With every new level launch of iOS 18 (like iOS 18.3), Apple at all times sprinkles in a brand new hidden characteristic or two so that you can discover in your iPhone. You know all about turning your sketches into extremely detailed drawings, customizing your iPhone’s house display, creating your emoji, and all the brand new Apple Intelligence and Visual Intelligence options, however what’s subsequent to find in iOS 18.3 that nobody is speaking about? Lucky for you, there’s a lot. Plenty of latest Apple settings aren’t publicized, so that they keep below the radar, however that does not imply they’re unimportant.I’ve chosen just a few of my favourite hidden iOS 18.3 options it is best to find out about.For extra, listed here are eight iOS 18 settings you wish to change immediately, learn how to again up your iPhone the right approach and learn how to repair these three annoying iOS 18 settings.
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See all images Restart your iPhone from the brand new management middleYou do not need to press any bodily buttons to restart your iPhone for those who’re working iOS 18. The redesigned management middle options all of the basic controls you are used to, like brightness, quantity, orientation, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, however there are a number of new controls, together with one to restart your iPhone.All it is advisable do is swipe down from the top-right of your iPhone and press and maintain down on the brand new energy button within the top-right of the management middle. You cannot simply faucet it; you need to maintain it down for a second or so, after which the slider to energy off your iPhone will seem. To flip your iPhone again on, you may nonetheless must press and maintain the bodily facet button. On iOS 17 and earlier, the one strategy to restart your iPhone is to press and maintain both quantity button and the facet button. Nelson Aguilar/CNETUse a QR code to share your Wi-Fi passwordThere are just a few methods you possibly can share a Wi-Fi community and password with folks by way of your iPhone, and there is a new strategy to do it on iOS 18. Using a QR code fills in just a few gaps for tactics to shortly share your Wi-Fi data:Share with a number of folks without delay. Instead of individually sending out your Wi-Fi password, you possibly can have everybody scan the QR code out of your telephone.Share with somebody not saved as your contact. Nearby share for Wi-Fi would not work except that particular person is in your contacts.Share with somebody who has Android. Nearby share and AirDrop do not work with Android units. Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18
06:44 So for those who meet any of these eventualities and you do not wish to textual content the Wi-Fi password to them, you need to use the QR code. Go to the brand new Passwords app, go to the Wi-Fi part, faucet on the community you wish to share after which hit Show Network QR Code. If the opposite particular person scans the QR code with their digicam, they’re going to be related to the Wi-Fi community. This solely works for Wi-Fi passwords, not common passwords. Nelson Aguilar/CNETAdjust the beam width of your flashlightThe flashlight on the iPhone is getting a giant improve. You’ve lengthy been in a position to change the depth of the flashlight, however on iOS 18 now you can additionally alter the beam width of the sunshine, so long as you could have a suitable mannequin. You can go vast, to cowl extra space with much less mild, or go slender, to make use of extra intense mild over much less space, and all over the place in between. It’s a enjoyable characteristic to mess around with for lighting folks for images.To use the brand new characteristic, flip in your flashlight (use the lock display or management middle), and a brand new person interface will seem on the dynamic island. You can change the sunshine depth by swiping up and down, however to vary the beam width, you may must swipe left and proper. If you faucet wherever within the dynamic island, you possibly can flip the flashlight on and off. A large flashlight beam (left) and a slender beam. Nelson Aguilar/CNETNote: This characteristic solely works on iPhone fashions with the dynamic island, together with the iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 15 collection and iPhone 16 collection.Quickly flip off AI notification summaries for sure apps out of your lock displayIn iOS 18.1, Apple launched notification summaries — Apple Intelligence-powered notifications that summarize your notifications from a single app. If you could have a number of unread notifications from an app like Gmail or Amazon, you may see an italicized abstract seem in your lock display, condensing all of them into just a few sentences you possibly can shortly digest.Unfortunately, notification summaries do not at all times work very effectively, particularly for textual content messages and information apps. In truth, as of iOS 18.3, notification summaries are disabled for all information apps throughout your system, just like the Apple News and CNET app. But if you wish to disable the characteristic for different apps, you possibly can simply achieve this with out even unlocking your telephone.From your lock display, discover a notification abstract for an app you need the characteristic disabled for and swipe left on the notification. Tap on Options after which hit “Turn Off “App Name” Summaries to stop notification summaries for that app. You’ll continue to receive notifications, they’ll just be individual, like you’re used to. You can see that notification summaries are italicized on iOS 18.3 Nelson Aguilar/CNETShare your AirTag with other peopleAn AirTag allows you to easily track your luggage when you’re traveling or your keys when they’re lost, but sometimes you might want other people to also be able to track your AirTag, especially if you’re on a family vacation or weekend getaway with your partner. With iOS 18, you can now share any AirTag you have with up to six people.Don’t miss: 5 Clever Hiding Spots for Your Apple AirTagsTo do this, go into the Find My app and find the AirTag you want to share. Go into the AirTag, hit Add Person under Share AirTag and choose a contact, or several. Finally tap Share in the top-right and that person will then have to accept your invitation. Once they do, they’ll be able to track your AirTag from their Apple device. Anyone that is tracking the AirTag won’t be notified when it’s near them. Nelson Aguilar/CNETCustomize your iPhone’s charging limit to improve the battery’s lifespanYour iPhone already has a feature that’s designed to improve your battery’s lifespan. Optimized Battery Charging learns your daily charging routine to reduce the time your phone is fully charged, delaying charging past 80% while you sleep and then charging to 100% only when you need it.However, if you want to prolong your iPhone’s battery lifespan even more, you can manually change your charging option to anywhere from 80% to 100%, so that your iPhone never fully charges. Go to Settings > Battery > Charging and choose an option. Optimized Battery Charging disables whenever you choose an option under 100%, which just means that your phone won’t automatically wait to finish charging to 100%, because it can’t. Nelson Aguilar/CNETIf you choose anything lower than 100%, that’s the highest percentage your battery will charge to. The benefit of that is that lithium-ion batteries, like the one in your iPhone, degrade faster when consistently charged to 100%, so keeping the charge lower reduces stress on the battery.Transcribe Voice Memos and make them searchableThe Voice Memos app is incredibly convenient for capturing ideas or song snippets, but they’ve always been obfuscated. You can give them a descriptive title, but that doesn’t help when you want to find that one memo you recorded that contains the word “porcupine.” In iOS 18, the app can create transcriptions of your voice memos and search for words that were previously available only as audio waveforms.In the Voice Memos app, tap one of your memos to reveal its controls and then tap the Edit Recording button, which looks like a waveform. Or, tap the three-dots button to the right of a memo and choose Edit Recording.Next, tap the Transcribe button to create the transcription (or view the text if it’s already been transcribed). Tap Done. Take an existing voice memo (left) and create a transcript of the recording (right). Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETNow, when you use the Search field, the app looks through the transcripts in addition to the titles for results. The text is also available throughout iOS. When you perform a search from the home screen, you’ll see Voice Memos as a category with the memos that include the search term (you may need to tap Show More Results to reveal it). With transcripts made, voice memos are more easily searchable. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETHide app labels for a cleaner home screenIs your home screen feeling a little too cluttered? If so, this new feature could help. Now with iOS 18, you can get rid of app labels or the names of the apps that you see underneath each app icon on your home screen. If you can recognize an app from just the icon, who needs the label?On your home screen, press and hold down on any blank space, until you enter jiggle mode, and then hit Edit > Customize. A menu will appear at the bottom of the screen; choose the Large option, which will make your app icons slightly larger and remove the app labels. This will also remove the app labels from the folders in the App Library. Nelson Aguilar/CNETChange an app to a widget without leaving the home screenNot every iOS app has a widget for your home screen, but if it does, you don’t need to dig through the widget edit page to find it. If you’re running iOS 18, and there’s an app that you want to turn into a widget, you can do so very quickly right from your home screen.On a supported app, press and hold down on the icon on your home screen to bring up the quick actions menu. If the app has a widget, you’ll see an app icon next to a variety of widget icons (up to three). Tap on any of the widget icons to change the app to a widget. If you want to go back from the widget to the app, go to the quick action menu and hit the app icon on the left. This only works for apps that have widgets on iOS. Nelson Aguilar/CNETSecretly identify songs using the Action ButtonNo lie, it’s satisfying when someone asks, “What track is that this?” to have the ability to activate Music Recognition on the iPhone and get a solution shortly. To get the reply means very noticeably asking Siri to run Shazam or activate Music Recognition within the management middle. Wouldn’t or not it’s enjoyable to let your pals assume you have been blessed with an encyclopedic information of pop music?In iOS 18, you possibly can come shut utilizing the Action Button. Go to Settings > Action Button and swipe by the choices till Recognize Music is chosen. Assign the Recognize Music characteristic to the Action Button after which establish songs by simply holding the button. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETTo make it work, simply press and maintain the Action Button for a few seconds. Shazam seems on the dynamic island to hearken to what’s enjoying and establish the track. If you are sneaky about activating Shazam and peeking at your telephone, nobody must know you bought some assist from a supercomputer within the cloud.Find photos with handwriting and illustrations within the Photos appA lot is altering within the Photos app in iOS 18, from the way in which issues are organized to the flexibility to make use of generative AI to take away objects in photos. Apple has additionally tucked just a few surprises into the app that will help you kind by your library.Scroll down previous the primary library itself to view classes comparable to People and Pets and Memories till you attain Utilities. Tap it to view the total record — however be aware {that a} new characteristic of this interface is the flexibility to swipe left to view extra panels. Prior to iOS 18, Utilities included choices to view hidden, lately deleted and duplicate images.Now, it consists of many extra choices. Tap Handwriting to view photos with handwriting in them. Looking for photos which might be illustrations and never images? Tap Illustrations (though in our testing this appears to seize plenty of screenshots too). View photos that include handwriting in your Photos library in iOS 18. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETShare a selected part of a podcastDid the hosts of your favourite podcast say one thing particularly humorous or considerate that you just wish to share with somebody? In the Podcasts app in iOS 18, you possibly can ship an episode to a buddy with the playback superior to that second — however the functionality is not simple to search out.Tap the Now Playing bar within the app on the backside of the display to view the playback controls and pause the episode. Use the progress bar to return to the beginning of the part you wish to share.Next, faucet the More (…) button and select Share Episode. In the sharing choices that seem, faucet From Start under the episode title, after which choose From [the current time]. Tap Done. Start by sharing the episode itself. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNETLastly, select the strategy of sharing, comparable to by way of Messages or Mail. When the recipient receives the shared episode and opens it within the Podcasts app, they’re going to see the choice to Play from [the time]. Specify that the shared episode begins on the time you selected. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET