The jury may still be out on iOS 7's radical redesign - for what it's worth we love it, with a few reservations - there's no denying that it's the friendliest and most powerful version of iOS yet.

But there's more to iOS 7 than headline features such as Control Centre and iTunes Radio: some of the best improvements are small things that make our everyday lives that little bit more pleasant.

These are our favourites:

1. Camera: shoot in burst mode

The redesigned Camera app has a nifty trick up its sleeve: if you want to shoot in burst mode, taking multiple shots in quick succession, just click and hold the volume-up button.

2. Multitasking: quit multiple apps

You probably know that you can quit running apps by double-tapping the Home button and flicking the offending app upwards, but you might not have tried it with multiple fingers to force-quit more than one app at a time. We've made it work with three apps on our iPhone, although doing the same on an iPad means getting your nose involved too.

3. Notifications: begone!

When you receive a new notification, you can still swipe right to open the appropriate app - but if you just want rid of it you can now swipe up to hide it.

4. All new balancing act

iOS 7 is bad news for novelty app developers: not only has the Control Centre killed the market for flashlight apps, but Compass has done the same for spirit level apps too.

If you launch the app you'll see the familiar dots at the bottom of the screen that indicate there's a second screen: swipe it and you'll see a spirit level for all your checking-things-are-flat needs.

5. Phone, FaceTime and Messages: block contacts

Does someone have your number and you wish they didn't? Successfully avoid exes, creditors and the angry husbands and wives of your lovers with iOS 7's excellent blocking features. Add the number to your Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap Block This Caller to refuse incoming calls, messages (including SMS and MMS) and FaceTime calls.

6. Messages: see the timestamps

iOS 7 likes to keep things nice and minimalist, but if key information isn't visible there's a good chance it's just a swipe away - so for example in Messages, you won't see timestamps against each SMS, MMS or iMessage. Want to know when they were sent? Swipe left.

7. Apps: swipe backwards

This little tip is a handy time-saver: when you're finished reading an email or message, or fiddling with Settings, or exploring a Music playlist, swipe backwards to return to the previous page. If you're at the first level (such as your list of mailboxes in Mail, or the first Settings screen) nothing will happen.

8. Location Services: see where you've been

iOS 7 keeps an eye on where you go to help it personalise features such as the Notification Centre, and to help improve the accuracy of Maps. If you fancy a look you'll find it in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Frequent Locations. You'll see a list and a map, with blue circles showing where you've been and when. You can clear the history from this page, and if you think it's a little creepy you can turn it off from the System Services page.

9. Newsstand: put it away!

We like Newsstand, but we don't like the way it can't be stuck in a folder like Apple's other stock apps. Hallelujah for iOS 7, then, because at last that absurd restriction has been removed.

10. Settings: make iOS 7 easier on the eye

We like the new interface, but it isn't for everyone. If you have problems with your sight or just want to make iOS more legible, you'll find some useful settings in Settings > General > Accessibility. You can make all system text bold, increase the size of text in apps that support Apple's Dynamic Type, scale down motion effects such as the parallax effect or invert the colours to make iOS 7 look like a 1980s electro-pop album cover.

11. Sounds: get some new tones

iOS 7's library of sounds (Settings > Sounds > Sounds and vibration patterns) has been given a regular update, and Apple says they're so good you might miss calls because you're dancing. That, frankly, isn't very likely.

12. AutoFill: let Safari input your details

Feeling trustworthy? Safari can automatically fill out web forms using your Contact info, previous names and passwords, and credit card details, should you so wish. You can toggle these AutoFill options individually from Settings > Safari > Passwords > AutoFill.

13. Siri: now reads your emails

Siri makes light work of not only listing emails in your inbox, but also reading them out to you. Hold down the Home button and say, "Read my emails" and Siri will give you sender, time and date sent, and the subject of each in turn. When asked if you want it to read out your mail, just say "Yes".

14. Apps: one folder to rule them all

Unlike previous versions of iOS, there's no limit to the number of apps you can file away in a single folder. Now you can simply pile icons onto each other to your heart's content. Finally, an end to the Games 1, Games 2, Games 3 (ad nauseum) home screen debacle.

15. Motion: reducing sickness

iOS 7 likes to advertise its existence to you with all manner of motions, animations and alerts. If all the hullabaloo is leaving you slightly queasy, put a dampener on things by selecting Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Off.

16. Notification Centre: not on my lock screen

Notification Centre got a visual overhaul in the latest version of iOS, offering a neat snapshot of your appointments and message snippets accessible from the lock screen. But not everyone wants their itinerary on show to all and sundry. Happily you can turn off this overview from Settings > Notification Centre, using the sliders listed under - you guessed it - 'Access on Lock Screen'.

17. FaceTime: data and duration

You can check out your complete list of FaceTime calls via the Recents option at the bottom of the screen in the FaceTime app. If you tap the "i" next to each call you can see a breakdown of how long the call lasted and find out how much data it used.

18. Maps: walk or drive everywhere

Maps still has its downsides, but it's useful for the most part - more so now that you can choose a default mode of travel. If you're more rambler than driver and want to avoid having to define your directions as such, simply tap to Settings > Maps and select Walking under Preferred Directions.

19. App Store: Near Me

A new tab in the App Store app called Near Me automatically lists the most popular apps in your general location. That might sound a bit gimmicky, but we found it useful when visiting towns and cities for the first time, when it turned up local transport and tourist information apps.

20. Apps: Background App Refresh

iOS 7 introduces the ability to selectively control which apps are allowed to refresh their content while you're getting on with other business. When battery life is at a premium, turn off any offenders by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

21. Apps: Automatic Updates

iOS can now update your apps automatically. That's great as long as a) you have an unlimited data plan, and b) your favourite app's functionality doesn't get mangled with some poorly advised revisions. Control this function either way by going to Settings > iTunes and App Store and sliding the Updates option under Automatic Downloads.

22. Siri: can handle calls

You probably know that you can ask Siri to place calls for you, but did you know that you can ask her/him/it to play your voicemail or return your last missed call? Simply say "Return missed call" or "Do I have new voicemail?" and Siri will snap to it. You can also tell Siri "Check my call history" and get a list of your recent calls.

23. AirDrop: share everything with ease

Want to quickly share a photo, a web page, a location, or a contact with someone? That's what AirDrop is for. If you have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on, then you can select AirDrop in the Control Centre and then tap the share icon on whatever you want to share and choose the person you want to share it with.

24. Data: stay within your allowance

Most contracts have a monthly allowance for data and you're going to get stung if you exceed it. Head into Settings > Cellular and scroll down to see which apps might be eating your data. If there's anything unnecessary listed just toggle it off. If you reset the Cellular Data Usage each month you can also use it to keep an eye on where you are.

25. iMessages: delete or forward

Sadly there's no way to delete the embarrassing text you drunkenly sent the object of your affection last night from their phone, but you can delete it from yours.

The method is slightly different in iOS 7, hold down your finger on the message and tap More… and you can tick individual messages and delete them by tapping the trashcan at the bottom of the screen. If you want to send the same message on to someone else then tap the arrow at the bottom right instead.

26. FaceTime: don't look at me!

Whether you're ill, hung over or just feeling ugly, you'll be glad to know that you can now make a FaceTime call without video. To make an audio only call using FaceTime select the contact you want and then just tap the telephone icon to the right of the FaceTime option.

27. Notification Centre: alerts and badges

If you hate the sound that plays to notify you of an incoming message, or you can't stand the red badges on your app icons, then do something about it. Go into Settings > Notification Centre and you can select individual apps and choose whether the Badge App Icon should appear, what sound should play as an alert, and where alerts will show up.

28. Siri and Safari: search Google

You can't change your default search engine in Siri from Microsoft's Bing, but you can say "Search Google for Tech Radar" and get the results you want. In Safari you can switch it. Go to Settings > Safari > Search Engine and pick your favourite.

29. Weather: it's probably still raining

When you fire up the weather app you can see basic info for your chosen cities. Tap the city and you'll get the current temperature and an extended 7-day forecast.

Tap on that big temperature number and you will reveal a breakdown showing humidity, chance of rain, wind speed, and what temperature it will actually feel like when you head out.

30. Keyboard: speed typing

It's easy to miss little shortcuts that can speed up your typing - you might already know these from previous versions of iOS, but if not, they're massive time-savers.

Double tap the spacebar and you'll end a sentence with a full stop and automatically bump on a space ready for the next one. You can also double tap the shift key to keep caps lock on, and hold down the "123" key to pick a single character without leaving the standard keyboard layout.

31. Brightness: Reduce the glare

You know that feeling when your iPhone or iPad screen flicks to life in a darkened room and instantly melts your eyeballs?

Apple's love of a clean white aesthetic can be painful at times, but with iOS 7.1 you can do something about it. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast and toggle Reduce White Point to 'On'.

You'll find the glaring white has been dialled down a notch. Wizard.

32. Button shapes: press here

Not everyone is a fan of iOS 7's minimalist look and the lack of outlines on buttons can make it harder to tap your target. Well, now you can bring them back.

Just go to Settings > General > Accessibility, scroll down to Button Shapes and toggle it on.

You'll get grey outlines on buttons in the menu bar and tappable text will be underlined - although it does make everything look a little less refined compared to the usual Apple fluidity.

33. Siri: stop listening

There's a pause when you've finished speaking before Siri realises that you're done and it can be annoying having to wait.

Sometimes Siri decides you're done because you paused for a moment too long, but actually you aren't. If you were done, you could always tap the screen to tell Siri to stop listening, but that's a bit convoluted.

With iOS 7.1 you can hold down the Home button while you speak and let go when you are finished so Siri knows exactly when you're done. This is especially handy if you only have one hand free.

34. Perspective Zoom: Kill the parallax

Whether it gives you motion sickness or you just don't like it, there is thankfully now a way to get rid of the parallax effect on your wallpaper without having to kill the zooming transition animations coming in and out of apps.

If you have Reduce Motion off in Settings > General > Accessibility, then you can go to Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness, choose your lock screen and home screen wallpapers and toggle Perspective Zoom to the 'Off' position.

35. Contrast: Reduce transparency and darken colours

If you don't like the transparent menus with blurred backgrounds underneath then good news: you can tweak them. Head into Settings > General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast and turn on Reduce Transparency.
It will make the dock, keyboard, Notification Centre and everything else opaque. You may also want to toggle on Darken Colours to make everything a little easier to read.

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How to Get the Most Our of Your HTC One M8

The HTC One M8 is without a shadow of a doubt the best phone to come out of HTC's labs for quite some time. More than just a cosmetic revision of last year's popular HTC One, this new phone boasts a beefier processor, improved software and a raft of new features that allow it to compete with the Sony Xperia Z2 and Samsung Galaxy S5 on more than equal terms.

However, if you're a newcomer to smartphones - or are moving over from another operating system,such as iOS - then chances are you'll find the HTC One M8 ever so slightly intimidating. That's where we come in.

Below you'll find handy hints, tips, tricks and secrets that will let you tame your powerful new mobile companion and look impossibly cool in front of your mates. Maybe.
 

Disable BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed is HTC's way of aggregating everything that is important to you, including RSS feeds, social networking updates, forthcoming calendar appointments and more. It's a pretty swell application, but Android purists often complain that it feels like it's being forced upon them. If you fall into this camp then you'll be pleased to know that there's a way to disable it completely.

On any homescreen, simply perform a "pinch zoom" gesture with two fingers. You'll see an overview of all your homescreens, with BlinkFeed appearing on the far left. Long-press BlinkFeed and then drag it to the "remove" icon - it will be banished forever, or at least until you decide that you want to reinstate it.

Use gestures to control your phone quickly and easily

The HTC One M8 is all about gestures, and it comes with a series of quick swipe gestures - branded "Motion Launch" by HTC - which can be used to open certain applications even when your phone's display is powered down and it's sitting on your coffee table.

A double-tap wakes or locks the phone, while swipes from the left and right open BlinkFeed or your home screen respectively. You can wake the phone in the state it was when it locked by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, and swiping downwards fires up the dialer so you can make a call quickly.

Take a photo in just two button presses

Sometimes the art of taking a good photo is being quick enough to capture the moment before it passes, and in the case of smartphones it can sometimes take a few seconds for your camera application to even load - by which time the opportunity to be the next David Bailey has long since passed.

Mercifully, HTC has bestowed a quick-snap feature on the One M8 - simply long-press the Volume Up button to activate the camera when your phone is in sleep mode, and then press Volume Down to take the shot.

Control when your phone should be heard

There's nothing more annoying that your phone making a commotion when you're in a quiet office, especially when you own a HTC One M8 with its BoomSound technology and powerful stereo speakers. By using the phone's built-in Do Not Disturb mode you can switch off all of these sounds in one fell swoop, and it's even possible to schedule when your want the mode to be enforced.

Simply got to Settings > Sound and switch "Do Not Disturb" on. To schedule when you'd like it to be active, tap the Do Not Disturb field a second time.

Hide annoying and pointless applications

HTC has done a decent job of keeping bloatware applications to a minimum on the One M8, but you may still find yourself wanting to get rid of some of the more annoying programs in your app drawer. Bloatware is so named because it cannot be uninstalled, but you can still hide it from view.

In the app drawer, tap the three dot icon in the top-right corner of the display and then select Hide/Unhide apps. Tick the ones you want to remove from view and you'll be on your way to a less cluttered phone.

Answer a call just by picking the phone up

There's nothing more natural than scooping up a phone and answering it in one motion, and the HTC One M8 allows you to do just that. Using the proximity sensors located near the top of the device, the handset can tell when you've placed it next to your ear and will automatically answer the call.

Customize the LED for certain notifications

LED notifications are handy when your phone is muted as they allow you to see when you've got messages awaiting your attention. You can customise when the LED fires by going to Settings > Display & Gestures > Notification Light.

Change channels with your phone

The HTC One M8 boasts an IR blaster, which means you can use it as a conventional remote control to change channels, toggle the volume and generally perform other tasks. You'll need to tell the phone which brand of TV you own for it to work properly, but once you've done this you'll never have to fumble around the living room for your remote ever again. You'll find this feature in the TV app.

Free up storage by saving your photos to an SD card

The HTC One M8 comes with a memory card slot, which means you can free up valuable internal storage space by purchasing cheap and roomy external media. After fitting the card you should see a prompt appear the next time you open the camera application which will give you the option to save all videos and photos to SD. You can change back to internal storage at any time by dipping into the camera app's settings menu.

Show your battery level as a percentage

By default, the HTC One M8 displays your current battery stamina as an icon rather than a percentage, which gives a quick visual indication of how much juice remains in the tank but isn't entirely precise. Thankfully, you can display a percentage by going to Settings > Power > Show Battery Level.

Enable developer mode

Android phones come with Developer Mode disabled by default, largely because the options included within it aren't going to make a lot of sense to novices. However, there are certain things you'll want to do which require this mode to be active, and switching it on is really easy - drop into Settings > About > Software Information > More, and then tap the "Build" section several times until you see a prompt informing you that you are now a developer.

Make your phone even faster by enabling ART runtime

With Developer Mode enabled (see the previous hint) you can switch on the experimental ART runtime. Android currently uses Dalvik Runtime, but Google is going to move over to ART in a future update. ART is a "Ahead of time" compiler, and should - in theory - make your phone feel faster. You can always revert back to Dalvik if you don't find it to your liking, but we think that the difference is genuinely noticeable.

Create an animated GIF from a Zoe clip

HTC's Zoe shooting mode complies a video from a set of images, and is a great way to share precious moments with others. It's even easier to exchange these memories thanks to the option to transform a segment of a Zoe clip into an animated GIF file, which can be viewed on most phones, tablets and computers. Simply select the Zoe clip, tap "Edit" and then select "GIF Creator".

Snap a selfie in double-quick time

Selfies are relatively tiresome, but they seem to be in fashion at the moment, and HTC is making sure it stays on the cutting-edge by including a "Selfie" shooting mode in the One M8's camera app. Simply tap the Shot Type icon in the bottom-right corner of the camera application and select Selfie, and the front-facing camera will be ready for your moment of vain, self-indulgent glory.

Transfer data from your old phone

While moving from one Android phone to another is fairly easy thanks to the fact that much of your data is tied to your Google account, it's less straightforward to move from another phone maker, such as Apple. HTC has your back though and has included a transfer option which allows you to port a surprisingly large amount of content and data over from your previous device.

Enable faster typing

Trace-to-type has been available on Android for ages thanks to the availability of the Swype keyboards, but many handset makers are now baking it into the firmware - and HTC is no exception. When the keyboard is open, long-press the key with the "cog" icon to access the keyboard settings menu. Make sure "Trace keyboard" is ticked and you're away.

Secure your phone with Kid Mode

Smartphones are amazing, and given how much they keep adults occupied it's little wonder that kids are just as enthralled by them. However, before handing over your shiny new HTC One M8 to your offspring to keep them quiet during a long car journey you'll want to make sure that they don't mess about with your settings or access any apps they shouldn't.

That's where Kids Mode comes in. You can turn it on by long-pressing the power button and selecting Kids Mode, and once triggered, it can only be disabled by entering the owner's date of birth and a unique pin code.

Mute your ringer without cutting off the caller

Unwanted calls are bad enough, but having to end them during a meeting to ensure that your ringtone doesn't annoy anyone is even worse - not least because the caller knows you've willfully cut them off.

With the HTC One M8 you can avoid this potentially sticky situation by simply flipping your phone over when it rings; the caller's phone will continue to ring through, making it seem less like you're trying to avoid them.

Access Quick Settings even faster

Swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen and you'll notice that instead of the usual notifications pane you'll be presented with your Quick Settings page - a screen that normally takes another tap to access.

Customize Quick Settings to suit your needs

The Quick Settings menu is packed with handy shortcuts, but you may find that some are less useful than others. Fear not, as you can mess about with the order of the settings by tapping the Pen and Paper icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Using this method, you can push up the more important toggles to the top of the Quick Settings menu.

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