What number of 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 filled with options, from the primary Apple Intelligence instruments to enhancements within the Messages app. However extra importantly, it has the flexibility to feel and look remarkably completely different from what it’s possible you’ll be used to. Simply breaking out of the confines of the inflexible dwelling display structure 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. You probably have an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, be sure you take a look at the features you’re going to use most. (Or if in case you have no real interest in them, learn to turn 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 our iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which incorporates ensuring you might have a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Options in iOS 18
In actual property, location is all the pieces, 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. Earlier than iOS 18, these posts have been held by the flashlight and digicam buttons, with no method to change them.
In iOS 18, you’ll be able to lastly substitute them with different buttons — or take away them completely, a balm for folk who unknowingly activate the flashlight (consider me, there is a better way to turn it on). You may 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.
This is how:
1. On the iPhone’s lock display, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customise button. You may have to unlock the cellphone utilizing Face ID, Contact 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 Management Heart.
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 exchange the button with one other perform, faucet its area (now with a + icon) after which select the one you need on the subsequent display. (It’s also possible to choose to go away that area empty with no button.)
5. Repeat these steps for the opposite button if you wish to change it.
6. Faucet Carried out whenever you’re completed.
7. Faucet the lock display once more to exit the customise mode.
Take away a lock display button by tapping the – (minus) button, after which select a brand new management to switch it.
The Motion 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 objective — 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 multiple actions at once and even ordering coffee.
In iOS 18, the Motion button will get new capabilities. You may bypass Management Heart and select a management of your alternative, similar to opening the Distant interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to establish a tune.
To decide on a unique motion for the Motion button, go to Settings > Motion Button. Swipe sideways to pick and activate one of many out there actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility choices, faucet the Select button to choose which particular motion to run.
iOS 18 now allows you to program the Motion Button along with your favourite Management Heart 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 function, however that is as a result of iOS has at all times had a locked association. Apps get added from high to backside, left to proper. You possibly can rearrange the order by which icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps might be positioned practically wherever. You now not have to take care of 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 might be positioned freely.
Additionally, Darkish mode lastly applies to all the iPhone’s dwelling display, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. This is find out how to customise the seems to be.
Organize apps: Contact and maintain the house display to enter “jiggle mode,” after which drag the icons to new positions. It’ll 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 lined.
It’s also possible to rapidly flip appropriate apps into widgets that show extra info. Maps, as an example, is usually a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or carry up an inventory of close by locations (similar 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 dimension, 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 dimension it’s good to contact and maintain once more and select the single-icon button
Some apps might be expanded into bigger icons that act like widgets.
Set Darkish mode: If you happen to’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 admire the brand new Darkish mode choice for the house and lock screens. iOS has beforehand included a Darkish 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 setting. 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 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, 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 acquire black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock grow 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 dwelling display’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 provide each a light-weight and darkish choice. If you happen to use a photograph, its general publicity is lowered to dim the sunshine output.
If you would like darkish icons however aren’t a fan of the dimmed picture therapy, faucet the solar icon within the nook of the choices sheet on the backside of the display to toggle again to Gentle mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and completely different choice is to tint all the app icons in order that they share the identical shade. Within the Customise choices on the backside of the display, select Tinted because the icon model. You may 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 shade from a background picture? Faucet 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 nicely. For a widget similar to Photographs, the photographs it shows present up as duotones to match the theme.
Giant 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 scale of the icons with one setting. Open the Customise choices as described above and faucet the Giant 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 Customise interface.
Change up how the Management Heart seems to be
Management Heart was as soon as a handy place to rapidly entry controls similar to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however underneath iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You may 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 Heart (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 to reposition it. Lots of the controls additionally embody a bottom-right deal with that may resize the management — most often, it reveals the title of the management and its present standing (similar to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Management Heart and, for some, increase them to disclose extra info (or simply make the button a bigger goal for urgent).
Management Heart additionally now spans a number of screens. Swipe as much as view controls for media at the moment 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 intently and you may see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy the complete Management Heart space.
You may 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 modifying mode, drag the big House management as much as the earlier display (Now Taking part in will shift to the best to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, similar to House. Usually 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. It’s also possible to add different controls: Faucet Add a Management and scroll by the out there choices starting from beginning a Display Recording to a bunch of accessibility choices.
Learn extra: Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro cases
Lock or disguise any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate knowledge, and but it is not unusual at hand a cellphone to a pal to view images or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they are going to snoop, however it would not not imply they may be extra curious than you are snug 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 flexibility to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, as an instance you retain an ongoing set of lists of reward concepts for members of the family within the Notes app. You may lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Perhaps a couple of concepts have been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. As a substitute of micromanaging entry, you’ll be able to lock the complete Notes app by doing the next:
Contact and maintain the app icon you wish 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 out there, which is to cover apps in a particular locked folder. Contact and maintain the app and select Require Face ID after which faucet Conceal and Require Face ID within the dialog. Affirm the motion by tapping Conceal App on the subsequent 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.
Once you select Conceal and Require Face ID to guard an app, it will get put into the Hidden folder in App Library (high). Faucet the folder and authenticate to entry the app (backside).
iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, similar 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 Photographs app
Many apps have carried out a small however annoying (to me) function, and now Photographs underneath iOS 18.2 has it too: Movies robotically 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 > Photographs, 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 robotically.
If you happen to’d reasonably 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.
Modify the view of your calendar
Massive new options like locking and hiding apps are nice additions however so are the tiny adjustments that you simply encounter each 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 high 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 without delay (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 drawback — 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 robotically again up a couple of seconds, activate subtitles and replay that part of the video. You may even purchase soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech. There are a lot of reasons 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.
When you’re watching a video within the TV app, faucet the Extra (…) button after which increase 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 Enhance. 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 models.
