It is that magical time main as much as New 12 months’s Eve — excellent for lastly updating your iPhone to iOS 18.2, which I am positive was on the high of your checklist of issues to do. However even for those who’re nonetheless as busy as ever, I’ve excellent news: Putting in iOS 18.2 is simple (ensure you make a correct backup) and I may help you get a head begin on the place to start after the replace is completed.
I’ve put collectively my checklist of eight options and settings you need to change proper now, together with among the top-tier options and some that fly beneath the radar. In case you have an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, make sure you try the options you are going to use most. (Or you probably have little interest in them, learn to flip off Apple Intelligence.)
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, study enhancements to Apple Maps and the Messages app. Do not forget to seek the advice of the iOS 18 improve guidelines, which incorporates ensuring you might have a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
11 Important Equipment Your iPhone Desires for the Holidays
See all pictures
Change the default buttons on the lock display
In actual property, location is all the pieces, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display are the prime spots, every a straightforward thumb press away when your machine continues to be locked. Earlier than iOS 18, these posts have been held by the flashlight and digital camera buttons, with no method to change them.
In iOS 18, you’ll be able to lastly change them with different buttons — or take away them solely, a balm for people who unknowingly activate the flashlight (consider me, there is a higher method to flip it on). You’ll be able to 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, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customise button. You may must unlock the telephone 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 screen.
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 following display. (It’s also possible to decide 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 Accomplished if 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 exchange it.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Options in iOS 18
Arrange among the new duties out there on the Motion button
The Motion button on the iPhone 15 Professional, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Professional 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 a number of actions directly and even ordering espresso.
In iOS 18, the Motion button will get new capabilities. You’ll be able to bypass Management Heart and select a management of your selection, equivalent to opening the Distant interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to establish a track.
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 permits you to program the Motion Button together 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 may rearrange the order through which icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps could be positioned practically wherever. You 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.
Additionally, Darkish mode lastly applies to all the iPhone’s residence display, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. Here 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 should nonetheless slide them round to fill areas, however with endurance, you’ll be able to transfer them into the spots you need.
Place app icons the place you need so this superb lady is not coated.
It’s also possible to shortly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra data. Maps, as an illustration, generally is a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or deliver up a listing of close by locations (equivalent 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 should contact and maintain once more and select the single-icon button
Some apps could be expanded into bigger icons that act like widgets.
Set Darkish mode: Should 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 possibility for the house and lock screens. iOS has beforehand included a Darkish mode, the place mild backgrounds change to black or darkish grey, textual content switches to white or mild grey and different interface components 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 am going to get to Tinted in a second). In Darkish mode, the icons achieve black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock change into darkish grey. (Builders have the choice of constructing Darkish mode icons for his or her apps. Within the meantime, apps not but optimized get a usually darker look.)
Within the residence 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 mild to darkish because the day progresses, or you’ll be able to select colours that provide each a lightweight and darkish possibility. Should you use a photograph, its total publicity is decreased to dim the sunshine output.
If you would like 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 Gentle mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and totally different possibility is to tint all the app icons in order that they share the identical colour. Within the Customise choices on the backside of the display, select Tinted because the icon fashion. You’ll be able to then regulate the Hue (the slider with the colour spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the darkish to mild 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? Faucet 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 Photographs, the pictures it shows present up as duotones to match the theme.
Giant icons: Do the labels under 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 shortly entry controls equivalent to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however beneath iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You’ll be able to 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 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 transferring apps, drag a management to a different slot on the display to reposition it. Most of the controls additionally embody a bottom-right deal with that may resize the management — generally, it reveals the title of the management and its present standing (equivalent to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Management Heart and, for some, broaden them to disclose extra data (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 present taking part in, Dwelling controls for good lights and home equipment and a web page devoted to the communication choices that seem if 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 all the Management Heart space.
You’ll be able to rearrange the order of these screens by transferring their controls. Suppose you need Dwelling controls to be the primary swipe as an alternative of Now Taking part in: Within the modifying mode, drag the big Dwelling 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, equivalent to Dwelling. 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 way of the out there choices starting from beginning a Display screen Recording to a number of accessibility choices.
Learn extra: Finest iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Professional instances
Lock or cover any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate knowledge, and but it isn’t unusual handy a telephone to a pal to view pictures or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they’ll snoop, but it surely would not not imply they could be 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 data, iOS 18 provides the power to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, for example you retain an ongoing set of lists of present concepts for members of the family within the Notes app. You’ll be able to lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Possibly 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 all the 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 aren’t enabled) from the menu that seems. Verify your selection by tapping Require Face ID (or related) 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 related).
Nothing outwardly signifies that an app is locked — you may discover out if you attempt to open it. There’s yet another 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 Disguise and Require Face ID within the dialog. Verify the motion by tapping Disguise 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.
If you select Disguise 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, equivalent to most 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 if you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library.
Flip off Loop Movies within the Photographs app
Many apps have applied a small however annoying (to me) function, and now Photographs beneath iOS 18.2 has it too: Movies robotically replay if you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That may be enjoyable a few times, or when viewing brief 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.
Should you’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.
Alter the view of your calendar
Large 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 consists of two new methods to view your schedule.
In iOS 18, if 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 reveals two consecutive days to offer you context for what’s coming with out turning the telephone 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 reveals two days directly (proper).
Enhance film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Bother 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’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’ll be able to even purchase soundbars that may overcome muffled TV speech. There are plenty of causes it is more durable 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 broaden the Audio heading within the menu that seems; if the telephone 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 only a few new options and adjustments in iOS 18. Take a look at 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
See all pictures
