Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is coming subsequent week, the place a significant announcement will little question inform what’s new in iOS 19, (like if it is going to be named iOS 26). In preparation for what’s coming, I like to ensure my present iPhone setup is working nicely. So, seize the newest iOS 18.5 replace and revisit these 10 settings with me.
Don’t neglect that iOS 18 contains the primary Apple Intelligence options, so make sure you try the ones you will use most. Or when you have no present curiosity or need to wait earlier than utilizing the AI options, this is easy methods to flip off Apple Intelligence.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, find out about enhancements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. And do not forget to seek the advice of our iOS 18 improve guidelines, which incorporates ensuring you may have a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
Turn off classes within the Mail app
When it involves one thing like electronic mail, everybody has their very own manner of coping with the inflow of messages. Traditionally, the Mail app has stored a chronological listing, however that may get unwieldy in the event you additionally get scores of promotions, receipts and different varieties of electronic mail. The new classes function creates digital buckets for Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, and guesses how your messages needs to be sorted.
If that method would not give you the results you want, listed here are two issues to attempt.
• In the occasion that classes are considerably helpful, however you continue to desire a chronological view of your Inbox, swipe all the best way to the suitable of the classes and faucet All Mail.
• To flip off classes altogether, faucet the three-dot menu (…) within the top-right nook, after which faucet List View.
Turn off Mail Categories from inside the Inbox. (iOS 18.5 beta proven right here.)
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 straightforward 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 option to change them.
In iOS 18, you possibly can lastly exchange them with different buttons — or take away them fully, a balm for folk who unknowingly activate the flashlight (imagine me, there is a higher option 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 anyplace on the show till you see the Customize button. You’ll must unlock the telephone 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 suitable 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 exchange 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 decide 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 whenever 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.
Get vital alerts utilizing Prioritize Notifications
For iPhone fashions that may run Apple Intelligence, a brand new choice in iOS 18.4 is quick turning into one in every of my favourite AI options. Go to Settings > Notifications, and beneath Apple Intelligence, faucet Prioritize Notifications. As new alerts are available in — and a few days really feel like they arrive in floods — Apple Intelligence determines which of them usually tend to be vital to you. For instance, texts from individuals in your contacts might be flagged in favor of random rip-off messages. On that settings display, you possibly can allow or disable precedence notifications for particular person apps.
In iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence can prioritize notifications to seize your consideration.
Set up among the new duties obtainable on the Action button
The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E 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 possibly can configure it for different actions like opening the Camera app, performing a number of actions without delay and even ordering espresso. The iOS 18.4 replace provides Visual Intelligence as an choice for the Action button. That makes the AI know-how obtainable on the iPhone 16E, which doesn’t embody the novel new Camera Control, however is now an choice for any iPhone with an Action button.
In iOS 18, the Action button will get new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and select a management of your selection, equivalent 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 obtainable actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility choices, faucet the Choose button to choose which particular motion to run.
iOS 18 now allows you to program the Action Button along with your favourite Control Center management.
Give your private home display a radical new look
You would not suppose that placing icons the place you need is a radical new function, however that is as a result of iOS has at all times had a locked association. Apps get added from prime 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 almost anyplace. You now not must 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 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 easy methods to customise the seems to be.
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 endurance, you possibly can transfer them into the spots you need.
Position app icons the place you need so this excellent woman is not coated.
You may shortly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra info. Maps, as an example, could be a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or carry up an inventory 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 possibly can drag the deal with within the bottom-right nook of the brand new icon. To get it again to its single icon measurement it is advisable 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 respect the brand new Dark mode choice 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 components are dimmed to coexist in a darkish atmosphere. That’s by no means been utilized to the house and lock screens in any vital manner — 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 achieve black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock grow to be 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 typically 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 modifications. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically modifications from gentle to darkish because the day progresses, or you possibly can select colours that provide each a lightweight and darkish choice. If you utilize a photograph, its general publicity is decreased 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 totally different choice 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 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 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 nicely. 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 possibly can take away the labels and improve 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 modifications, faucet anyplace on the display to use them and exit the Customize interface.
Change up how the Control Center seems to be
Control Center was as soon as a handy place to shortly entry controls equivalent to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however beneath 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 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 — generally, it reveals the identify of the management and its present standing (equivalent to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, broaden 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 presently enjoying, Home controls for good lights and home equipment and a web page devoted to the communication choices that seem whenever you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. Look carefully and you may see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy the whole 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 enhancing mode, drag the big Home management as much as the earlier display (Now Playing will shift to the suitable 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 may add different controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll by way of the obtainable choices starting from beginning a Screen Recording to a number of accessibility choices.
Read extra: All the brand new controls you possibly can add to Control Center
Lock or conceal any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate knowledge, and but it is not unusual at hand a telephone to a good friend to view photographs or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they are going to snoop, however it would not not imply they is perhaps extra curious than you are snug with. For knowledge you need to guarantee stays out of sight or so as to add a layer of safety in entrance of delicate info, iOS 18 provides the flexibility to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, to illustrate 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 possibly can lock the whole Notes app by doing the next:
Touch and maintain the app icon you need to lock and select Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID aren’t enabled) from the menu that seems. Confirm your selection 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 will discover out whenever you attempt to open it. There’s yet one more stage of app safety obtainable, 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 (prime). Tap the folder and authenticate to entry the app (backside).
iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, equivalent to lots 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 whenever 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) function, and now Photos beneath iOS 18.2 has it too: Videos mechanically replay whenever you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That could 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 mechanically.
If you’d somewhat 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 every single day. The Calendar app contains two new methods to view your schedule.
In iOS 18, whenever 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 maintaining 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 telephone into panorama orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button on the prime of the Single Day view and select Multi Day from the popup menu.
The new Multi Day view within the Calendar reveals two days without delay (proper).
Improve film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Trouble listening to dialogue in motion pictures and tv reveals is not a brand new downside — for instance, the Apple TV has had a function for some time the place you possibly can ask Siri, “What did she say?” and it’ll mechanically 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 a number 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 broaden the Audio heading within the menu that seems; if the telephone 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 just some 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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