24 Hidden New iPhone Features In iOS 16

Here are some small new features of iOS 16 for the iPhone that you may not have discovered yet.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some lesser known new features in 
iOS 16 for the iPhone.
MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you can read more about the Patreon Campaign. Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts.
There are a lot of big new features in iOS 16 for the iPhone. But there are also a lot of small features. Some of them are really interesting and useful. For instance, when you create a timer in iOS 16 it will now appear on the lock screen as well as in the Timer App. So I can go back to the Lock Screen like this and you can see the Timer there at the bottom. Even with your iPhone locked you can pause the timer, resume it, and stop it.
Of course we're going to find a lot of these new features in the Settings App. Go into the Settings App and then look for Sounds & Haptics. Now about halfway down you'll see Keyboard Feedback. You can turn on Haptic Feedback for the keyboard. So every time you tap a key you'll feel a tiny little vibration.
If you go down to Accessibility and then to Touch there's a new feature here that I know a lot of people are going to love. Prevent Lock to End Call. So if you turn that On and you accidentally lock your phone it won't actually hangup the call. 
In Siri & Search you can now go to automatically send messages here and turn this On. So now you can have Siri send the message that you're dictating without it having to prompt you to confirm. Another new Siri feature is now when you're on a call if you have the Hey Siri feature enabled you can say those two words and hangup and the call will hangup. 
In Settings under Safari you've got AutoFill. Now one of the things you can do in AutoFill is you can go to Saved Credit Cards and there's now a spot to put your card security code. That will automatically be filled in with autofill. So you don't have to type your security code each time. 
In Settings under Wi-Fi, if you get info with the i button for your current Wi-Fi network there's Password. You can tap on it and it will allow you to Copy, Speak, and most importantly Reveal the password for Wi-Fi. Really handy when somebody else is asking you for your Wi-Fi password and you can't remember what it is at the moment.
Here's a feature that if you're concerned about app privacy you're going to love this. So you're going to go to Security & Privacy right here. Then you're going to go down to App Privacy Report. You're going to turn this On. Now when you go to use an app, like let's say use the Weather App here, then back here to Settings, App Privacy Repot it will actually show you the apps that have been contacting servers on the internet and you can dig down and see exactly what they have been contacting. 
Under Focus there's a new special feature of one particular Focus, the Sleep Focus. That is now there is options under the Home Screens, particularly the Lock Screen. If you go to Options you can turn Off the Time for the Lock Screen. So you can use this Focus to have your iPhone NOT display the time.
If you go to your Apple ID settings and then go to iCloud, then you can go to iCloud Backup. If you have that turned On it will actually show you a breakdown of how much space each app is using in your iCloud Backup. You could disable certain apps so they don't backup to iCloud. 
In the Settings App you now get a special thing that appears at the top when you're using AirPods. You can dig down and get to all of your AirPods controls really easily. 
So Quick Note is already a feature of macOS and iPad OS.but it comes to the iPhone in iOS 16 and you can get to it a couple of ways. One is in Control Center you can now add it. So you could see there's both Notes and Quick Note that you can add to your Control Center. So anytime you want to create a Quick Note just drag down from the top right to bring up Control Center and you'll see the Quick Note button right there. If you do it from inside Safari then you'll get the option to add a Link to the page you were looking at. In addition the Share Menu will also include an option to Add a Quick Note throughout the Operating System. 
A new trick in the Camera App is it will allow you to convert units and currency. Notice the little yellow box around that text there. It's kind of like a QR code. I'm just in the regular camera app here. I'm not doing anything special. If I tap here notice it comes up with all the options. Look down here. 75 mph. I tap on it and now I've got that converted to different units. I can do the same thing here for currency. If I tap here it's going to bring it up and it will give me conversions right there. 
But you can also get that inside of any text. So here I am in the Notes App. I can select text like this and if I scroll over here in the Menu, you see the last item there is actually a conversion. 
A useful new feature, at least for me, is the Spotlight button that is here on the Home Screen. You can tap that and then get right into Spotlight. But however you use Spotlight you can do a few new things with it now. I'm sure more apps will have hooks into this in the future. But for now you can do things like, say, type Timer. So you can start a new timer or create a new alarm. Just tap there and it takes you right to it. 
If you want to use the dictation function either here like in Notes or in the Messages App you can now mix dictation with the keyboard. (Speaking - this is a... the Typing - text.)
In the Photos App now you've got your Hidden and Recently Deleted folders. The difference is now they are both locked and it requires Face ID or typing in your passcode to get access. 
Playlist in the Music App now allows you to Sort by a whole bunch of criteria. 
A couple of new things in the Contacts App. One is that it will notice duplicates. So I've got two duplicates here. Notice at the bottom it will say One Duplicate Found and it will allow me to view them and Merge or Ignore.  You also can go to your own card, like this one, and then Edit and then Edit the icon at the top. You can select a Memoji, like before, and you can use one of the sticker poses as your Memoji. Now before you could do that but there was a limited set. Now you can just use any of them that you want as your new Memoji. 
So in the Files App, if you're in iCloud you can see a document that hasn't been downloaded or cached locally. You can tap on the little cloud icon there to download it.  One thing that you can do now that you couldn't do before though is you can tap and hold, bring up the menu, and there's remove download. So this doesn't do anything to the file in iCloud. It just takes it out of the local cache to free up some space. Something we could have done for awhile now on Macs but not in iOS. 
Copying and Pasting between apps is a little more secure now. If you select some text here, I'll Copy. Then let me go to another app, like Messages here, and I will Paste it in, it's going to ask me for permission. Before it just gave you a notification that you could easily miss. 
Here's a feature that involves the Apple Watch. If you have an Apple Watch and it is updated to Watch OS 9, then with iOS 16 you can now actually view the screen. It can mirror to your phone. So to get to it go to Accessibility and then you should see Apple Watch Mirroring. Turn it On and now you'll be able to see your Apple Watch's screen. You can manipulate your watch and then see the different things reflected on this mirror on the screen. But you can also control it on the screen of your phone as well to go in and control the watch from there. 
Oh, one last thing. If you have an iPhone 13 or newer you can now use Face ID even holding your iPhone horizontally. So I hope you found these small features of iOS 16 useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 7 Responses to “24 Hidden New iPhone Features In iOS 16”

Justin Ross

3 years ago

Funny. I have Watch 9.0 but do NOT see the Apple Watch Mirroring option. It goes Side Button, Control Nearby Devices. Looks nothing like your screen. Hmmmm.

Graham

Great video - very helpful- thanks Gary

Gary Rosenzweig

Justin: Perhaps your Watch is too old to be compatible with this feature?

gadget

Apple Watch mirroring requires Apple watch series 6 or newer. I have series 5 and it doesn't work for me either

James Ford

The Apple Watch Mirroring option is only available for Apple Watch 6 and above. Below is a link to the IOS 9 Apple Watch User Guide.

https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/apple-watch-mirroring-apd890848603/watchos

Michael

Thanks Gary. Very useful tutorial. One of my favourite new features is the "rain starts/ends in xx minutes" feature from the weather app. It seems quite accurate and appears on my 'phone and my watch. Regards Michael

Gary as always, thanks!!! I learned at least five or more new features from you. Like Michael, the rain notification is so useful, but even something like the haptic touch is as well, as I constantly find myself retapping keys or the wrong keys, so maybe this will help me have a better sense of touch on the keyboard.

Comments Closed.

24 Hidden New iPhone Features In iOS 16

Comments: 7 Responses to “24 Hidden New iPhone Features In iOS 16”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information