The Coolest Features in iOS 8 You Can Use Right Now

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This isn't one of the more fun features of iOS 8, but it's important. With the new Health app, users can log in information to Medical ID, which can be accessed from the lockscreen in case of an emergency. Open Health, select Medical ID, and input your name, birth date, emergency contacts, and other health related data such as allergies, medical conditions, and medications that responders will need to know about if you're not able to communicate with them. Select "Show When Locked." Now, when you go to the lockscreen, hit Emergency, then Medical ID, and the information you plugged in will be displayed. 

This is Apple's answer to "O.K. Google."

Siri now responds to users with the verbal command "Hey Siri," but only when that device is plugged in to an outlet (since the phone will drain a ton of battery life if it's constantly on the look out for a command). The idea is that this could be used when someone has their iPhone charging in a car: they can ask Siri to do things while they're driving, all without having to touch the device. Go to Settings, General, Siri, and enable Siri. After that, select Allow "Hey Siri."

Lover of black and white? iOS 8 lets you strip the colors of the phone and turn everything into beautiful shades of grey (ahem), much like a newspaper from the 60s. The option to do this is a little hidden. To turn it on head to Settings, General, Accessibility, and select Grayscale. 

If you're constantly closing every app you can in order to save battery life, you can now do it more efficiently. iOS 8 lets users see which apps are draining most of the phone's power, letting them close the primary culprits rather than every app. Go to Settings, General, Usage, and select Battery Usage to see the list. You might be surprised that many apps use less power than you think. 

While Apple updated its own keyboard with the new QuickType feature (which tries to predict the words you'll use before you write them, so that you can select them from a window instead of typing them), the company opened the door for third party companies to bring over their keyboards as well. Swype and SwiftKey were popular keyboards on Android before being available on iOS. The apps let users "type" words without really typing—instead, they slide their finger from letter to letter, and can either lift their finger when they're done, or select the correct word from a window of suggestions. The apps are pretty similar, in terms of their premise, and each has different themes users can choose from. While SwiftKey is free, Swype is $.99. Once downloaded, go to Settings, General, Keyboard, Keyboards, Add New Keyboard, and select either Swype or SwiftKey.

Then select the keyboard in the Keyboards screen and turn on Allow Full Access.

If there's an email thread you're waiting on a response to, you can now get a notification pushed to you when someone finally responds—so you don't have to keep opening the Mail app to check. Simply find the email thread within the Mail app and swipe left on it. A slew of options will display, press More, and then select Notify Me. You'll get a notification when someone responds, and you can respond back to it from within the Notification Center.

This isn't the feature that's going to keep all of the pictures that you don't want your significant other to see hidden, but it certainly doesn't hurt. By going into the Photo app, press and hold a photo to bring up the "Hide" option. By selecting Hide, you'll remove the photo from Moments, Collections, and Years. But (and this is a very big "but") you'll still be able to see the photo under Albums. 

Before, if you wanted to find an old picture that someone sent you in a text conversation, you had to keep scrolling backwards until you came across it—and this could have taken minutes upon minutes, depending on how far back the conversation went. Now, by going into a conversation in the Message app, you can select Details in the upper right hand corner of the window, and all of the pictures will appear in one place. The Details page also lets you send your location to the person, or mute conversation notifications. 

Instead of typing in the 16 digits to your credit card when you buy something online, you now have the option of taking a picture of your card so that the iPhone can upload the numbers without them having to be typed in. You'll still have to type in the card's security code located on its backside, but that's the small price of security.

Instead of double-tapping the home button to close apps, you can now double-tap it to contact people in your favorites list, or people you've recently communicated with. You'll see a row of contacts at the top of the screen, and by pressing on their icon, you can choose whether to message or call them. This can be accessed from anywhere on the phone.