The holidays are a time of getting along with household — and fixing their know-how. As the duly-appointed nerd in my household, I discover it useful after we’re collectively to ensure iPhone updates like the newest iOS 18.2 are put in on on everybody’s gadgets. Not only for safety (although that may be a huge half), however to set them up with all the brand new options which have come out over the previous a number of months, equivalent to Apple Intelligence instruments equivalent to Genmoji and Image Wand, new textual content formatting in Messages, modifications to the Maps app and extra.
But the place to start out?
Right right here: I’ve put collectively my record of eight options and settings it is best to change proper now, together with among the top-tier options and some that fly below the radar. If you’ve an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, you’ll want to take a look at the options you are going to use most. (Or if in case you have no real interest in them, learn to flip off Apple Intelligence.)
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, find out about enhancements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. Don’t neglect to seek the advice of the iOS 18 improve guidelines, which incorporates ensuring you’ve a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
11 Essential Accessories Your iPhone Wants for the Holidays
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Change the default buttons on the lock display
In actual property, location is every part, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display are the prime spots, every a simple thumb press away when your system continues to be locked. Before iOS 18, these posts had been held by the flashlight and digital camera buttons, with no solution to change them.
In iOS 18, you’ll be able to lastly substitute them with different buttons — or take away them totally, a balm for people who unknowingly activate the flashlight (consider me, there is a higher solution to flip it on). You can add buttons to acknowledge music through Shazam, allow Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, allow Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, ship cash through Tap to Cash and extra.
Here’s how:
1. On the iPhone’s lock display, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customize button. You’ll have to unlock the cellphone utilizing Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. If it opens the house display, swipe down from the center-top of the display (not the proper edge, which brings up Control Center.
2. Tap Customize after which select Lock Screen.
3. Remove one of many buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon.
4. To substitute the button with one other operate, faucet its house (now with a + icon) after which select the one you need on the following display. (You also can decide to depart that house empty with no button.)
5. Repeat these steps for the opposite button if you wish to change it.
6. Tap Done while you’re completed.
7. Tap the lock display once more to exit the customise mode.
Remove a lock display button by tapping the – (minus) button, after which select a brand new management to switch it.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18
Set up among the new duties out there on the Action button
The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro changed the devoted mute swap discovered on each earlier iPhone mannequin with a configurable management. By default it serves the identical objective — maintain it to show Silent Mode on or off — however you’ll be able to configure it for different actions like opening the Camera app, performing a number of actions without delay and even ordering espresso.
In iOS 18, the Action button will get new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and select a management of your alternative, equivalent to opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to determine a tune.
To select a distinct motion for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to pick out and activate one of many out there actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility choices, faucet the Choose button to select which particular motion to run.
iOS 18 now permits you to program the Action Button together with your favourite Control Center management.
Give your own home display a radical new look
You would not suppose that placing icons the place you need is a radical new characteristic, however that is as a result of iOS has all the time had a locked association. Apps get added from high to backside, left to proper. You might rearrange the order wherein icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps could be positioned practically wherever. You now not have to cope with a wallpaper picture of your youngsters or pets being obscured by icons. They nonetheless adhere to a grid — Apple is not about to sanction anarchy — however could be positioned freely.
Also, Dark mode lastly applies to the entire iPhone’s residence display, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. Here’s learn how to customise the appears to be like.
Arrange apps: Touch and maintain the house display to enter “jiggle mode,” after which drag the icons to new positions. It will nonetheless slide them round to fill areas, however with persistence, you’ll be able to transfer them into the spots you need.
Position app icons the place you need so this excellent woman is not lined.
You also can rapidly flip appropriate apps into widgets that show extra info. Maps, as an illustration, could be a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or convey up a listing of close by locations (equivalent to dinner spots). Touch and maintain the app icon and search for a row of resize buttons within the menu that seems. Once expanded past the usual icon measurement, you’ll be able to drag the deal with within the bottom-right nook of the brand new icon. To get it again to its single icon measurement you want to contact and maintain once more and select the single-icon button
Some apps could be expanded into bigger icons that act like widgets.
Set Dark mode: If you have ever subjected your self to the retina blast of black textual content on a white background late at night time in a darkened room, you’ll recognize the brand new Dark mode possibility for the house and lock screens. iOS has beforehand included a Dark mode, the place mild backgrounds swap to black or darkish grey, textual content switches to white or mild grey and different interface components are dimmed to coexist in a darkish surroundings. That’s by no means been utilized to the house and lock screens in any important method — solely the dock and a few widgets — till iOS 18.
First, contact and maintain the house display to enter jiggle mode. Tap the Edit button within the top-left nook and select Customize from the menu. At the underside of the display, select a mode for the icons and background: Automatic, Dark or Light (I’ll get to Tinted in a second). In Dark mode, the icons acquire black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock change into darkish grey. (Developers have the choice of creating Dark mode icons for his or her apps. In the meantime, apps not but optimized get a usually darker look.)
In the house display’s Dark mode, icons and the background are given a darker remedy.
In Dark mode, the background picture additionally modifications. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically modifications from mild to darkish because the day progresses, or you’ll be able to select colours that supply each a lightweight and darkish possibility. If you utilize a photograph, its total publicity is lowered to dim the sunshine output.
If you need darkish icons however aren’t a fan of the dimmed photograph remedy, faucet the solar icon within the nook of the choices sheet on the backside of the display to toggle again to Light mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and totally different possibility is to tint the entire app icons so that they share the identical colour. In the Customize choices on the backside of the display, select Tinted because the icon model. You can then alter the Hue (the slider with the colour spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the darkish to mild vary) to decide on the colour tint you favor.
Apply a common tint to all app icons, with controls for adjusting the hue and luminosity.
What if you wish to match a colour from a background picture? Tap the eyedropper button after which drag the reticle to pinpoint the colour you need — the border signifies the chosen colour.
The tint is utilized not solely to icons however to widgets as properly. For a widget equivalent to Photos, the photographs it shows present up as duotones to match the theme.
Large icons: Do the labels under every app icon appear redundant to you? Now you’ll be able to take away the labels and improve the dimensions of the icons with one setting. Open the Customize choices as described above and faucet the Large button.
Make the house display icons bigger and conceal the app labels.
After making any of those modifications, faucet wherever on the display to use them and exit the Customize interface.
Change up how the Control Center appears to be like
Control Center was as soon as a handy place to rapidly entry controls equivalent to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however below iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You can place controls the place you need, resize many to disclose extra info and add new controls on a number of screens.
Swipe down from the top-right nook to disclose the Control Center (or swipe up from the underside on the iPhone SE). To enter edit mode, contact and maintain or press the + button on the top-left nook.
Just as with shifting apps, drag a management to a different slot on the display to reposition it. Many of the controls additionally embody a bottom-right deal with that may resize the management — normally, it reveals the title of the management and its present standing (equivalent to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, develop them to disclose extra info (or simply make the button a bigger goal for urgent).
Control Center additionally now spans a number of screens. Swipe as much as view controls for media at present taking part in, Home controls for good lights and home equipment and a web page devoted to the communication choices that seem while you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. Look intently and you will see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy your complete Control Center space.
You can rearrange the order of these screens by shifting their controls. Suppose you need Home controls to be the primary swipe as a substitute of Now Playing: In the modifying mode, drag the big Home management as much as the earlier display (Now Playing will shift to the proper to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, equivalent to Home. Normally it is on the third display, however right here it has been moved to the second display.
To take away controls, faucet the – (minus) button that seems. You also can add different controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll via the out there choices starting from beginning a Screen Recording to a number of accessibility choices.
Read extra: Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro circumstances
Lock or disguise any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate knowledge, and but it isn’t unusual at hand a cellphone to a good friend to view images or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they’ll snoop, however it would not not imply they is perhaps extra curious than you are comfy with. For knowledge you wish to guarantee stays out of sight or so as to add a layer of safety in entrance of delicate info, iOS 18 provides the power to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, as an instance you retain an ongoing set of lists of reward concepts for relations within the Notes app. You can lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Maybe a couple of concepts had been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. Instead of micromanaging entry, you’ll be able to lock your complete Notes app by doing the next:
Touch and maintain the app icon you wish to lock and select Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID should not enabled) from the menu that seems. Confirm your alternative by tapping Require Face ID (or comparable) within the subsequent dialog.
Lock particular person apps.
To take away the authentication step, contact and maintain the app and select Don’t Require Face ID (or comparable).
Nothing outwardly signifies that an app is locked — you may discover out while you attempt to open it. There’s yet another stage of app safety out there, which is to cover apps in a particular locked folder. Touch and maintain the app and select Require Face ID after which faucet Hide and Require Face ID within the dialog. Confirm the motion by tapping Hide App on the following display.
The app disappears from the house display and will get slotted right into a Hidden folder on the backside of the App Library (swipe left past your final residence display to view the App Library). To entry apps there, faucet the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID.
When you select Hide and Require Face ID to guard an app, it will get put into the Hidden folder in App Library (high). Tap the folder and authenticate to entry the app (backside).
iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, equivalent to most of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can solely be locked and can’t be hidden in any respect. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself while you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library.
Turn off Loop Videos within the Photos app
Many apps have applied a small however annoying (to me) characteristic, and now Photos below iOS 18.2 has it too: Videos robotically replay while you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That could be enjoyable a couple of times, or when viewing brief clips. I’m not a fan of getting to take motion to make them cease every time.
Now I can take motion as soon as. Go to Settings > Photos, scroll down till you see Loop Videos and switch the choice off. A video will play by itself however then cease on the finish because it ought to.
Turn off Loop Videos to cease each video from replaying robotically.
If you’d slightly the video did not play in any respect till you faucet the Play button, additionally flip off Auto-Play Motion in the identical Settings display.
Adjust the view of your calendar
Big new options like locking and hiding apps are nice additions however so are the tiny modifications that you simply encounter each day. The Calendar app consists of two new methods to view your schedule.
In iOS 18, while you’re within the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view extra or fewer particulars. As you “zoom in,” particular person occasions seem as coloured bars after which as labeled occasions with occasions, all whereas preserving the month-to-month grid of days and weeks.
In the Calendar app’s Month view, pinch to zoom in and see extra particulars.
The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a brand new Multi Day view that exhibits two consecutive days to provide you context for what’s coming with out turning the cellphone into panorama orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button on the high of the Single Day view and select Multi Day from the popup menu.
The new Multi Day view within the Calendar exhibits two days without delay (proper).
Improve film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Trouble listening to dialogue in films and tv exhibits is not a brand new downside — for instance, the Apple TV has had a characteristic for some time the place you’ll be able to ask Siri, “What did she say?” and it’ll robotically again up a couple of seconds, activate subtitles and replay that part of the video. You may even purchase soundbars that may overcome muffled TV speech. There are a variety of causes it is tougher to listen to dialogue, however the TV app in iOS 18 features a high-tech workaround to make dialog simpler to discern.
While you are watching a video within the TV app, faucet the More (…) button after which develop the Audio heading within the menu that seems; if the cellphone is in horizontal orientation, faucet the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and select Enhance or Boost. They every dampen background noise and lift the dialogue’s audio.
Turn on Enhance Dialogue within the TV app to discern characters’ speech higher in noisy scenes.
These are only a few new options and modifications in iOS 18. Check out our broader protection of Apple Intelligence, extra impressions of the system after utilizing it for months and the way these all work along with the iPhone 16 fashions.
Apple’s iPhone 16, 16 Plus Show Off Bolder Colors and Buttons
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