How many iPhone updates have the potential to make you are feeling such as you’ve upgraded to a brand new cellphone, a lot much less a brand new working system? iOS 18.2 is full of options, from the primary Apple Intelligence instruments to enhancements within the Messages app. But extra importantly, it has the flexibility to feel and look remarkably completely different from what it’s possible you’ll be used to. Just breaking out of the confines of the inflexible dwelling display format is a breath of freedom.
I’ve put collectively my checklist of eight options and settings it is best to change proper now, together with among the top-tier options and some that fly underneath the radar. If you will have an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, you’ll want to try the options you are going to use most. (Or when you have little interest in them, discover ways to flip off Apple Intelligence.)
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, study enhancements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. Don’t overlook to seek the advice of our iOS 18 improve guidelines, which incorporates ensuring you will have a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18
Change the default buttons on the lock display
In actual property, location is every thing, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display are the prime spots, every a simple thumb press away when your gadget remains to be locked. Before iOS 18, these posts had been held by the flashlight and digital camera buttons, with no approach to change them.
In iOS 18, you may lastly substitute them with different buttons — or take away them fully, a balm for people who unknowingly activate the flashlight (imagine me, there is a higher approach to flip it on). You can add buttons to acknowledge music by way of Shazam, allow Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, allow Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, ship cash by way of 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 best 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 area (now with a + icon) after which select the one you need on the following display. (You may also choose to depart that area 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 interchange it.
Set up among the new duties accessible on the Action button
The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro changed the devoted mute change discovered on each earlier iPhone mannequin with a configurable management. By default it serves the identical function — maintain it to show Silent Mode on or off — however you may configure it for different actions like opening the Camera app, performing a number of actions directly 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, corresponding to opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to establish a music.
To select a distinct motion for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to pick and activate one of many accessible actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility choices, faucet the Choose button to select which particular motion to run.
iOS 18 now allows you to program the Action Button together with your favourite Control Center management.
Give your private home display a radical new look
You would not assume 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 by which icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps will be positioned almost wherever. You now not have to take care of a wallpaper picture of your children or pets being obscured by icons. They nonetheless adhere to a grid — Apple is not about to sanction anarchy — however will be positioned freely.
Also, Dark mode lastly applies to the entire iPhone’s dwelling display, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. Here’s the right way to customise the appears.
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 may transfer them into the spots you need.
Position app icons the place you need so this superb lady is not coated.
You may also rapidly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra data. Maps, as an example, is usually a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or convey up a listing of close by locations (corresponding 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 dimension, you may drag the deal with within the bottom-right nook of the brand new icon. To get it again to its single icon dimension you might want to contact and maintain once more and select the single-icon button
Some apps will be expanded into bigger icons that act like widgets.
Set Dark mode: If you’ve got ever subjected your self to the retina blast of black textual content on a white background late at evening 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 gentle backgrounds change to black or darkish grey, textual content switches to white or gentle grey and different interface parts are dimmed to coexist in a darkish surroundings. That’s by no means been utilized to the house and lock screens in any vital means — 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 develop 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 therapy.
In Dark mode, the background picture additionally adjustments. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically adjustments from gentle to darkish because the day progresses, or you may select colours that supply each a lightweight and darkish possibility. If you utilize a photograph, its total publicity is diminished to dim the sunshine output.
If you need darkish icons however aren’t a fan of the dimmed photograph therapy, 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 completely different possibility is to tint the entire app icons so that they share the identical shade. In the Customize choices on the backside of the display, select Tinted because the icon type. You can then modify the Hue (the slider with the colour spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the darkish to gentle 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 shade from a background picture? Tap the eyedropper button after which drag the reticle to pinpoint the colour you need — the border signifies the chosen shade.
The tint is utilized not solely to icons however to widgets as properly. For a widget corresponding to Photos, the pictures it shows present up as duotones to match the theme.
Large icons: Do the labels beneath every app icon appear redundant to you? Now you may take away the labels and enhance the scale 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 adjustments, faucet wherever on the display to use them and exit the Customize interface.
Change up how the Control Center appears
Control Center was as soon as a handy place to rapidly entry controls corresponding to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however underneath iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You can place controls the place you need, resize many to disclose extra data 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 transferring 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 — typically, it reveals the identify of the management and its present standing (corresponding to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, increase them to disclose extra data (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 carefully and you will see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy the complete Control Center space.
You can rearrange the order of these screens by transferring their controls. Suppose you need Home controls to be the primary swipe as a substitute of Now Playing: In the modifying mode, drag the massive Home management as much as the earlier display (Now Playing will shift to the best to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, corresponding 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 may also add different controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll by the accessible choices starting from beginning a Screen Recording to a bunch of accessibility choices.
Read extra: Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro instances
Lock or conceal any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate information, and but it is not unusual handy a cellphone to a pal to view images or lookup one thing on-line. That doesn’t suggest they’ll snoop, nevertheless it would not not imply they could be extra curious than you are comfy with. For information you wish to guarantee stays out of sight or so as to add a layer of safety in entrance of delicate data, iOS 18 provides the flexibility to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, as an example 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 number of concepts had been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. Instead of micromanaging entry, you may lock the 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 accessible, 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 dwelling 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, corresponding 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 underneath iOS 18.2 has it too: Videos routinely replay while you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That will be enjoyable a couple of times, or when viewing quick 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 routinely.
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 adjustments that you just encounter day-after-day. The Calendar app contains 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 instances, all whereas retaining 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 reveals 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 reveals two days directly (proper).
Improve film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Trouble listening to dialogue in films and tv reveals is not a brand new drawback — for instance, the Apple TV has had a characteristic for some time the place you may ask Siri, “What did she say?” and it’ll routinely again up a number of seconds, activate subtitles and replay that part of the video. You may even purchase soundbars that may overcome muffled TV speech. There are quite a lot 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 increase 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 adjustments 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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