Apple’s iphone 18.5 for iPhone, which is new, just arrived. It’s the last release we may have for this generation of iphone ahead of iphone 19&nbsp, next month at WWDC. You might want to take some time out now to make sure you don’t miss out on new functions that are difficult to find in the shuffle of regular, iPhone, and apply. Curious? Below are 10 of my preferred options you can change to optimize your experience. &nbsp,

And don’t forget that iOS 18 includes the first&nbsp, Apple Intelligence&nbsp, functions, so be sure to check out the people you’ll use most. Learn how to turn off Apple Intelligence here. Or if you don’t have any existing interest or want to wait before using the Artificial features.

See this: 11 Invisible Features in iphone 18

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For more on what’s fresh in&nbsp, apps 18, learn about changes to the&nbsp, overhauled Calculator app&nbsp, and the&nbsp, Mail&nbsp, game. Also, be sure to check out our iOS 18 build schedule, which includes making sure you have a backup before upgrading, before you make any changes.

Turn off divisions in the Mail game

Everyone has their own strategy for handling the flow of messages in the field of internet. Usually, the Mail software has kept a historical record, but that can get unmanageable if you also find scores of promotions, receipts and other types of e-mail. The new groups feature creates digital containers for Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, and assumptions how your emails may be sorted.

These are two things to try if that strategy doesn’t work for you.

• In the event that classes are fairly important, but you still want a historical perspective of your Inbox, tap all the way to the straight of the categories and tap&nbsp, All Mail.

• Tap the three-dot menu (… ) in the top-right corner, and then tap&nbsp, List View, to turn off categories completely.

Change the default icons on the lock display

Location is everything in real estate, and the bottom edges of the iPhone lock screen are the best spots, each a quick thumb click away when your system is also locked. Before apps 18, those comments were held by the lamp and lens keys, with no way to change them.

In apps 18, you can suddenly change them with another buttons– or remove them completely, a balm for folks who&nbsp, accidentally activate the flashlight&nbsp, ( believe me, there’s a&nbsp, better way to turn it on ). You can add switches to your Wallet, send money using Plug to Cash, enable Black Mode, set an alarm/timer, and help Airplane Mode.

Here’s how:

1. On the iPhone’s switch camera, reach and maintain anywhere on the screen until you see the&nbsp, Customize&nbsp, option. You’ll need to access the mobile using Face ID, Touch ID or your password. Swipe down from the center-top of the screen ( not the right edge ), which brings up Control Center, if it opens the home screen.

2. Tap on Customize, Customize&nbsp, and then choose Lock Screen.

3. Remove one of the buttons by tapping the&nbsp, –&nbsp, ( minus ) button on the icon.

4. To replace the button with another function, tap its space ( now with a&nbsp, +&nbsp, icon ) and then choose the one you want on the next screen. ( You can also choose to leave the button unfilled. )

5. Repeat those measures for the other option if you want to modify it.

6. Tap&nbsp, Done&nbsp, when you’re finished.

7. Click the lock screen suddenly to leave the customize mode.

Getting significant alerts using Prioritize Alerts

One of my favorite AI capabilities is now available for phone models that can work Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.4. Go to Controls &gt, Notifications, and under Apple Intelligence, click Prioritize Notifications. As fresh emails come in– and some times feel like they arrive in storms– Apple Intelligence determines which ones are more likely to become essential to you. For instance, texts from people in your contacts might be flagged in favor of a certain number of scams. On that settings screen, you can enable or disable priority notifications for individual apps.

Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button

The dedicated mute switch found on every previous iPhone model was replaced with a configurable control on the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16și iPhone 16 Pro. By default, it serves the same purpose– hold it to turn Silent Mode on or off– but you can configure it for other actions like opening the Camera app, &nbsp, performing multiple actions at once&nbsp, or even&nbsp, ordering coffee. Visual Intelligence is now available for the Action button in the iOS 18.4 update. That makes the AI technology available on the iPhone 16E, which does not include the novel new Controlul camerei, but is now an option for any iPhone with an Action button.

In iOS 18, the Action button gets new capabilities. You can skip the Control Center and instead use the control of your choosing, such as using Shazam to identify a song or opening the Remote interface for Apple TV.

To choose a different action for the Action button, go to&nbsp, Settings &gt, Action Button. Swipe sideways to choose and make one of the options available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the&nbsp, Choose&nbsp, button to pick which specific action to run.

Give your home screen a radical new look

You might not believe that placing icons where you want is a revolutionary new feature, but that’s because iOS has always had a locked system. Apps get added from top to bottom, left to right. You could rearrange the order in which icons appear and move them to other screens, but that was about it.

Apps can be positioned almost anywhere in iOS 18. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They can be placed freely, but they still adhere to a grid; Apple isn’t going to sanction anarchy.

Also, Dark mode finally applies to all of the iPhone’s home screen, with options for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper image. Here’s how to customize the looks.

  Touch and hold the home screen to enter” jiggle mode,” arrange the apps, and drag the icons to their new locations. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want.

You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. For instance, a map of your current location can be used with shortcut buttons to look for places or display a list of nearby places ( such as dinner spots ). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a&nbsp, row of resize buttons&nbsp, in the menu that appears. The handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon can be dragged once the size has increased beyond the standard icon. To get it back to its single icon size you need to touch and hold again and choose the&nbsp, single-icon&nbsp, button

Set Dark mode: &nbsp, If you’ve ever subjected yourself to the retina blast of black text on a white background late at night in a darkened room, you will appreciate the new Dark mode option for the home and lock screens. In a previous version of iOS, light backgrounds can be switched to black or dark gray, text can be changed to white or light gray, and other interface elements can be dimmed so they can coexist in a dark environment. That’s never been applied to the home and lock screens in any significant way– only the dock and some widgets– until iOS 18.

First, touch and hold the home screen to enter jiggle mode. Select Customize şi Customize from the menu and tap the&nbsp, Edit&nbsp, button in the top-left corner. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: &nbsp, Automatic, &nbsp, Dark&nbsp, or&nbsp, Light&nbsp, ( I’ll get to&nbsp, Tinted&nbsp, in a moment ). In Dark mode, the icons have black backgrounds, and the Dock and folders turn dark gray. ( Developers have the option of making Dark mode icons for their apps. In the meantime, apps not yet optimized get a generally darker appearance. )

The background image also changes in dark mode. Apple’s default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer both a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output.

Tap the sun icon in the bottom of the screen’s options sheet to go back to Light mode and only for the background if you want dark icons but don’t like the dimmed photo treatment.

Tinted icons: &nbsp, A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. Choose&nbsp, Tinted&nbsp as the icon style in the Customize options at the bottom of the screen. You can then adjust the&nbsp, Hue&nbsp, ( the slider with the color spectrum ) and&nbsp, Luminosity&nbsp, ( the slider with the dark to light range ) to choose the color tint you prefer.

What if you want to match a color from a background image? The border indicates the selected color when you tap the eyedropper&nbsp, button, and drag the reticle to the desired color.

The tint is applied not only to icons but to widgets as well. For a widget such as Photos, the images it displays show up as duotones to match the theme.

Large icons:   Do the labels below each app icon seem redundant to you? Now you can remove the labels and increase the size of the icons with one setting. Tap the&nbsp, Large&nbsp button to access the Customize options as described above.

Tap anywhere on the screen to apply any of these changes after making any of them, and you’ll exit the Customize interface.

Change up how the Control Center looks

Centru de control was once a quick place to access controls like playback volume and airplane mode, but with iOS 18 it’s a playable playground. You can position controls where you want, resize many to reveal more information and add new controls on multiple screens.

Swipe down from the top-right corner to reveal the Control Center ( or swipe up from the bottom on the iPhone SE). Touch and hold the&nbsp, +&nbsp, button at the top-left corner to enter edit mode.

Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. A bottom-right handle on many of the controls allows you to resize the control; in most cases, it reveals the control’s name and current status ( such as  Flashlight Off ).

Control Center now includes multiple screens. Swipe up to view controls for media currently playing, Home controls for smart lights and appliances and a page dedicated to the communication options that appear when you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. If you look closely, you’ll discover that those screens are actually individual controls that are being enlarged to cover the entire Control Center space.

You can rearrange the order of those screens by moving their controls. Suppose you want Home controls to be the first swipe instead of Now Playing: In the editing mode, drag the large Home control up to the previous screen ( Now Playing will shift to the right to make room ).

To remove controls, tap the&nbsp, –&nbsp, ( minus ) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap&nbsp, Adăugați un control&nbsp, and scroll through the available options ranging from starting a&nbsp, Screen Recording&nbsp, to a host of accessibility options.

Citeşte mai mult: Adding all the new controls to Control Center is simple.

Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps

It’s common to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up information on the internet, but our phones carry some of our most sensitive data. That doesn’t mean they’re going to snoop, but it doesn’t &nbsp, not&nbsp, mean they might be more curious than you’re comfortable with. For data you want to ensure stays out of sight or to add a layer of protection in front of sensitive information, iOS 18 adds the ability to lock and hide apps.

Let’s say you keep a list of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app on a regular basis. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Perhaps a few ideas came from quick notes or drawings alone. Instead of micromanaging access, you can lock the entire Notes app by doing the following:

Touch and hold the app icon you want to lock and choose&nbsp, Require Face ID&nbsp, or&nbsp, Require Touch ID&nbsp, (or&nbsp, Require Passcode&nbsp, if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled ) from the menu that appears. In the next dialog, tap&nbsp, Require Face ID&nbsp, or another similar option to confirm your choice.

To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose&nbsp, Don’t Require Face ID&nbsp, ( or similar ).

Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked– you’ll find out when you try to open it. There is a third level of app security that can be used to hide apps in a unique locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose&nbsp, Require Face ID&nbsp, and then tap&nbsp, Hide and Require Face ID&nbsp, in the dialog. Tap&nbsp, Hide App&nbsp, to confirm the action on the next screen.

The app disappears from the home screen and gets slotted into a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library ( swipe left beyond your last home screen to view the App Library ). To access apps there, tap the&nbsp, Hidden&nbsp, folder and authenticate with Face ID.

iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, such as many of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can only be locked and cannot be hidden at all. Additionally, when you open an app or exit the App Library, the Hidden folder locks itself.

Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app

Many apps have a small but annoying ( to me ) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18.2 has it as well: Videos automatically replay when you watch them until you tap the Pause button. That can be fun once or twice, or when viewing short clips. I’m not a fan of having to take action to make them stop each time.

I can now act once. Go to&nbsp, Settings &gt, Photos, scroll down until you see&nbsp, Loop Videos&nbsp, and turn the option off. A video will start off on its own, but it will stop when it is finished, as it should.

Turn off Auto-Play Motion&nbsp in the same Settings screen if you prefer the video to play without stopping until you tap the Play button.

Adjust the view of your calendar

Great additions to the big new features like locking and hiding apps, but so are the minor changes you see every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule.

In iOS 18, when you’re in the&nbsp, Month&nbsp, view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. Each event is displayed as a colored bar as you “zoom in,” followed by the timestamps for each event as you “zoom in,” all while adhering to the month’s grid of days and weeks.

The&nbsp, Day&nbsp, view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new&nbsp, Multi Day&nbsp, view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what’s coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the&nbsp, Week&nbsp, view. Tap the&nbsp, View&nbsp, button at the top of the&nbsp, Single Day&nbsp, view and choose&nbsp, Multi Day&nbsp, from the popup menu.

Improve dialogue from movies and TV shows in the TV app

Trouble hearing dialogue in movies and television shows isn’t a new problem– for example, the Apple TV has had a feature for a while where you can ask Siri,” What did she say”? and it will automatically back up a few seconds, turn on subtitles and replay that section of the video. You can even purchase soundbars that can block out muffled TV speech. There are &nbsp, a lot of reasons&nbsp, it’s harder to hear dialogue, but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern.

Tap the&nbsp, Mai mult&nbsp, (… ) button while watching a video in the TV app. If the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap&nbsp, Enhance Dialogue&nbsp, and choose&nbsp, Enhance&nbsp, or&nbsp, Boost. They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue’s audio.

Just a few new features and adjustments to iOS 18 are included in these. Check out our broader coverage of Apple Intelligence, more impressions of the system after using it for months and how these all work together with the&nbsp, iPhone 16 models.