Once upon a time, when we traveled, we had to bring a camera, paper maps, travel guides (such as Lonely Planet), paper tickets, wallets, cash and a bunch of other things. With the advancement of technology, people like me who don’t even want to carry a bag when we travel can easily realize the goal of “travel the world with one cell phone”. Today, I’m going to take iPhone as an example and share how I use iPhone to do most of the things before, during and after traveling.

Map navigation

I believe that nowadays it is very difficult for traditional people to travel with paper maps, the function of the map software on the phone has penetrated into the hearts of the people, no matter it is the route finding or navigation function, we have already used it very skillfully, after all, the convenience of the map software and paper maps are not in the same level at all. In addition to these two well-known basic functions, the maps app on iOS actually hides some unknown but very practical functions.

“My Guide” is a must-use feature when I travel. First of all, every time I travel to a place, I will create a new guide in the Maps app, then search for the places I want to go, click “Add to Guide” in the “More” button, and finally select the new guide I just created.

After returning to the main interface, find the corresponding guide in “My Guides”, and you can see that the Maps app will display all the destinations in the guide on the map, which allows me to have a general understanding of the geographical location of these places, so that it is convenient for me to plan my trip. In addition, “My Guides” can also save me the trouble of searching again and again when I’m on the go. I can quickly locate the destinations in “My Guides”, and then navigate or plan my route.

Trip Planning
When planning a trip, I often collect places of interest through X and TikTok. Although each platform has a favorites function, it can’t do the aggregation function, so the iOS system comes with a memo app can let us conveniently realize this demand, and through the collaboration function, we can also freely edit the same notes, eliminating the trouble of frequently sending files to each other. In addition to collaboration, the Memo app’s parsing of inserted links is also very useful, allowing us to grasp some basic information directly in the notes without having to open a web page, making it easier for us to filter and sort.

If you find memo apps a bit confining to use, then the Boundless Notes app should be able to fulfill your needs. Edgeless Notes is a whiteboard app with a large canvas that allows us to create on a canvas that can be scaled from 10% to 400%. The toolbar of Infinity Note includes 5 options – Brush Tool, Add Sticky Note, Insert Graphic, Insert Text, Insert Media, which includes Picture/Video, Camera, Scan Document, Insert Link and Insert from File App.

In addition to local creation, Infinity Note has a very important feature, that is, collaboration. Find the share button in the upper right corner of any canvas, and you can invite collaborators to join the current canvas via message, email, etc. Depending on the permissions set, the invited user or any user with a link can view the content of this canvas or recreate directly on this canvas, and all participants can see the changes in real time on the canvas. In this way, we can use the Boundless Notes app for collaborative editing of travel guides, creating freely on a borderless canvas, recording routes, stopping points, times, prices, reservation information, inspiration, and more.

Translation and Communication
When traveling abroad, especially in small-language countries, translation software is an essential tool for the journey. If you don’t know which third-party app is appropriate or don’t want to pay to use it, try the translation feature that comes with iOS.

Let’s say you go to a local restaurant and you get a menu that looks like a book, and you have no idea how to order. At this time, you can take out your iPhone and take a picture of the menu, then open the camera, click the lower right corner of the recognition button, recognition is complete and then click on the “Translate” can be, the system will be translated directly over the original text, you can click on the “Translate Button” to restore the display of the original text, so that it is convenient to back and forth against.

If you can’t understand what’s displayed on the webpage, it may not be convenient to take a picture first and then translate it. Don’t worry, iOS comes with a translation function that can help you solve this problem. In any webpage, click the extension button in the address bar, and then select “Translate Website…”. and then select “Translate Site…”, you can translate the current webpage into the target language you specified. However, my favorite and most frequently used app is the translation app that comes with the system, because it covers the three most common foreign language usage scenarios when traveling abroad, and it’s really convenient to use.

First, the pure translation function, when I just want to simply look up a word, I will solve this need in the “Translate” tab; second, the camera translation function, when I am ordering or buying something, I just want to know the price or the name of the product, then I just need to open the “Camera” tab, and then point the camera at the menu or the product label; third, the real-time conversation translation function. When I need to communicate with local people, such as waiters, front desk staff, etc., I open the “Dialogue” tab, select the language of both parties, and then I can start a free conversation with the other party.

Security

When you’re on the go, it’s inevitable that you’ll lose something or encounter a “third hand,” so it’s important to keep your belongings safe and secure.

For iPhones, you can turn on the Stolen Device Protection feature in Settings to increase the security level of your device and help protect your account privacy and personal information in the event that your iPhone is stolen. To use this feature, go to “Face ID & Password” in Settings, enter your password, and then go to “Stolen Device Protection” to enable the “Stolen Device Protection” feature.

Once enabled, the iPhone can require additional security credentials to be met before major changes can be made when away from familiar locations like home or the office. For example, when someone tries to access stored passwords or credit card information after stealing your device and passcode, iOS will require a biometric authentication using Face ID or Touch ID, with no password substitution or fallback authentication.

There’s also a “Require security delay” option in Settings, which can be selected as either “When away from a familiar location” or “Always”, so that when someone performs certain security-related actions on an iPhone while away from a familiar location (such as changing a passcode), they’ll have to wait an hour before they can perform a second biometric authentication with their Face ID or Touch ID. If you choose “Always,” the setting will remain in place at any geographic location.

For Apple devices other than iPhones, we can also add some anti-loss measures to them in the Find app. In the case of the AirPods Pro, for example, I can find the “Notify when lost” option in the Devices tab, and when enabled, I can set up a whitelist of locations that will alert you when the AirPods Pro is in a location other than the whitelisted ones. If you lose your AirPods Pro, you can also mark it as lost in the Find app and provide your contact information so that if the person who finds your AirPods Pro tries to connect it to their Apple device, they’ll be alerted that it’s a lost device and given your contact information.

For non-Apple devices, we also have a way to prevent loss through AirTag. Bind or stow the AirTag in a hidden place, add it to the Find app, and you’ll see it in the Items tab. As with Apple devices in the Devices tab, we can also use the AirTag to play a sound, find it, notify you when it’s missing, enable lost mode, and more, which I won’t go into here.

Photography

It’s been just over 10 years since we started taking photos with our cell phones, which are now used by over 90% of the population. With the development of optical hardware and computational photography, many flagship cell phones are now able to match or even surpass the photography capabilities of some card cameras. If we use our iPhone well, I’m sure its camera performance will make you feel good about leaving your heavy camera at home.

The first step is to set up the photo format. If you’re a photography enthusiast and want to keep more details when taking photos for your own retouching, you have to turn on ProRAW and Resolution Control in Settings – Camera – Format, and then choose ProRAW Max as the default professional format to get the best image quality, but you need to sacrifice some in-camera storage space because the size of each photo is up to 75 MB. If you want to combine image quality and photo size, but don’t want to bother with post-production retouching, then choose HEIF Max as the default professional format, which is only 5 MB per photo.

If you prefer to take videos, you may also want to set the video format in advance. In “Settings – Camera – Record Video”, we can choose the resolution and frame rate of the video, the resolution supports from 720p, 1080p to 4K, and the frame rate can be selected from 24 fps, 30 fps, or 60 fps. 1080p HD/60 fps is a good choice if you just want to simply record the scenery or interesting things on the road, and the one-minute video takes up about 100 MB. If you need to shoot footage to make a nice video when you get home, then try to choose 4K/60 fps format, which can record higher resolution and smoother video, but it will take up 440 MB per minute.I also recommend you to turn on “Enhance Stabilization” in the settings, which will crop part of the image, but you can achieve better anti-shake effect. The “HDR Video” option is also a good choice. The “HDR Video” option is also a must-have, so you can watch videos even if you’re only watching them back on your iPhone.

For professional photography, iPhone has another killer feature, Apple ProRes, which you can enable in Settings-Camera-Formats. Once enabled, iPhone can shoot ProRes-formatted video for professional post-production, though a one-minute, 10-bit HDR ProRes video can take up to 1.7GB of storage space. ProRes When enabled, ProRes encoding also allows you to choose between HDR, SDR, and Log.

It should be noted that ProRes video is only supported up to 30 fps/1080p when recorded internally on the iPhone, and 60fps/4K only when recorded with external storage.

I’m sure many of you have heard of the “three equal parts composition” method, but on the iPhone we can also enable the gridlines and use them to compose our shots. Find the Composition section in Settings – Camera and tap on Grid to enable it. If you also want to see if the image is level while you’re taking a picture, you can enable “Level” in the Settings section. With these two options, it’s easy to use the iPhone camera for compositional assistance as well.

One tip for using the iPhone camera is “Auto Exposure/Auto Focus Lock,” which can be triggered by pressing and holding the screen in the viewfinder for about 2 seconds. When this mode is triggered, the iPhone camera selects a focus target based on where you touch the screen in the viewfinder and locks the exposure so that even if you move the iPhone or another object appears in the viewfinder, the focus target and exposure won’t change. Exiting AE/AF Lock mode is as simple as clicking once anywhere in the viewfinder.

Google Maps is a better choice when traveling overseas. In addition to searching for location, navigation and route planning, Google Maps also integrates restaurant reservations, public transportation schedules, taxi cabs and more. If you want to take advantage of traveling to try to record the activity track or location punching, then you can try Misty World and Swarm, the former can help you record the detailed movement track around the world, while the latter can help you discover and record the punching information of restaurants, museums, attractions and other places. When traveling with friends or colleagues, it’s inevitable that you need to do some accounting and record every expense to make it easier to pay for it at the end of the trip.