Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. If you own an iPhone 16 or an iPhone 17, you'll find different buttons around the sides of your smartphone. Older iPhones have fewer, depending on the model, but all of these buttons are multitaskers: They come with secondary functions as well as primary ones. For example, did you know you can use either of the volume buttons to snap pictures when you're in the Camera app? This can make it easier to capture photos, compared to trying to hit the circular button on screen.

Siri means a secret in Swahili and in Norse, a beautiful woman who leads you to victory. To those of us in Appleland using the voice-controlled personal assistant, it stands for "Speech Interpretation and Recognition Intelligence." And when you put Siri to work, she can move productivity mountains. I use Siri to give me directions while driving with Apple CarPlay. I ask her to remind me to stop by the grocery store on my Apple Watch.

The Apple iPhone X you just received as a present this holiday season behaves differently in a few significant ways from all other iPhones. Oh sure, it runs the same iOS 11 software as on other models, and nearly all the same apps. But just for starters, the absence of the traditional home button coupled with Face ID facial recognition sets the $999 (on up) iPhone X apart. Here are 10 tips to help you master Apple's most expensive iPhone, which often involves learning new gestures. More: I've had an iPhone X all week.

It promised to be a futuristic solution to securing your phone but Apple's Face ID is causing problems for some of its users. Since the release of the latest version of iOS, many iPhone X customers have been unable to activate the facial recognition feature. Affected handsets display the message'Unable to activate Face ID on this phone', but a simple trick could help to correct the error. It promised to be a futuristic solution to securing your phone but Apple's Face ID is causing problems for some of its users. Affected handsets display the message'Unable to activate Face ID on this phone', but a simple trick could help to correct the error To perform a hard reset, turn off the iPhone X by holding down the side button along with either volume button.

Apple's decision to remove the home button means there can be an unexpected learning curve when using the iPhone X for the first time. Many tasks that used to be executed by tapping or holding the home button, like launching Siri or closing apps, have now been assigned new gestures. Here's a quick overview of the most important iPhone X tips and tricks, from taking a screenshot to force restarting the phone. To take a screenshot on the iPhone X, press and release the side button and the volume up button at the same time. When using an app, swipe up from the bottom of the display to return to the home screen.

After a flashy reveal in September, Apple earlier this month finally released its most forward-looking iPhone in years. To Apple, the iPhone X is a harbinger of what's to come. "Our teams have been hard at work for years on something that is important to all of us," CEO Tim Cook said on stage at the Steve Jobs Theater shortly before unveiling the device. But for the millions of Apple loyalists around the world, the iPhone X isn't just a cutting-edge new piece of technology -- it's an upgrade that will likely cost them more than any smartphone has before. For comparison's sake, the base model iPhone 8 costs $699, while last year's iPhone 7 was $649 when it launched.

The Portrait Lighting effects feature is still in beta but already one of my favorite features. You can get all artsy and shoot a portrait with a completely dark background. I predicted the other day that every one of you who buys the X will quickly fool around with the animated emojis or Animojis you can send to a friend in a message, from a unicorn to a pile of poo. Animojis speak in your voice when you do, and mirror your facial movements. I'm sticking with that prediction, judging by the people I unleashed Animojis on or whom I let create their own. Mostly, though, I've been trying to best navigate the transition from a phone with a home button and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, to one that relies instead on new gestures and facial recognition. Some things have gotten easier, I'm still struggling with others, and there have been a few quirks as well. While I'm reluctant to declare that any handset that exceeds $1000 is worth the ransom, I can say without much hesitation that the iPhone X, is the finest smartphone you can buy. More: Don't want an iPhone 8 or iPhone X?

It's the most anticipated smartphone in years, and its success will be important for Apple. I was one of just a few journalists to be given a chance to spend the last nine days getting to grips with the new iPhone X (written X but pronounced 10). There's quite a bit to say. This is one of the key features on the new phone and it's a winner. I've gone into more detail separately here but the essence is that the Home Button found on all previous iPhones, and the fingerprint sensor, Touch ID, have been removed. Now, a sophisticated facial recognition system means that when you look at the phone, if it recognises you, it unlocks. Other phone manufacturers have included facial recognition but this one is significantly more consistent and reliable.

The iPhone X is expected to be announced on Tuesday – but the company's usual code of secrecy has broken down, meaning we already know a lot about the device. With its junking of the home button it represents the biggest change to the design of Apple's pivotal smartphone in years. A leak of the final version of Apple's upcoming software for iPhones and iPads, iOS 11, occurred over the weekend, revealing that the crucial new smartphone will be called the iPhone X, and will probably launch alongside two new versions of Apple's current iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, renamed the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. The iOS 11 leak, dug through for details of new iPhones by developers Steve Troughton-Smith and Guilherme Rambo among others, also revealed several key details of the next iPhone. We can expect the iPhone X to have 3GB of RAM, the same amount of memory as the current iPhone 7 Plus.

NEW YORK--Android Wear hasn't exactly been a wrist-roaring success since its debut in 2014. The pressure is squarely on Google to make good with the Android Wear 2.0 software release that debuts Friday on two new LG smartwatches, especially as it faces completion not just from the Apple Watch, but from Samsung's Gear S3, which relies on a flavor of software called Tizen. The new Android software, which will also be coming to other devices, indeed represents a step forward for such watches--there's support for cellular connectivity, the presence of the Google Assistant, a dedicated Google Play Store, among other enhancements. And you can use the watch more often than before without having to rely on a nearby phone. Still, whether all this moves the clock far enough along in Google's favor is debatable.