Best 10 Hidden Features in iOS 15 You Need to Know

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Best 10 Hidden Features in iOS 15 You Need to
Know
Another year, another new version of iOS. And
when it lands later today, some big new features
will totally change the way you use your iPhone.
But like all new iOS releases, iOS 15 also comes
with a bunch of tiny changeslittle hidden
features and tweaks that you wont even notice
if you dont know where to look. Sometimes, its
those little changes that make all the
difference. Once discovered, youll wonder how
you got along without them! Here are ten of our
favorite little, hidden, you-might-have-missed-th
em features of iOS 15. 1. Keep an Eye on App
Activity Apple is always expanding privacy
features, and with iOS 15 you have a powerful
new tool to find out which apps are accessing
your phones features and data. Open Settings,
then tap Privacy and scroll to the bottom to
Record App Activity. Youll have to enable this
at the top of the screen.
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• This will record a 7-day summary of exactly when
  and how often all your apps access things like
  your microphone or microphone, or which web
  domains they visit. Just come back to this
  screen a week later for a full report.
• You can even tap Save App Activity to export a
  JSON file of all the data if youre into that
  kind of thing.
• Adjust Video Playback Speed
• Apps like YouTube have had variable speed
  playback for some time now, but the default
  iPhone video player has not. In iOS 15, the
  default player (used for many web videos and by
  lots of apps) has playback speed controls.
• When playing back a video, tap the overflow menu
  in the lower right (the three dots) and youll
  be able to select from up to five different
  playback speeds.
• Get Real-Time Precipitation Alerts
• The Weather app and widget get some nice
  improvements in iOS 15, but the one were really
  excited about is next-time precipitation
  notifications.
• This was one of the marquee features of Dark Sky,
  an app and service Apple acquired in 2020.
• To enable this, open the Weather app and tap the
  icon for the list of locations in the lower
  right. Then tap the more button (three dots) in
  the upper right, and select Notifications.
  Youll be able to toggle notifications for your
  current location and each saved location,
  independently.
• With this enabled, youll get a notification
  whenever rain or snow is going to start or stop
  within the next hour.
• Share with Siri
• Sometimes its a pain to share that cool thing
  you found online. You have to copy URLs or
  images, switch to Messages, hold down to paste,
  hope it works

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• With iOS 15, you can finally just ask Siri.
  Simply say Hey Siri, share this with name
  (or something similar like send this to name
  and Siri will share the content on the screen to
  that person using Messages.
• Items like images, web pages, Apple Music or
  Podcasts, Apple News stories, and Maps locations
  will share the actual content (or a link to it).
  For content Siri cant share, it will warn you
  that it can only send a screenshotbut Siri will
  still automatically take that screenshot and
  drop it in a Message to that person.
• Its all very frictionless. Just ask Siri to
  share something, and Siri will prepare the item
  in a flash and ask ready to send it? Say yes,
  and youre done. No finding and opening share
  menus, no copy/paste, no flipping back and forth
  to the Messages app.
• Translate Anywhere
• With iOS 15, you can translate text just about
  anywhere. In almost any app where you can select
  text!
• Just tap and hold on a block of text to show the
  text selection window and drag the start and end
  pointsjust as you would if you were going to
  copy/paste.
• Youll notice the little popup menu has a new
  Translate option (in some apps you might have to
  hit the right arrow to see more options).
• Youll get a warning that the text is going to be
  sent to Apple to process the translation. Tap
  Continue and a pop-up card will show the
  translated text and give you options to copy the
  translation, change languages, and so on.
• Want to do the translation without sending data
  to Apple? Open Settings, then Translate and
  enable On-Device Mode. Youll have to also open
  up the Downloaded Languages menu and download
  the languages for which you want to enable
  offline translation.
• Choose Text Size for Each App
• Youve been able to change the system-wide text
  size for ages, but iOS 15 adds the ability to
  change the text size on a per-app basis.

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• First, enable the feature in Control Center. Open
  Settings, then tap Control Center and scroll
  down to add the Text Size control.
• Then when youre in an app, open Control Center
  (swipe down from the top-right corner) and
  select the Text Size control. A big slider lets
  you change text size, while a toggle at the
  bottom of the screen lets you choose between All
  Apps or just the app youre currently using.
• Scan Text Anywhere
• Apples new Live Text feature lets you select
  text in images from the Camera or Photos app,
  which can be really handy.
• Even better, you can use this technology to input
  text almost anywhere!
• In any text entry field, in almost any app, just
  tap to bring up the text selection pop-up (just
  as you would when doing a copy/paste). If no text
  is selected, youll see an option to Scan Text
  with a small icon of square brackets with lines
  inside. If there are multiple options, you might
  see the icon alone.
• Select that, and the keyboard will be replaced by
  a camera view. Point it at a block of text on
  almost anything, and youll see brackets around
  the text with a big blue Insert button. You
  might see instructions like slow down if youre
  moving the camera too quickly.
• Set Recovery and Legacy Contacts
• Your Apple ID and iCloud account get more
  important every year. Its full of purchases,
  services, cloud data, photosif you lost access,
  a lot of that stuff would be gone forever.
• Apple has two welcome new features in iOS 15.
  Account Recovery Contacts are people you trust
  that Apple can contact to help you reset your
  passcode if you ever lose it. They cant
  actually access your data, but if you initiate a
  password reset but are locked out of your own
  devices, the reset code can be sent to that
  contact.

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• To enable it, open Settings then tap on your
  Apple ID at the top. Then choose Password
  Security, then Account Recovery. Youll see an
  option to Add Recovery Contact.
• What about accessing all your content should you
  pass away? In the event of your untimely demise,
  a Digital Legacy Contact is a person who can
  request access to your data after you die.
  Theyll get access to Messages, Photos, Notes,
  Contacts, Calendar events, App purchases, and
  your device backup, but not your iCloud Keychain
  or licensed media purchases.
• Its probably a good idea to set up both of these
  things with trusted family members shortly after
  you update to iOS 15.
• Track Your iPhone Without Power
• Find My iPhone is a great way to keep track of a
  potentially lost device. But if someone stole
  your iPhone, all they have to do is power it down
  to disable tracking. Find My may show your
  devices last location (if you enabled that in
  Settings), but thats not much help.
• With iOS 15, an iPhone that has been turned off
  will actually enter an ultra-low power state
  that keeps the Bluetooth beacon active,
  effectively turning your iPhone into an AirTag.
• Youll see a little iPhone findable after power
  off notice under the Slide to Power Off
  interface, too.
• Keep Night Mode Off
• For the most part, Night Mode in the Camera app
  on modern iPhones is a great thing. It can
  absolutely transform photos taken in very low
  light.
• If the Camera app detects a dark scene, Night
  Mode is enabled automatically, but sometimes you
  want that dramatic dark effect, and its annoying
  to disable Night Mode to get it. You have to tap
  the Night Mode indicator and then slide the timer
  down to zero seconds.

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If you wait a while before taking another photo,
it will re-engage automatically. With iOS 15, you
can head to Settings gt Camera gt Preserve Settings
to find an option to preserve your Night Mode
settings (among other things). With this
enabled, Night Mode will remember when it has
been turned off and wont re- enable itself. If
you want to take a Night Mode shot, you can
manually tap the Night Mode indicator to enable
it yourself.