Apple’s iOS 6 has been a major update. You get lots of great new features to help you be productive. Here goes.

Create your own acronyms

Apple first added text expansion in iOS 5. If you find yourself often using a few stock phrases when you type out text messages on your iPhone, you’d probably appreciate it if you could use some kind of shorthand for it. For instance, if you often find yourself using the phrase Hold on a minute or Catch you in ten, you’d probably like it if you could just tap a button and have the phrase appear right away.

These contractions aren’t just for text messages. You can create shortcuts for your address, signature and email address among other things.

You can set new shortcuts by going to Add new shortcut through Settings, General and Keyboard.

In iOS 6, Apple has made this feature even better. You just need to create these shortcuts on one device. If you have another iDevice, you can use the shortcuts you create in one place across everything by syncing those devices. Doing this is simple. You just need an iCloud account. Then, you can go to your iCloud settings and turn Documents and data on.

Keep people from bothering you

It can be hard enough keeping up with all your messages even if you don’t look at ones that come from people you don’t know. On iOS 6, luckily, you get to set your phone to not make sounds to alert you for such messages. You just need to go to Notifications under Settings and then tap on Messages. Here, you get to check either Everyone or My contacts only.

You can set your iOS to keep the world out in another way too. You get a Do not disturb switch under Settings. When you flip it on, you don’t receive calls. If you haven’t set the switch and find your phone ringing at an inconvenient time, you just need to swipe up on the phone icon.

Managing your email better

If you need to include a picture or video in an email, iOS 6 makes it very simple. You just tap and hold the body of the email for a menu. This menu gives you the choice to insert a photo or video.

If you are familiar with OS X, you probably know all about their VIP email feature. You get to designate people on your contacts list as VIPs. Each time you get an email from one of them, OS X directs it automatically to a folder that it creates for them.

The VIP feature now appears on iOS. To mark someone as a VIP, you just need to tap on their name.

Do more on the social media

Facebook and Twitter are embedded in iOS 6. You just need to pull down the Notification center from the upper reaches of your screen to see that. You have two new buttons now – a Facebook button called To post and a Twitter button called To tweet.

With Facebook so well integrated into your iOS, you get to control your privacy level right in the iOS, too. Under Settings, you get a separate Facebook entry. Here, you get to choose if Facebook gets access to your Calendar and your Contacts. When you turn it on, you find that your Calendar reminds you whenever there is a friend’s birthday coming up.