4 of the very best obscure iPhone options you are not utilizing

Apple touts many

iPhone
options from the hills, no matter how vital they’re in follow. Think about the

Camera Control
button on the

iPhone 16
, for instance — I largely solely use it for opening the Digicam app, taking a shot, and adjusting zoom, and a few folks do not use it in any respect. This type of factor is to be anticipated, although, because it’s within the nature of capitalism to say any benefit you possibly can over the competitors.

Often, nevertheless, Apple does introduce options that obtain little if any advertising regardless of being genuinely helpful. That additionally is sensible in its personal method, as a result of a number of the issues that make a product higher aren’t essentially simple to promote via TV commercials and roadside billboards. These are a number of the extra obscure iPhone options I like — your individual checklist might differ.

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1

Again Faucet

Like Double Faucet to your iPhone

Again Faucet is just like the Double Faucet gestures Apple launched with the Apple Watch Collection 9 and Extremely 2, letting you employ movement gestures to set off instructions as an alternative of clicking a button or utilizing a touchscreen. Arguably, it is higher — particularly since you possibly can assign your individual customized features everytime you double- or triple-tap the again of your iPhone, akin to turning on the flashlight, taking a screenshot, or opening Management Middle.

Why have not you heard a lot — if something — about Double Faucet? For one, Again Faucet continues to be thought of an “accessibility” characteristic, meant to simplify iPhone use for folks with bodily impairments. The opposite is that it’s a must to flip it on manually by going to Settings > Accessibility > Contact > Again Faucet. It is off by default, presumably as a result of it might be all too simple to set off instructions by chance should you have been unaware of the characteristic’s existence. How typically do you drum on one thing while you’re bored?

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2

ChatGPT integration into Siri

Lastly, Siri can truly inform you concerning the Mongols

Apple / Pocket-lint

Till iOS 18.2, Siri was notoriously unhealthy at answering data questions. It may reply some apparent ones, akin to who the US President was or what the climate was going to be like, however too typically it might throw up its arms or ask you to faucet on an internet hyperlink — even should you have been speaking to a HomePod. In reality, that is nonetheless how questions work on Apple’s good audio system.

iOS 18.2 added ChatGPT integration for iPhones with Apple Intelligence, particularly the iPhone 16 collection and the iPhone 15 Professional. So in the end, should you ask a posh query, Siri can produce a solution with out making you go someplace else for it. You will have to attend a second whereas Siri contacts OpenAI’s servers, but it surely nonetheless makes the assistant really feel much more highly effective. You possibly can even make it generate photos in some conditions, akin to Messages.

Apple does truly promote this characteristic a bit of, however solely within the context of different Apple Intelligence choices. It is most likely none too desperate to shine the highlight on a product it is not answerable for, and it is trying to recruit different AI companions too, akin to Google.

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3

Altering default apps

Use your most popular on a regular basis instruments

Apple would favor that you simply use its personal apps each time potential, but it surely additionally lives in the true world — different apps are typically extra in style, and antitrust lawsuits can (and do) hold its conduct in examine. In case you go to Settings > Apps > Default Apps, you possibly can select your individual preferences for issues like e mail, internet looking, translation, and passwords. In some nations, a minimum of, you possibly can even select an alternative choice to Apple Pockets for dealing with NFC transactions.

The primary catch right here, aside from potential regional restrictions, is that some apps you’d assume could be selectable merely aren’t. Google Translate cannot be chosen as an alternative choice to Apple Translate, as an example, though it is undoubtedly extra widespread. Control this characteristic — the gates could also be pressured all the best way open by legislators in some unspecified time in the future. You would not tolerate a Home windows PC that locked out Chrome and Firefox, in spite of everything.

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4

Textual content Substitute

Create shortcuts and repair shortcomings

Loads of human communication includes the repetition of inventory expressions. That is not a judgment of the species — that is simply how language works. As a result of expressions like “see ya” and “on my method” are so commonplace, they’re loaded with that means, and we do not have to trouble formulating a brand new phrase every time we talk the identical basic idea. You’d assume somebody was losing their time in the event that they stated “I stay up for seeing you once more after I return to work tomorrow morning” earlier than heading out to their automobile.

To avoid wasting much more time, when typing a minimum of, you possibly can go to Settings > Normal > Keyboard > Textual content Substitute and generate shortcuts that routinely swap in your most used expressions. Utilizing “omw” to set off “on my method” is an apparent instance, however I may probably use “@rf” to insert one thing like my e mail tackle, cellphone quantity, or Bluesky deal with. In an excellent world, I would be capable to share an entire contact card, however that is not right here simply but.

NameDrop
can do one thing related if each folks have an iPhone (and so they’re standing proper subsequent to one another).

An fascinating trick Apple helps is utilizing Textual content Substitute to pressure iOS to not exchange one thing, say if it is a bit of overzealous about “correcting” product names, tune names, or swear phrases. Within the Textual content Substitute menu, you merely enter a phrase or sentence into the Phrase discipline, however go away Shortcut clean. In reality, that is certainly one of my greatest pet peeves about iOS, so I am reminded that I ought to sit down someday and enter a flurry of recent shortcuts. At some point, iOS will cease attempting to right me concerning the obscure ambient and industrial bands I like from locations like England and Germany.

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