That iPhone you carry all over the place does not need to be like everybody else’s. iOS 18.3 provides many new options for personalizing your expertise, from customizing the house display screen to creating Management Heart extra helpful. You may even — lastly — select which buttons seem on the lock display screen. If you happen to’ve simply unboxed a brand new iPhone 16E or wish to get extra out of your present iPhone, these are eight suggestions for altering settings and options to customise it.
CNET
Remember that iOS 18 consists of the primary Apple Intelligence options, so you should definitely try the ones you will use most. Or you probably have little interest in the AI options — which at the moment are enabled routinely — discover ways to turn off Apple Intelligence.
For extra on what’s new in iOS 18, find out about enhancements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. And remember to seek the advice of our iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which incorporates ensuring you have got a correct backup earlier than upgrading.
Keep secure: Be sure you set up the most recent iOS 18.3.1 update that fixes bugs associated to an “extraordinarily refined assault.”
Change the default buttons on the lock display screen
In actual property, location is every part, and the underside corners of the iPhone lock display screen are the prime spots, every a straightforward thumb press away when your machine remains to be locked. Earlier than iOS 18, these posts have been held by the flashlight and digicam buttons, with no approach to change them.
In iOS 18, you may lastly change them with different buttons — or take away them totally, 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 through Shazam, allow Darkish Mode, set an alarm/timer, allow Airplane Mode, open your Pockets, ship cash through Faucet to Money and extra.
Here is how:
1. On the iPhone’s lock display screen, contact and maintain wherever on the show till you see the Customise button. You will must unlock the cellphone 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 proper 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 switch 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 depart that area empty with no button.)
5. Repeat these steps for the opposite button if you wish to change it.
6. Faucet Achieved 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.
Arrange a number of the new duties accessible on the Motion button
The Motion button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E 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 goal — maintain it to show Silent Mode on or off — however you may configure it for different actions like opening the Digicam app, performing multiple actions at once and even ordering coffee. (And in the event you’re keen to reside on the sting, the iOS 18.4 beta provides Visible Intelligence as an possibility for the Motion button.)
In iOS 18, the Motion button will get new capabilities. You may 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 tune.
To decide on a distinct motion for the Motion button, go to Settings > Motion Button. Swipe sideways to pick 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 together with your favourite Management Heart management.
Give your house display screen 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 could possibly rearrange the order during 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 must cope with 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 might be positioned freely.
Additionally, Darkish mode lastly applies to the entire iPhone’s house display screen, with choices for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper picture. Here is how you can customise the seems.
Organize apps: Contact and maintain the house display screen to enter “jiggle mode,” after which drag the icons to new positions. It can nonetheless slide them round to fill areas, however with persistence, you may transfer them into the spots you need.
Place app icons the place you need so this excellent woman is not coated.
You can too shortly flip suitable apps into widgets that show extra data. Maps, for example, generally is 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 may drag the deal with within the bottom-right nook of the brand new icon. To get it again to its single icon measurement it’s essential 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 evening 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 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 vital means — 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: Computerized, Darkish or Gentle (I will get to Tinted in a second). In Darkish mode, the icons acquire black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock turn 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 typically darker look.)
Within the house 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 may select colours that supply each a light-weight and darkish possibility. If you happen to use a photograph, its general publicity is diminished 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 screen to toggle again to Gentle mode only for the background.
Tinted icons: A brand new and totally different possibility is to tint the entire app icons so that they share the identical colour. Within the Customise choices on the backside of the display screen, select Tinted because the icon type. You may 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 properly. 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 may take away the labels and enhance the dimensions 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 Heart seems
Management Heart was as soon as a handy place to shortly entry controls equivalent to playback quantity and Airplane mode, however below iOS 18 it is a configurable playground. You may 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 shifting 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 — normally, it reveals the identify of the management and its present standing (equivalent to Flashlight Off).
Rearrange the controls in Management Heart and, for some, develop 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, Residence controls for sensible 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 your entire Management Heart space.
You may rearrange the order of these screens by shifting their controls. Suppose you need Residence controls to be the primary swipe as a substitute of Now Taking part in: Within the enhancing mode, drag the big Residence management as much as the earlier display screen (Now Taking part in will shift to the proper to make room).
Some controls get their very own screens, equivalent to Residence. 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 means of 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 conceal any of your delicate apps
Our telephones carry a few of our most delicate information, and but it is not unusual at hand a cellphone to a buddy to view images or search for one thing on-line. That does not imply they will snoop, nevertheless it does not not imply they could 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 data, iOS 18 provides the power to lock and conceal apps.
For instance, to illustrate you retain an ongoing set of lists of reward concepts for relations within the Notes app. You may lock particular person notes, however that requires a separate step. Perhaps a number of concepts have been made as particular person fast notes or drawings. As a substitute of micromanaging entry, you may lock your entire 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 aren’t enabled) from the menu that seems. Verify your selection by tapping Require Face ID (or comparable) within the subsequent dialog.
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 may discover out whenever you attempt to open it. There’s another degree 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. Verify 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 house display screen to view the App Library). To entry apps there, faucet the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID.
Whenever 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 whenever 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 below iOS 18.2 has it too: Movies routinely replay whenever you watch them till you faucet the Pause button. That may be enjoyable a couple of 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 routinely.
If you happen to’d relatively 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 screen.
Alter the view of your calendar
Massive new options like locking and hiding apps are nice additions however so are the tiny modifications that you just encounter every single 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 instances, 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 provide 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
Hassle listening to dialogue in motion pictures and tv exhibits is not a brand new downside — for instance, the Apple TV has had a function for some time the place you may 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 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 develop 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 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. 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.
Source link