Get the Most Out of iOS7

You've had a little bit of time now to start working with either your new iPhone 5 or the upgraded iOS7, and you might be wondering if you're getting everything out of it that you can.  Here are a few tips for improving your experience with the new platform.

Extending Battery Life
There are a couple of new features that may be draining your battery life in the background.  One is the Parallax setting.  This is the nifty new effect that makes your background look a little 3D.  But if the cool factor doesn't matter as much as the amount of time you can use your phone, you might want to turn it off.  Another one is the background app refresh.  This feature automatically updates apps and sucks battery power without user input.  If updating manually doesn't bother you, turn this feature off and save the power.  To access both of these settings, go to:  Settings-->General.  Switch the Background App Refresh setting to off.  For Parallax, go to the Accessibility area and turn Reduce Motion on.

Closing Background Apps
To close those pesky apps that are running in the background all you have to do is swipe up.  Double tap the home button and you will see all of the apps that are currently "on".  Simply put your finger on the one you want to close and pull it up.

Make Your Control Center More Secure
The new Control Center in iOS7 is handily available from the home screen, giving users easy access to common settings like airplane mode and wifi.  To get in to the Control Center, you just pull up from the bottom of the screen and it appears.  There is, however, the security issue that arises from that screen being accessible even when the phone is locked.  To keep potential thieves out of this screen, go to Settings/Control Center and turn off the Access on Lock Screen option.

Use Siri to the Utmost
Siri now has a more natural sounding voice and can either be male or female, based on your preference.  iOS7 has also made Siri more useful for returning calls, playing voicemails, and posting to Facebook.  You can even train Siri to pronounce things more accurately.  When she (or he) says something incorrectly, you respond with "that's not how you pronounce...".  Siri will ask for a better pronunciation and use your spoken response to suggest three alternatives.  You pick the one that is most accurate.

There's a Built In Flashlight
You can now get rid of that third-party flashlight app you've had for years; iOS7 has a built in flashlight.  To access it, swipe up from the bottom of your screen to enter the Control Panel.  You'll see the flashlight icon in the lower left hand corner.

Timestamps are Available for Individual Text Messages
There have always been timestamps for groups of text messages from a single contact, but now you can get those for each individual message.  To find this hidden feature, go to a conversation in your Messages and swipe to the left, the timestamps will appear to the right.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the cool new features and tricks available.  Take some time to poke around and get familiar with all the options out there.