It is good to have every thing in your iPhone look the best way you count on, however that familiarity can get boring over time. With the newest iOS replace, nonetheless, you have got extra management over your iPhone than ever. Not solely are you able to access your iPhone remotely in iOS 18 and discover new formatting options in Messages; you can even lastly rearrange the apps in your Dwelling Display. And that is to say nothing of the entire overhaul of the Photos app.
That will help you get began, I’ve put collectively my listing of seven options and settings it’s best to change proper now, together with among the top-tier options and some that fly underneath the radar. Though Apple Intelligence is not fairly right here but (except you put in the iOS 8.1 public beta), there’s nonetheless rather a lot to discover.
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, find out about enhancements to Apple Maps and the Messages app. Do not forget to seek the advice of the iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which incorporates ensuring you have got a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
Change the default buttons on the lock display screen
In actual property, location is every thing, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display screen are the prime spots, every a simple thumb press away when your gadget continues to be locked. Earlier than iOS 18, these posts had been held by the flashlight and digital camera buttons, with no strategy to change them.
In iOS 18, you possibly can 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 better way to turn it on). You possibly can add buttons to acknowledge music through Shazam, allow Darkish Mode, set an alarm/timer, allow Airplane Mode, open your Pockets, ship cash through Faucet to Money and extra.
This is how:
1. On the iPhone’s lock display screen, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customise button. You may have to unlock the telephone 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 suitable 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 interchange the button with one other operate, faucet its area (now with a + icon) after which select the one you need on the subsequent display screen. (You can too 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 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 switch it.
Watch this: 11 Hidden Options in iOS 18
Arrange among the new duties accessible on the Motion button
The Motion button on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max changed the devoted mute change discovered on each different iPhone mannequin with a configurable management. By default it serves the identical goal — maintain it to show Silent Mode on or off — however you possibly can configure it for different actions like opening the Digicam app, performing multiple actions at once and even ordering coffee.
In iOS 18, the Motion button will get new capabilities. You possibly can bypass Management Middle and select a management of your selection, equivalent to opening the Distant interface for navigating Apple TV or utilizing Shazam to determine a tune.
To decide on a unique motion for the Motion button, go to Settings > Motion Button. Swipe sideways to pick out and activate one of many accessible 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 along with your favourite Management Middle management.
Give your property display screen a radical new look
You would not assume 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 might rearrange the order during which icons seem and transfer them to different screens, however that was about it.
In iOS 18, apps may be positioned almost wherever, You not have to 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 may 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. This is find out how to customise the seems.
Prepare apps: Contact and maintain the house display screen to enter “jiggle mode,” after which drag the icons to new positions. It is going to nonetheless slide them round to fill areas, however with endurance, you possibly can transfer them into the spots you need.
Place app icons the place you need so this superb lady is not coated.
You can too shortly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra info. Maps, for example, could be a map of your present location with shortcut buttons to seek for locations or convey up an inventory 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 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 that you must contact and maintain once more and select the single-icon button
Some apps may 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 respect the brand new Darkish mode possibility 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 atmosphere. That is by no means been utilized to the house and lock screens in any important 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 acquire black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock change into 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 typically 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 modifications. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically modifications from gentle to darkish because the day progresses, or you possibly can select colours that supply each a light-weight and darkish possibility. Should you use a photograph, its general publicity is diminished to dim the sunshine output.
In order for you 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 screen to toggle again to Gentle mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and completely 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 screen, select Tinted because the icon fashion. You possibly 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? 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 Pictures, 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 possibly can 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 screen icons bigger and conceal the app labels.
After making any of those modifications, faucet wherever on the display screen to use them and exit the Customise interface.
Change up how the Management Middle seems
Management Middle was as soon as a handy place to shortly entry controls equivalent to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however underneath 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 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 transferring apps, drag a management to a different slot on the display screen to reposition it. Lots of the controls additionally embody a bottom-right deal with that may resize the management — typically, it reveals the title of the management and its present standing (equivalent to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Management Middle and, for some, increase 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, Dwelling 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 will see that these screens are literally particular person controls expanded to occupy all the Management Middle space.
You possibly can 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 screen (Now Taking part in will shift to the suitable to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, equivalent to Dwelling. 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 can too add different controls: Faucet Add a Management and scroll by the accessible choices starting from beginning a Display Recording to a number of accessibility choices.
Learn extra: Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro cases
Lock or cover any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate information, and but it isn’t unusual handy a telephone to a pal to view photographs or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they’ll snoop, but it surely would not not imply they may be extra curious than you are snug with. For information 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, for instance you retain an ongoing set of lists of present concepts for members of the family within the Notes app. You possibly can lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Possibly a number of concepts had been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. As a substitute of micromanaging entry, you possibly can lock all the 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 are usually not enabled) from the menu that seems. Affirm 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 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 another stage of app safety accessible, 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.
If 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, 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 whenever you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library.
Modify the view of your calendar
Large new options like locking and hiding apps are nice additions however so are the tiny modifications that you simply encounter day-after-day. The Calendar app consists of 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 retaining 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 provide 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 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 without delay (proper).
Enhance film and TV present dialogue within the TV app
Bother listening to dialogue in films and tv exhibits is not a brand new drawback — 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 routinely again up a number of seconds, activate subtitles and replay that part of the video. You possibly can 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.
Whilst 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 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 modifications 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 will all work along with the upcoming iPhone 16 models.
