Apple Intelligence is unquestionably the headliner in the case of iOS 18.2, the newest replace to Apple’s iPhone software program. However the checklist of recent options does not finish with Picture Playground, Genmoji and any of the opposite AI-powered instruments that iOS 18.2 brings to the desk.
And that is excellent news for many iPhone house owners who both have not upgraded to the newest iPhone 16 models or personal an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max. These are the one iPhones that may run Apple Intelligence, making further AI capabilities irrelevant to different iPhone house owners. In distinction, practically all the remaining iOS 18.2 enhancements profit any iPhone that helps the iOS 18 replace — which incorporates units courting again to the iPhone XR and XS fashions launched in 2018. (For the file, there are a number of iPhone 16-specific options in iOS 18.2, which we discuss later.)
We have detailed all the currently available Apple Intelligence features introduced in regards to the iOS 18.2 replace this month in addition to the iOS 18.1 release on the finish of October. This is a take a look at the remainder of the iOS 18.2 enhancements and additions geared toward your iPhone.
iOS 18.2 Pictures
Exterior of Apple Intelligence, Pictures in all probability sees the largest batch of modifications in iOS 18.2, with probably the most vital ones providing you with expanded management over customise the redesigned photographs app. I’ve proven you how to use many of the new iOS 18.2 features in Photos, together with deleting photographs from the Lately Considered and Lately Shared folders, turning off auto-looping on video playback and re-ordering your albums so that they are listed in alphabetical order.
However there are another modifications to pay attention to, too, beginning with video playback. It is now full-screen in iOS 18.2 — beforehand, you needed to faucet on the video because it performed to change to full display screen mode. You too can now scrub frame-by-frame when watching movies by urgent and holding on the slider, earlier than dragging it forwards and backwards.
There are a number of different beauty modifications to Pictures in iOS 18.2. An album of Favorites now seems within the Utilities part. When Collections, swiping proper now takes you again to the earlier view.
iOS 18.2 Mail
We have lined the changes to Mail in iOS 18.2, however simply to be thorough, iOS 18.2 introduces a brand new organizational structure, the place your inbox is cut up into completely different classes. Apart from Major, you get a Transactions inbox that homes receipts; Updates, which options newsletters and different notifications; and Promotions, which is the place numerous e-commerce and gross sales promos will seem.
I am not essentially a fan of the brand new look in iOS 18.2 Mail, primarily as a result of it is arduous to inform when new mail has arrived within the completely different folders. Managing older emails from the identical sender can be harder than it must be. Should you really feel the identical method — or if you happen to do not just like the look of iOS 18.2 Mail for some other cause, simply faucet the Extra button within the higher proper nook. (It is the one with three dots.) That summons up the choice of reverting to the familiar list view that includes a single inbox.
This is another excuse to discover the Extra pop-up menu: within the delivery model of iOS 18.2, it is added an choice to disable Group by Sender. Faucet that choice and emails from the identical supply are now not bunched collectively, addressing my criticism that it is too tough to delete particular person messages whereas protecting those which are nonetheless related to you.
iOS 18.2 Safari
Apart from some safety enhancements — URLs are actually upgraded to HTTPS wherever attainable, and Apple’s browser now warns you when a web site does not have a legitimate SSL certificates for an encrypted connection — Safari makes a number of house-cleaning modifications. You may see new choices on your begin web page background photographs. (Hit Edit on the backside of the beginning web page to seek out them.) Import and Export controls allow you to transfer searching information between Safari and different browsers.
Obtain a file in Safari, and now you can chart the progress of the obtain within the Dynamic Island space of your iPhone in case your handset affords that function. The function seems as a circle that fills in, very similar to an AirDrop switch, but when your Safari downloads are as speedy as mine, the obtain indicator will doubtless seem and disappear earlier than you even discover it.
iOS 18.2 Apple Music, TV and Podcasts
As a part of Apple Intelligence, the Photos app supports natural language searches — a functionality that is even supported by older iPhones primarily based on my iOS 18 testing. The identical factor now goes for searches within the Music and TV apps. You possibly can kind issues like “Coen Brothers films from the Nineties” and the TV app will deliver “Fargo” and “Barton Fink” to the highest of your outcomes checklist.
As for Apple’s Podcasts app, it now invitations you to designate your favourite genres — doing so will apparently affect suggestions the app makes on podcasts it is best to hearken to. I am guessing it additionally has an influence on one other change from iOS 18.2 that guarantees a “customized serach web page,” the place Podcasts will spotlight probably the most related classes and collections primarily based in your pursuits.
iOS 18.2 Voice Memos
I am instructed musicians like to make use of the Voice Memos apps as technique to check out music and lyrics they is perhaps engaged on, and it appears like there is a change within the Voice Memos app that may attraction on to that use case. As of iOS 18.2, the app helps layered recordings, the place you possibly can add a vocal observe over an present track. iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max customers may import any two-track tasks into Logic Professional.
iOS 18.2 Apple Information Plus
The array of puzzles obtainable to Apple Information Plus subscribers continues to develop. After iOS 17.5 brought the Quartiles word puzzle to the subscription information service earlier this yr, Sudoku now joins the ranks of video games.
You possibly can check out a pattern Sudoku sport within the Puzzles part of the Information app. But when you end up hooked, you may have to pay $12.99/month for an Apple Information Plus subscription.
iOS 18.2 Discover My
You have got a brand new choice geared toward giving strangers a greater alternative of discovering any misplaced objects you have geared up with an AirTag. Enabled the brand new Share Merchandise Location function, and you may get a hyperlink displaying the final identified location of the merchandise, which you could then deal with over to a trusted third get together — Apple particularly mentions airways in its iOS 18.2 documentation.
The hyperlink is reside for a restricted time and does not recall an Apple system, widening the pool of people that can observe down something you have left behind.
iOS 18.2 Digicam Management
This is an iPhone 16-specific addition to iOS 18.2 that brings three new management choices to the button Apple added to this yr’s fashions. You now have the choice to lock the autofocus and auto publicity settings whenever you apply gentle stress to the Camera Control button, releasing that lock whenever you carry your finger. That choice will be setting within the Digicam part of the Settings app: simply choose Digicam Management and toggle on the AE/AF Lock choice.
Moreover, heading to the Accessibility part in Settings will allow you to modify the double-click pace of the Digicam Management button. Apart from the default pace, your choices are Sluggish and Slower.
In a settings change that is certain to ease the concerns of anybody who frets about inadvertently urgent the Digicam Management button when reaching for his or her cellphone, now you can set the button to solely work when your iPhone’s display screen is energetic. Go to the Show & Brightness part of Settings and choose Require Display screen On for the Digicam Management.
iOS 18.2 Audio controls
If you would like the power to regulate playback quantity out of your lock display screen, you possibly can add a quantity slider in iOS 18.2. Within the Settings app, choose Accessibility, adopted by Audio & Visible. On the following display screen, there is a All the time Present Quantity Management button that restores a slider to the lock display screen slightly below the playback controls. This setting works whether or not you are listening through headphones or the built-in speaker in your iPhone.
One other new audio setting allows you to modify the restrict of the iPhone speaker quantity — useful if you happen to do not need to harm the built-in speaker or annoy different individuals with the audio from no matter you are listening to. That setting will be discovered within the Sound & Haptics part of Settings, the place you faucet Quantity Restrict to toggle on the management and modify the amount with a slider. Word that modifications you make solely appear to have an effect on playback and never issues like cellphone name and FaceTime quantity, alerts, alarms, ringtones or system sounds.
Change the default apps
iOS 18.2 expands the variety of default apps you possibly can change to incorporate apps for cellphone calls and messaging — see my information on how to change default apps within the up to date software program. Oh, and if you happen to use the Shares app to comply with the market, iOS 18.2 provides premarket quotes for each the Nasdaq and NYSE exchanges.
