mode, silence your ringer, turn on the flashlight or jot down ideas in the Notes app.

Enable a simple setting to keep Control Center hidden on the iOS lock screen.

That said, anyone else who picks up your iPhone or iPad will be able to tinker with your Control Center settings, too.

Related: 8 ways to lock down your iPhone or iPad

To keep Control Center hidden from your locked iPhone or iPad, tap Settings, Touch ID & Passcode, scroll down to the Allow Access When Locked section, then toggle off the Control Center setting.

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No longer just a shaded area for your six favorite apps, the new iOS 11 iPad dock looks and acts a lot more like the dock on a MacBook or an iMac. Indeed, not only can the revamped iPad dock hold more apps, you can also summon it almost any time you want, even when you’re not on your iPad’s home screen.

Note: Before we dive into the nitty-gritty about the new iPad dock, I should pause and mention (as I do every year around this time) that you’d be well advised to wait a bit—say, a week or so—before taking the leap to iOS 11. You’ll find many of the standard reasons in this post from a few years back, but this time around, there’s another pressing issue: a whole crop of older apps simply won’t work on iOS 11. Luckily, you can see a list of installed apps that won’t play nice with iOS 11 before you upgrade; to do so, tap Settings, General, About, then Applications.

Read on for three things you need to know about the new iOS 11 iPad dock, start with…

You can reveal the iOS 11 iPad dock whenever you want

While the old iPad dock was only visible on the home screen, the new dock can be called up anytime, even within an app.

You can reveal the new iOS 11 iPad dock at any time—even within an app—by flicking up from the bottom of the screen.

Just flick up from the top of the iPad’s display; when you do, the dock will spring into view. Go ahead and tap an app to open it.

If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen and keep on swiping, you’ll reveal the new Control Center and a grid displaying all your open apps; just tap an app to open it, or drag it off the screen to close it.

Related: 8 iPad tricks you need to try

You can add more apps to the dock than before

The old iPad app only held six app icons at a time; the new iPad dock for iOS 11, on the other hand, can cram in up to 14, including a couple of “suggested and recent” apps on the right side of the dock.

You can now add up to 14 apps to the new iPad dock in iOS 11.

The procedure for adding and removing apps to and from the iPad dock remains the same: just go to the home screen, then drag an icon in or pull one out.

If you like, you can disable the section of the dock reserved for “Suggested and Recent Apps.” To do so, tap Settings, General, Multitasking & Dock, then switch off the “Show Suggested and Recent Apps” setting.

Bonus tip: Wondering why the iPad’s app icons no longer shake when you tap and hold them? This surprised me too, but it turns out you simply need to hold an icon a beat longer than before. When you do, all the icons on the home screen will shake just like they used to, allowing you to rearrange your rows of home screen icons or tap the little “x” to delete an app.

Related: How to split the iPad’s keyboard

You can use two apps at once by dragging an app icon out of the dock

If you’re working in an iPad app and you want to open a second app side-by-side with the first one, just flick up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the iPad dock, tap and hold an app icon, then drag it onto the screen.

You can use two iPad apps side-by-side by dragging an app out of the new iPad dock.

Those with newer iPads (such as the iPad Pro, the fifth-generation iPad, the iPad Air 2, or the iPad Mini) can use this trick to trigger Split View, an iOS feature that lets you use two iOS apps on the same screen.

If you have an older iPad (like the iPad Air or the iPad Mini 2), you can still do a little multitasking with Slide Over, which lets you peek at a second app in a thin overlay.

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Read on for 6 iOS Calendar tricks that every iPhone and iPad user should know, starting with…

You can set the iOS Calendar app to remind you of upcoming events automatically.

Create automatic event reminders

Nope, there’s no need to manually add a reminder to each and every meeting in your calendar. Instead, you can set the iOS Calendar app to automatically add a reminder for any new events you create.

• Tap Settings, Calendar, then tap the Default Alert Times setting.
• Next, go ahead and select automatic alert times for up to three different types of calendar events: birthdays, generic events, and all-day events. For birthdays and all-day events, you can set a default alert anywhere from a week before to the morning of the event. For standard events, your auto-reminder choices range from a week before to the moment the event begins.
• You can even add a “Time to leave” reminder that’ll let you know when to start commuting to an event, provided you’ve filled in the event’s Location field. Just enable the Time to Leave setting.
• Back out of the Settings screen, head back to the Calendar app, and create a new event. When you do, you should see an alert already set up.

Instead of fiddling with an event’s time and date fields, just drag and drop.

Drag and drop iOS Calendar events

Need to change the time or date for an upcoming meeting? If so, you don’t have to tap the Edit button and tinker with the event’s date and time settings; instead, just drag and drop.

• First, tap a date in Calendar’s “month” view, then make sure the Details button—it’s the three-line button in the top-right corner of the screen, just left of the Search button—is de-selected.
• To move an event, tap and hold it, then drag and drop the event to a new time.
• You can also change the event’s date by dragging it toward the left or right side of the screen, or “grab” a handle on the top or bottom of an event to lengthen or shorten it.

Just turn your iPhone to landscape view to see all your Calendar events for the work week.

View your weekly schedule

Generally speaking, the iOS Calendar app only lets you see your events one day a time (from the daily or monthly view) or a few days at a time (in “list” view, which you can access by tapping the three-line Details button).

Wish you could see an entire week at once—or the work week, anyway? Just tilt your iPhone sideways, in “landscape” mode, either in the day or month views.

When you do, you’ll get a five-day view of your Calendar events. Swipe back and forth to view days in the past or future, or tap, hold, and drag an event to move it to a new day.

Don’t like the default color for a specific calendar in the iOS Calendar app? Just pick a new one.

Color-code your calendars

The iOS Calendar app automatically color-codes your various calendar—you know, Home, Work, Family, and so on.

If you like, though, you can change the colors of your calendars directly from the Calendars app. Once you color-code a calendar, all the events for that calendar will show up in the corresponding color.

• Launch the Calendar app, go to any of the various views (Day, Month, List), then tap the Calendars button at the bottom of the screen.
• Next, you’ll see a list of all the calendars on your on your iPhone or iPad. See the little “i” buttons to the right of each calendar? Tap one of them to visit the Edit Calendar screen.
• Scroll down to the Color section, pick a new color, then tap Done.

Nope, your old iOS Calendar events aren’t missing; they’re just not being synced.

Decide how many months of events to sync

Wondering why a calendar event from last year isn’t showing up on your iPhone? Here’s the likely culprit: a key iOS setting determines the date range for syncing calendar events from your desktop or other devices via iCloud, iTunes, or another online calendar service (like Google Calendar).

By default, the Sync setting for the iOS Calendar is generally set to “Events three months back,” meaning that any events before that period won’t show up on your iPhone or iPad. (Don’t worry, your entire Calendar event history is probably sitting in iCloud.)

Why bother with a date range? Well, some users with many years’ worth of meetings might not want their iPhones syncing each and every one of their events.

That said, you can sync all your calendar entries to your iPhone or iPad if you want.

• Tap Settings, Calendars, then tap the “Sync” setting.
• Next, you’ll get a series of date ranges for syncing your calendar events, from six months back to just two weeks ago, plus one more option: sync “All Events.”
• Go ahead and take your pick. If you sync your events via iCloud, your calendars should start syncing automatically in the background. Otherwise, you’ll see the changes the next time you sync manually with iTunes.

You can creating custom repeat schedules for iOS Calendar events on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual basis.

Create repeating calendar events

In just a few taps, you can create an event in the iOS Calendar app that lands on, say, the first Thursday of each month—or the second Wednesday of each month, or the third Friday, for that matter.

You can also create an event that recurs (for example) once every four weeks on a Thursday (but not necessarily the very first Thursday of the month), or once every two (or three, or four) months, or even once every two (or three, or thirty) years.

• Launch the Calendar app, create a new event, tap the Repeat setting, then tap Custom.
• Choose the “frequency” with which you’d like the event to repeat: daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. For example’s sake, let’s pick Monthly.
• Next tap “Every,” and make a selection—say, once a month, in this case. (You could also choose twice a month, three times a month, and so on.)
• Now, tap “Each” if you want to create an event that repeats on a certain day—like, say, the tenth—of each month, or tap “On the…” to pick a specific day of the week—such as the first Thursday of every month.
• Daily events can be set to repeat every day, once every two days, once every third day, and so on. Weekly events can happen once a week, twice a week, etc., and you can pick the day of the week (Thursday, for example) on which you want the event to hit. Yearly events follow roughly the same pattern, and you can choose the day of the year (like June 16) on which you’d like the event to begin.
• All set? Once you’ve made your selections, just back up to the New Event screen, then tap the Done button when you’re finished editing.

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Split the keyboard

Having a tough time typing on the iPad’s massive keyboard with your thumbs while holding the tablet in both hands? If so, try splitting the iPad’s keyboard in two.

Typing on your iPad with your thumbs gets a lot easier once you split the keyboard.

The trick: one at a time, put one fingertip on the left side of the keyboard, then another fingertip on the right side. Now, pull the two sides apart. When you do, the iPad’s keyboard will split neatly in two, making it far easier for your thumbs to reach every key.

Or, here’s another way: tap and hold the keyboard key (the one in the bottom-right corner of the keypad), then slide your fingertip up to the Split button.

Want to put the keypad back together? Simply push the two sides together again, or tap and hold the keyboard key and select Merge.

Put the iPad’s keyboard in the middle of the screen

Even with the iPad’s keyboard split in two, typing with your thumbs can be tricky when the keypad is sitting at the bottom of the screen. Here’s the thing, though: you can, if you wish, let the keyboard float in the center of the display.

Tap and hold the keyboard button to “undock” the iPad’s keyboard from the bottom of the screen.

Tap and hold the keyboard button in the bottom-right corner of the keypad, then select Undock. When you do, the keyboard will slide up to the middle of the screen.

To move the keyboard back to the bottom of the screen, tap and hold the keyboard button again, then select Dock.

Look for shortcuts at the top of the keypad

Recently, I wrote a tip detailing how to bold, italicize or underline text in the body of an iOS Mail message by selecting the text and then tapping the BIU button—a handy trick, but on an iPhone, you need to tap a few times to reveal the button.

Keep an eye out for handy shortcut buttons at the top of the iPad’s keyboard.

On an iPad, the process is much easier thanks to the shortcuts sitting at the top of the keypad. When you’re using the iOS app, for example, you’ll find the BIU button sitting in plain sight, near the top-right corner of the keyboard, along with buttons that’ll let you add attachments, snap photos, and undo your most recent keystrokes.

Switch to the Notes app, and you’ll see different shortcut buttons at the top of the keyboard: in this case, buttons that let you draw freehand, change fonts, and add checkmark boxes.

Keep switching apps to discover more shortcut buttons along the top of the iPad keyboard.

Move the cursor or select text with two fingertips

Want to put the iPad’s cursor precisely where you want? One way is to just tap the screen wherever you want to cursor to go, but there’s also another way.

You can move the iPad’s cursor with more precision by swiping the keypad with two fingertips.

Hold two fingertips on the iPad’s keyboard until the letters on the keys disappear, then swipe your two fingertips around the keyboard. When you do, the cursor will move in the same pattern as your fingertips.

Next, try this: tap and hold the keypad with two fingertips again, but pause for a few seconds until you see the text-selection handles appear near the cursor. Once that happens, move one fingertip to drag the text selection box around.

Use two apps at once

The iPad will be getting some fancy multitasking features thanks to iOS 11, including the ability to drag and drop text, images, files and more from one window to another. That said, you don’t have to wait until this fall to use two apps at once on your iPad.

If you’re lucky enough to own a newer iPad, you can use two apps at once with the Split View feature.

If you have a relatively new iPad (such as the iPad Pro, the fifth-generation iPad, the iPad Air 2, or the iPad Mini 4), you can put two apps on the same screen using a feature called Split View.

Here’s how it works: within any app, swipe in from the right side of the screen. When you do, the previous app you were using will squeeze onto the screen, right next to the app you’re currently using.

Just keep sliding the divider until you’ve sized the two windows just the way you like, or swipe down from the top of the right-side app to switch to a new app. When you’re ready to close Split View, drag the divider back to the right side of the screen.

Sneak a peek at another app

Unfortunately, Split View won’t work on older iPad models like the original iPad, the iPad 2 or 3, the first iPad Air, or the first two iPad Mini models.

Got a slightly older iPad? You can still peek at one app while using another with Slide Over.

That said, if you have at least an iPad Air or the iPad Mini 2, you can still do a little multitasking courtesy of iOS’s Slide Over feature.

Again, swipe in from the right side of the screen to reveal the last app you were using, then swipe down from the top of the screen to switch apps.

Unlike the more robust Split View feature, the Slide Over window will only fill about a third of the screen, and it only lets you use the app that’s in the Slide Over window. As soon as you tap the original app you were using (which remains dimmed on the left side screen), the Slide Over window will disappear.

Put more apps in the app dock

Once iOS 11 arrives this fall, you’ll be able to summon the iPad’s app dock just about anytime you want, even when you’re working in an app. Pretty neat, but even while we wait for the iOS 11 rollout, the current iPad app dock has a nifty trick up its sleeves.

You can fit as many as six apps into the iPad’s app dock.

As it turns out, the app dock on the iPad can hold up to six apps, not just four (as on the iPhone). Just drag more apps into the dock, and the others will scoot out of the way.

Also, don’t forget: you can add web shortcuts and app folders to the dock, not just app icons.

Swipe with four or five fingers to switch apps

On the iPad, you don’t have to double-tap the Home button each time you want to switch apps. Instead, you can use a four-finger (or five-finger, if you like) gesture to open the App Switcher, the screen that shows all your open apps. There’s also another four-finger gesture that’ll let you switch directly from one app to another.

Want to switch directly from one app to another? Try swiping the screen with four fingertips.

First, try this: within any app, swipe up with four fingertips at once. When you do, you’ll arrive at the App Switcher screen, just as if you’d double-tapped the Home button.

Here’s another trick: again, within an app, swipe right with four fingertips; doing so will switch you directly to the last app you were using. You can also swipe left to switch to a more recent app.

Last trick: within in app, try pinching the screen with four (or five) fingertips; when you do, you’ll return to the home screen.

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Add some emphasis to your text

Want to give the words in your mail message some extra zing? If you like, you can italicize, bold and underline any selected text within your message.

The iOS Mail app lets you bold, italicize or underline words in the body of your message.

Just tap a word, tap the Select button in the black bubble to reveal the text selector, then drag the little black handles until you’ve selected all the words you want to modify.

Next, tap the BIU button in the black bubble above the selected text. (You may need to tap the arrow on the right side of the bubble to reveal the BIU button). Now, go ahead and tap Bold, Italic, or Underline.

Recover an accidentally deleted iOS Mail message

So, you’re rapidly deleting messages by swiping them in your iOS Mail inbox, when suddenly you trash a message you didn’t want to delete. Sound familiar?

Accidentally delete a mail message? Just shake your iPhone to reveal the “Undo Trash” pop-up.

Well, you could try poking your way around your various Trash folders to find the accidentally deleted message, or try this: just shake your iPhone.

When you do, an “Undo Trash” pop-up will appear. Tap the Undo button, and the message you mistakenly deleted will reappear in your inbox.

Note: Is the “shake-to-undelete” trick not working? Tap Settings, General, Accessibility, Shake to Undo, and make sure the switch is turned on.

Mark up attachments and sign PDFs

Got a PDF attachment in an iOS Mail message that you need to sign? Instead of printing the PDF, signing it, scanning it, and sending it back, you can sign the PDF directly on your iPhone or iPad.

Just open the message, tap the PDF, then tap the Markup button (the one that looks like a little toolbox) at the bottom corner of the screen.

Once you’ve traced your signature, just drag it where you want it to appear, then drag the handles to resize it.

Next, tap the signature button (in the bottom right corner), then follow the prompts to trace your signature (which will be saved for future use).

Once that’s done, your signature will appear on the PDF, surrounded by a thin box with handles on each corner. Tap and drag the signature to move it, then tap and drag a handle to resize the signature.

Adding signatures to a PDF isn’t the only thing the Markup tool can do. You can also draw lines, circles and arrows (just tap the Draw button), add captions or text (tap the Text button), or even add a magnifying glass to zoom in on a detail.

All finished? Tap the Done button, and the iOS Mail app will put marked-up PDF in a new Reply message.

Get an alert whenever a “VIP” sends you a mail message

If you’re like me, you don’t want to get an iOS notification each and every time you receive a new message in the iOS Mail app. Instead, you’d only like alerts when someone important—a loved one, a boss, or anyone else in your inner circle—sends you a message.

You’ll never miss a mail message from your boss again once you’ve added him to iOS Mail’s VIP list.

The trick: adding your most important contacts to your iOS “VIP” list. Once you do, you’ll get special VIP notifications whenever people on your VIP list send you mail messages, meaning you can (if you like) safely turn off Mail notifications for everyone else.

Open the Mail app, then tap the Back button in the top-left corner of the screen until you arrive at the mail Mailboxes screen.

Next, find the VIP mailbox (if you don’t see it, tap Edit, then make sure the starred VIP mailbox is checked), then tap the little “i” next to it.

Finally, tap Add VIP, then start adding contacts from your contact list.

Once you’ve added some new VIPs, tap the VIP Alerts button, then customize your VIP notifications. You could, for instance, change the alert tone for your VIPs, change the style of the alert (to, say, an Alert that must be manually cleared), or allow VIP notifications to appear on the iOS lock screen.

Get alerts when people reply to a specific e-mail thread

If you want to know the moment someone replies to an important e-mail conversations—anything from “Let’s do dinner!” to “Year-end review”—there’s an easy way to do it.

Tap “Notify Me” to get alerts whenever someone responds to a specific e-mail thread.

From right to left, swipe the message thread for which you’d like to get alerts. Next, tap More, then tap Notify Me.

A “Notify Me” confirmation will pop up on the screen; tap it to start getting notifications when anyone responds to the thread.

To turn the alerts off, just swipe the message from right to left again, tap More, then tap “Stop Notifying.”

To customize the type of alert you’ll get when someone replies to the e-mail thread, tap Settings, Notifications, Mail, Thread Notifications.

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