The 13 iPhone tricks that will change the way you use your Apple smartphone

YOUR iPhone has all manner of secrets lurking within it - and we're not talking about your sexy selfies.

Apple has cleverly designed its smartphone so that simple "gestures" offer access to all manner of time-saving shortcuts.

But not all of these are immediately obvious to casual users - until now.

We've collected together some of the very best gestures, which will make your digital life a little bit faster.

Shake to undo

This is an oldie which you might not have noticed.

If you've made a mistake in your typing, some apps will let you shake the phone to undo the mistake.

It works in most Apple apps, including text messages and emails.

Archive emails

When in the Mail app, you can choose to delete an email or archive it for later.

Simply tap and hold the trash icon and the pop up menu will appear, allowing you to archive it if you wish.

This allows you to clear up your inbox without permanently removing older emails.

Swipe right to go back

If you're using the web surfing app Safari (or a number of other apps), you can swipe to the right to see the page you visited.

This should save you a few valuable milliseconds and stop you having to stab away at the back arrow to perform a simple manoeuvre.

See what time a message was sent

Has someone sent you a very suggestive message?
Find out whether they really meant it or if they were drunk by working out the time the message was sent.

Swipe to the left in your text message app and you'll see a bit more info about the messages.

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Save your email drafts

You've penned the perfect love letter, but you need a bit of time to work out whether it makes you look like a total weirdo.

Just swipe down whilst writing away and it'll save the message in your drafts.

Then all you need to do is run it past a lawyer or a policeman to decide whether sending it would be enticing and erotic - or an arrestable offence.

Hide the keyboard in iMessage

If you are the type that likes to read your conversations back, iMessage allows you to get rid of the keyboard so you have more screen space.

Swipe down on the message immediately above the keyboard and it will drop down to the bottom of the screen.

When you want to type again, simply tap back into the text entry field and it will reappear.

Zoom in on video

Something strange is happening in that video you shot last night but you can't make out what's happening.

Just use two fingers on the vid to zoom in and get more detail, a shortcut which also lets you zoom in on pics and in the Maps app.

Select multiple photos at once

This one can be a major time saver.

If you need to select more than a few photos to send to a friend, move to another folder or even delete, you can select them all with one touch.

Once in a folder in the Photos app, tap the Select button.

As well as choosing individual pictures, you can tap and drag your finger to select several images at once.

Open up tabs you've closed by accident

We all close down things by accident, just the same as what happens in iPhone Safari if you close down a tab and then forget what you were looking at.

To see the tabs you've closed, just click the tabs icon in the bottom right and then hold the little plus symbol to see every tab you've shut down recently.

Delete numbers in calculator

In the olden days, you'd have to press the dreaded 'C' button on a calculator whenever you made a mistake, wiping all your progress.

But Apple has solved this dreadful problem.

To remove a stray digit, just swipe left or right on the numbers to delete one at a time.

Zoom in quicker on Maps

It's not always easy to get your fingers in the right spot to zoom in on Apple Maps.

While you can pinch and zoom as you would on a photo, Maps also allows you to tap to change the zoom.

A double-tap will zoom in, while a two-finger tap will zoom the map out.

Have any text read out loud

There is a feature on your iPhone which has the ability to read out anything on the screen for you.

But you need to get it set up first.

In your Settings, go to General, then Accessibility.

Select the Speech option and turn on Speak Screen, which will activate the talking feature.

Then once you get to a screen you want to have read, simply swipe down with two fingers to have it start playing.

Turn your flashlight off

After switching on the flashlight to check there are no monsters under the bed, it's always annoying to have to log into your phone to turn it off.

Happily, there's a neat little shortcut.

On the screen which appears when your phone is locked, just swipe up to turn off the light.