Jim Rossman: Still learning what my iPhone can do

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I’ve been looking for ways to make my phone do more work for me.

I stumbled on a setting in my iPhone that automates something I do several times per week and I didn’t even know it was a possibility.

You can look at me and tell I’m not bragging, but I work out at my local YMCA twice a week.

I’d like to say it was more often, but most weeks I go twice, and each time I approach the front desk, I have to dig out my wallet and show them my membership card so they can scan the barcode.

I have a few friends who also work out there and I learned they just took a picture of their YMCA card they just show the photo from their phone each time and the front desk person just scans the barcode from their phone.

Digging through the camera roll on my phone didn’t sound like a better option than fishing the card out of my wallet.

Then I came across an article online about an iPhone feature called Focus, which changes settings depending on the situation. For instance, there’s a Sleep Focus to make changes to potential interruptions and scheduling sleep tracking if you have an Apple Watch.

I already used the Sleep focus, but I learned Focus had some other features, including one that could change settings based on the phone’s exact location.

iPhones already have a focus called Fitness, which lets the user set up changes to settings like notifications I’d like to limit during workouts. I can pick whose calls can get through or which apps can send notifications during the time the focus is active.

Part of the Focus settings include the ability to set a specific wallpaper image.

My thought was, what if I took the picture of my YMCA barcode and set it up as a wallpaper image. Then I could set the phone to switch to that wallpaper whenever I arrive at the YMCA.

Now when I pull into the YMCA parking lot, my phone automatically switches to show the membership barcode on the lock screen. I pull my phone out and turn it on and show the front desk.

It’s a small thing, but it makes me smile every time.

You could easily make this same thing happen when you need to scan your loyalty card at a grocery store or show your membership card at Sam’s or Costco. There are tons of possibilities.