You tell us: More iPhone and iPad tips and tricks

SAN FRANCISCO — Who can't benefit from a few good tips and tricks for a smartphone or tablet? Contributor Jennifer Jolly weighed in this weekend to offer a few favorites for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and readers chimed in with even more. Here's a sampling:

Reader Tim Pease offered up insights on multitasking, the button-saving "assistive touch" feature and voice assistant Siri:

MULTITASKING.

With iOS 7's multitasking, you can swipe two fingers up to close multiple apps at once. Very handy if you have many apps in the task switcher tray and wish to close them out quickly. And with 1GB of RAM, many run in the background at the same time, shortening the battery life.

ASSISTIVE TOUCH

(his favorite tool), found in accessibility settings, is a button saver (or savior). It requires a few more touches than normal, but you can perform certain functions like multitasking, volume control, mute/unmute, lock and even screenshot.

SIRI

Pease created his email to us entirely with Siri. He writes: "Yes, there are corrections that need to be made. But overall, Siri is a lifesaver for people who cannot touch type very well. It works wonderfully with the native iPhone apps such as mail, notes, and iMessage."

MORE IPHONE TIPS:

SET AN ALARM WITH SIRI

Reader Sean Roy says he uses Siri to set or cancel an alarm. He writes: "I'll say 'wake me at 9am' or 'wake me in 2 hrs', and Siri responds in kind! It's much faster than manually setting the alarm!"

TAKE A PHOTO WITH THE VOLUME BUTTON

Instead of pressing the on-screen capture button to snap an image, press the volume button on the side of phone, writes reader Sean Valance. He writes: "It makes for more stable photo taking that's more natural than pointing & hitting a Dot w/ your finger. Also works with video."

BLOCKING CALLS

Jeffrey, a reader in Baltimore, lends a hand with the blocked calls feature:

If you want to block a call for a number that is not already in your contacts -- a telemarketer, for instance -- just go to the Recents list in the Phone app. Click "i" next to the number to block, then scroll down to and select "Block this caller." This process "allows you to block any number based on caller ID, even those not in your Contacts."

Readers: Have even more tips to share? Leave a tip, get a tip. Keep it going and we will continue to weigh in. You can write us a [email protected].

Follow Nancy Blair on Twitter" @nansanfran.