The vacations are a time of getting along with household — and fixing their know-how. Because the duly-appointed nerd in my household, I discover it useful once 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 could 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, corresponding to Apple Intelligence instruments corresponding to Genmoji and Picture Wand, new textual content formatting in Messages, adjustments to the Maps app and extra.
However the place to start out?
Proper right here: I’ve put collectively my listing of eight options and settings it’s best to change proper now, together with a few of the top-tier options and some that fly below the radar. You probably have an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, make sure you take a look at 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. Remember to seek the advice of the iOS 18 improve guidelines, which incorporates ensuring you’ve a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
11 Important Equipment Your iPhone Needs for the Holidays
Change the default buttons on the lock display screen
In actual property, location is all the things, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display screen are the prime spots, every a simple thumb press away when your system continues to be locked. Earlier than iOS 18, these posts have been held by the flashlight and digicam 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 fully, a balm for people who unknowingly activate the flashlight (consider me, there is a higher solution to flip it on). You possibly can add buttons to acknowledge music by way of Shazam, allow Darkish Mode, set an alarm/timer, allow Airplane Mode, open your Pockets, ship cash by way of Faucet to Money and extra.
Here is how:
1. On the iPhone’s lock display screen, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customise button. You will have to unlock the cellphone utilizing Face ID, Contact ID or your passcode. If it opens the house display screen, swipe down from the center-top of the display screen (not the appropriate edge, which brings up Management Middle.
2. Faucet Customise after which select Lock Display.
3. Take away one of many buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon.
4. To switch the button with one other perform, faucet its area (now with a + icon) after which select the one you need on the subsequent display screen. (You may as well decide to depart that area empty with no button.)
5. Repeat these steps for the opposite button if you wish to change it.
6. Faucet Performed whenever you’re completed.
7. Faucet the lock display screen once more to exit the customise mode.
Take away a lock display screen button by tapping the – (minus) button, after which select a brand new management to interchange it.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Options in iOS 18
Arrange a few of the new duties obtainable on the Motion button
The Motion button on the iPhone 15 Professional, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Professional changed the devoted mute swap discovered on each earlier iPhone mannequin with a configurable management. By default it serves the identical goal — maintain it to show Silent Mode on or off — however you’ll be able to configure it for different actions like opening the Digital camera app, performing a number of actions directly and even ordering espresso.
In iOS 18, the Motion button will get new capabilities. You possibly can bypass Management Middle and select a management of your alternative, corresponding to opening the Distant interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to establish a music.
To decide on a special motion for the Motion button, go to Settings > Motion Button. Swipe sideways to pick and activate one of many obtainable actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility choices, faucet the Select button to choose which particular motion to run.
iOS 18 now permits you to program the Motion Button together with your favourite Management Middle management.
Give your own home display screen 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 all the time had a locked association. Apps get added from prime to backside, left to proper. You may rearrange the order through which icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps will be positioned almost wherever. You 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 will be positioned freely.
Additionally, Darkish mode lastly applies to all the iPhone’s residence display screen, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. Here is tips on how to customise the appears.
Prepare apps: Contact and maintain the house display screen to enter “jiggle mode,” after which drag the icons to new positions. It would nonetheless slide them round to fill areas, however with persistence, you’ll be able to transfer them into the spots you need.
Place app icons the place you need so this excellent lady is not coated.
You may as well rapidly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra info. Maps, for example, is usually a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or carry up a listing of close by locations (corresponding to dinner spots). Contact and maintain the app icon and search for a row of resize buttons within the menu that seems. As soon as 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 have 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 Darkish mode: In case you’ve 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 Darkish mode choice for the house and lock screens. iOS has beforehand included a Darkish mode, the place gentle backgrounds swap to black or darkish grey, textual content switches to white or gentle grey and different interface parts are dimmed to coexist in a darkish atmosphere. That is by no means been utilized to the house and lock screens in any vital approach — solely the dock and a few widgets — till iOS 18.
First, contact and maintain the house display screen to enter jiggle mode. Faucet the Edit button within the top-left nook and select Customise from the menu. On the backside of the display screen, select a mode for the icons and background: Automated, Darkish or Gentle (I will get to Tinted in a second). In Darkish mode, the icons achieve black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock turn out to be darkish grey. (Builders have the choice of creating Darkish mode icons for his or her apps. Within the meantime, apps not but optimized get a usually darker look.)
Within the residence display screen’s Darkish mode, icons and the background are given a darker therapy.
In Darkish mode, the background picture additionally adjustments. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically adjustments from gentle to darkish because the day progresses, or you’ll be able to select colours that supply each a light-weight and darkish choice. In case you use a photograph, its total 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 screen to toggle again to Gentle mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and totally different choice is to tint all the app icons so that they share the identical coloration. Within the Customise choices on the backside of the display screen, select Tinted because the icon type. You possibly can then regulate 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 coloration from a background picture? Faucet the eyedropper button after which drag the reticle to pinpoint the colour you need — the border signifies the chosen coloration.
The tint is utilized not solely to icons however to widgets as properly. For a widget corresponding to Images, the pictures it shows present up as duotones to match the theme.
Massive icons: Do the labels beneath every app icon appear redundant to you? Now you’ll be able to take away the labels and enhance the dimensions of the icons with one setting. Open the Customise choices as described above and faucet the Massive button.
Make the house display screen icons bigger and conceal the app labels.
After making any of those adjustments, faucet wherever on the display screen to use them and exit the Customise interface.
Change up how the Management Middle appears
Management Middle was as soon as a handy place to rapidly entry controls corresponding to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however below iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You possibly 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 Management Middle (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.
Simply as with shifting apps, drag a management to a different slot on the display screen to reposition it. Most of the controls additionally embrace a bottom-right deal with that may resize the management — usually, it reveals the title of the management and its present standing (corresponding to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Management Middle and, for some, broaden them to disclose extra info (or simply make the button a bigger goal for urgent).
Management Middle additionally now spans a number of screens. Swipe as much as view controls for media presently taking part in, House 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, Mobile and others. Look carefully and you may see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy the complete Management Middle space.
You possibly can rearrange the order of these screens by shifting their controls. Suppose you need House controls to be the primary swipe as a substitute of Now Taking part in: Within the enhancing mode, drag the massive House management as much as the earlier display screen (Now Taking part in will shift to the appropriate to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, corresponding to House. Usually it is on the third display screen, however right here it has been moved to the second display screen.
To take away controls, faucet the – (minus) button that seems. You may as well add different controls: Faucet Add a Management and scroll via the obtainable choices starting from beginning a Display Recording to a bunch of accessibility choices.
Learn extra: Greatest iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Professional circumstances
Lock or conceal any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate information, and but it isn’t unusual handy a cellphone to a pal to view pictures or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they will snoop, but it surely would not not imply they is likely to be extra curious than you are snug with. For information 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 power to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, for instance you retain an ongoing set of lists of reward concepts for members of the family within the Notes app. You possibly can lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Perhaps a number of concepts have been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. As an alternative of micromanaging entry, you’ll be able to lock the complete Notes app by doing the next:
Contact and maintain the app icon you need to lock and select Require Face ID or Require Contact ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Contact ID will not be enabled) from the menu that seems. Affirm 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 Do not 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 degree of app safety obtainable, which is to cover apps in a particular locked folder. Contact and maintain the app and select Require Face ID after which faucet Disguise and Require Face ID within the dialog. Affirm the motion by tapping Disguise App on the subsequent display screen.
The app disappears from the house display screen and will get slotted right into a Hidden folder on the backside of the App Library (swipe left past your final residence display screen to view the App Library). To entry apps there, faucet the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID.
While you select Disguise and Require Face ID to guard an app, it will get put into the Hidden folder in App Library (prime). Faucet the folder and authenticate to entry the app (backside).
iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, corresponding to lots of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can solely be locked and can’t be hidden in any respect. Additionally, the Hidden folder locks itself whenever you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library.
Flip off Loop Movies within the Images app
Many apps have applied a small however annoying (to me) function, and now Images below iOS 18.2 has it too: Movies mechanically replay whenever you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That may be enjoyable a few times, or when viewing quick clips. I am 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 > Images, scroll down till you see Loop Movies and switch the choice off. A video will play by itself however then cease on the finish because it ought to.
Flip off Loop Movies to cease each video from replaying mechanically.
In case you’d fairly the video did not play in any respect till you faucet the Play button, additionally flip off Auto-Play Movement in the identical Settings display screen.
Regulate the view of your calendar
Huge 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, 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.
Within 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 offer you context for what’s coming with out turning the cellphone into panorama orientation and viewing the Week view. Faucet the View button on the prime of the Single Day view and select Multi Day from the popup menu.
The brand new Multi Day view within the Calendar exhibits two days directly (proper).
Enhance film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Bother listening to dialogue in motion pictures and tv exhibits is not a brand new downside — for instance, the Apple TV has had a function for some time the place you’ll be able to 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 possibly can 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.
Whilst you’re watching a video within the TV app, faucet the Extra (…) button after which broaden the Audio heading within the menu that seems; if the cellphone is in horizontal orientation, faucet the Audio Changes button. Faucet Improve Dialogue and select Improve or Increase. They every dampen background noise and lift the dialogue’s audio.
Activate Improve Dialogue within the TV app to discern characters’ speech higher in noisy scenes.
These are just some new options and adjustments in iOS 18. Try 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 Present Off Bolder Colours and Buttons