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Some oldies but goodies: One of the benefits of using a soft keyboard is that it can do so much more than a conventional hardware keyboard.

In this week's tip I remind you of some of the not-so-obvious features hidden in the standard iOS soft keyboard.

This weekly tip video covers a workaround to allow people without Macs (or any computer) to access iCloud.com on an iPad or iPhone.

This is necessary in order to create iCloud-based Mail rules and to access some additional preferences not available on iOS devices.

Two tips this week...

Siri News on iOS

No need to feel left out if you don't have a HomePod. You can get the news spoken to you from your iOS devices and as long as they support hands-free "Hey Siri" commands.

Hidden Files & Folders in macOS

Display your hidden files and folders with a simple keyboard shortcut. No longer do you need to conjure up some obscure Terminal command to make this happen.

Your Apple ID is a crucial part of how you access your devices, apps and all Apple services.

It goes without saying that you really need to look after your Apple ID and make sure that you can regain access in the event of some mishap.

In this week's tip video, we take a look at the website that's designed to help you maintain your Apple ID: appleid.apple.com

Continuing on from last week's tip video, we transition from setting up Apple Mail rules on the Mac to server-based rules on iCloud.com.

Although not as granular as the local Mail rules, server-based rules can run 24/7 and work across all of your macOS and iOS devices.

iPads and iPhones are extremely popular with children, but as adults, we have a responsibility to protect them from accessing harmful or inappropriate material.

Apple acknowledges this fact, and provides a wide range of ways to tailor the iOS experience for children of all ages.

iOS 11 contains "Restrictions" that allow you as a parent or caregiver to enable or disable access to apps, services and content on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, as well as access to certain physical parts of the device such as the Camera.

In this weekly tip video, we explore the wide range of restrictions available to you.

We may have covered the major points of iOS 11 in the full shows, but there are still further hints and tips to share.

This tip show covers three really useful tips when using iOS 11.

One of the problems of moving to a new iPhone is that the restore process brings everything across. As well as the important information, you also end up with a tonne of applications that you never use and just can't be bothered to weed out.

Wouldn't it be nice to start off with a fresh build of iOS and just the stock apps? You can do this of course (instead of restoring your iPhone) but you'll loose all your Activity, Health and Watch data.

In this tip video, I demonstrate how you can do a partial restore to a new or existing iPhone to remove all the detritus, yet keep all your Activity, Health and Watch data. A third-party utility is used to achieve this (do so at your own risk) and there is no guarantee that it will work with future releases of iOS. However, I used it on my iPhone X and it worked amazingly well! The developers have stated that it is supported on iOS 11.2 beta so it looks promising!

Decipher Activity Transfer is free, but there is a paid version that allows you to transfer additional components in addition to your Activity and Watch data.

The new iPhone X is out and in this video, I take you through the unboxing and initial setup of the iPhone X.

After a just a few days of use, it feels like Apple have reinvented the iPhone. Face ID and the new gestures are a delight to use.

Face ID works flawlessly, although there are some areas where it can't replace Touch ID -- such as when leaving your iPhone on a desktop -- but in most instances, it's comparable or even better than Touch ID.

Using Face ID to authenticate within apps is fantastic, and even quicker than Touch ID in most cases. Add in the beautiful design and the gorgeous OLED screen, and I think Apple have a winner.

I've even learnt to embrace the notch as it's really a non-issue if case you're wondering!

iOS 11 brings with it native screen recording to your iPad or iPhone. You can record video only or both video and audio using your iOS device's microphone.

It's a great tool for creating short instructional videos for friends or family.

Once recorded, you can trim your video directly in the iOS Photos app, or use a special iMovie extension for more advanced tasks such as adding titles and music.