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CNET
a day ago
- CNET
Change These 10 iOS 18.6 Settings Now and It'll Feel Like You Got a New iPhone
Apple released iOS 18.6 to address important bug fixes and security updates, so grab it the next chance you get. But while you're updating to keep your iPhone safe, this is a great opportunity to reevaluate how you're using it. With just a few changes, you can improve your day-to-day iPhone experience and get ready for iOS 26 when it arrives next month. After digging into the latest update, I found 10 settings that made an immediate difference in how I use my iPhone. Some are simple quality-of-life upgrades, while others help cut down on background drain or boost privacy. You don't need to be a tech expert to make these changes, and most take less than a minute to apply. If your iPhone has been feeling a little sluggish or just not working the way you want it to, these quick adjustments might be all it takes to get things back on track. For more on what's new in iOS 18, learn about improvements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. And don't forget to consult our iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which includes making sure you have a proper backup before upgrading. Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18 06:44 Turn off categories in the Mail app When it comes to something like email, everyone has their own way of dealing with the influx of messages. Traditionally, the Mail app has kept a chronological list, but that can get unwieldy if you also get scores of promotions, receipts and other types of email. The new categories feature creates virtual buckets for Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, and guesses how your messages should be sorted. If that approach doesn't work for you, here are two things to try. • In the event that categories are somewhat useful, but you still want a chronological view of your Inbox, swipe all the way to the right of the categories and tap All Mail. • To turn off categories altogether, tap the three-dot menu (…) in the top-right corner, and then tap List View. Turn off Mail Categories from within the Inbox. (iOS 18.5 beta shown here.) Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Change the default buttons on the lock screen In real estate, location is everything, and the bottom corners of the iPhone lock screen are the prime spots, each an easy thumb press away when your device is still locked. Before iOS 18, those posts were held by the flashlight and camera buttons, with no way to change them. In iOS 18, you can finally replace them with other buttons -- or remove them entirely, a balm for folks who unknowingly activate the flashlight (believe me, there's a better way to turn it on). You can add buttons to recognize music via Shazam, enable Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, enable Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, send money via Tap to Cash and more. Here's how: 1. On the iPhone's lock screen, touch and hold anywhere on the display until you see the Customize button. You'll need to unlock the phone using Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. If it opens the home screen, swipe down from the center-top of the screen (not the right edge, which brings up Control Center. 2. Tap Customize and then choose Lock Screen. 3. Remove one of the buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon. 4. To replace the button with another function, tap its space (now with a + icon) and then choose the one you want on the next screen. (You can also opt to leave that space empty with no button.) 5. Repeat those steps for the other button if you want to change it. 6. Tap Done when you're finished. 7. Tap the lock screen again to exit the customize mode. Remove a lock screen button by tapping the – (minus) button, and then choose a new control to replace it. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Get important alerts using Prioritize Notifications For iPhone models that can run Apple Intelligence, a new option in iOS 18.4 is fast becoming one of my favorite AI features. Go to Settings > Notifications, and under Apple Intelligence, tap Prioritize Notifications. As new alerts come in -- and some days feel like they arrive in floods -- Apple Intelligence determines which ones are more likely to be important to you. For example, texts from people in your contacts could be flagged in favor of random scam messages. On that settings screen, you can enable or disable priority notifications for individual apps. In iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence can prioritize notifications to grab your attention. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E and iPhone 16 Pro replaced the dedicated mute switch found on every earlier iPhone model with a configurable control. 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, performing multiple actions at once or even ordering coffee. The iOS 18.4 update adds Visual Intelligence as an option for the Action button. That makes the AI technology available on the iPhone 16E, which does not include the novel new Camera Control but is now an option for any iPhone with an Action button. In iOS 18, the Action button gets new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and choose a control of your choice, such as opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or using Shazam to identify a song. To choose a different action for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to select and activate one of the available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the Choose button to pick which specific action to run. iOS 18 now lets you program the Action Button with your favorite Control Center control. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Give your home screen a radical new look You wouldn't think that putting icons where you want is a radical new feature, but that's because iOS has always had a locked arrangement. 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. In iOS 18, apps can be positioned nearly anywhere. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They still adhere to a grid -- Apple isn't about to sanction anarchy -- but can be placed freely. 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. Arrange apps: Touch and hold the home screen to enter "jiggle mode," and then drag the icons to new positions. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want. Position app icons where you want so this very good girl isn't covered. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. Maps, for instance, can be a map of your current location with shortcut buttons to search for places or bring up a list of nearby places (such as dinner spots). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a row of resize buttons in the menu that appears. Once expanded beyond the standard icon size, you can drag the handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon. To get it back to its single icon size you need to touch and hold again and choose the single-icon button Some apps can be expanded into larger icons that act like widgets. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Set Dark mode: 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. iOS has previously included a Dark mode, where light backgrounds switch to black or dark gray, text switches to white or light gray and other interface elements are dimmed to 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. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and choose Customize from the menu. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: Automatic, Dark or Light (I'll get to Tinted in a moment). In Dark mode, the icons gain black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock become 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.) In the home screen's Dark mode, icons and the background are given a darker treatment. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET In Dark mode, the background image also changes. Apple's default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output. If you want dark icons but aren't a fan of the dimmed photo treatment, tap the sun icon in the corner of the options sheet at the bottom of the screen to toggle back to Light mode just for the background. Tinted icons: A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. In the Customize options at the bottom of the screen, choose Tinted as the icon style. You can then adjust the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range) to choose the color tint you prefer. Apply a universal tint to all app icons, with controls for adjusting the hue and luminosity. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET What if you want to match a color from a background image? Tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle to pinpoint the color you want -- the border indicates the selected 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. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button. Make the home screen icons larger and hide the app labels. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET After making any of these changes, tap anywhere on the screen to apply them and exit the Customize interface. Change up how the Control Center looks Control Center was once a convenient place to quickly access controls such as playback volume and Airplane mode but under iOS 18 it's a configurable 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). To enter edit mode, touch and hold or press the + button at the top-left corner. Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. Many of the controls also include a bottom-right handle that can resize the control -- in most cases, it reveals the name of the control and its current status (such as Flashlight Off). Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, expand them to reveal more information (or just make the button a larger target for pressing). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Control Center also now spans 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. Look closely and you'll see that those screens are actually individual controls expanded to occupy the entire Control Center area. 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). Some controls get their own screens, such as Home. Normally it's on the third screen, but here it's been moved to the second screen. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET To remove controls, tap the – (minus) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll through the available options ranging from starting a Screen Recording to a host of accessibility options. Read more: All the new controls you can add to Control Center Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps Our phones carry some of our most sensitive data and yet it's not uncommon to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up something online. That doesn't mean they're going to snoop but it doesn't not 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. For example, let's say you keep an ongoing set of lists of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Maybe a few ideas were made as individual quick notes or drawings. 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 Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled) from the menu that appears. Confirm your choice by tapping Require Face ID (or similar) in the next dialog. Lock individual apps. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose Don't Require Face ID (or similar). Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked -- you'll find out when you try to open it. There's one more level of app security available, which is to hide apps in a special locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose Require Face ID and then tap Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog. Confirm the action by tapping Hide App 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 Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID. When you choose Hide and Require Face ID to protect an app, it gets put into the Hidden folder in App Library (top). Tap the folder and authenticate to access the app (bottom). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET 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. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself when you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library. Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app Many apps have implemented a small but annoying (to me) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18.2 has it too: 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. Now I can take action once. Go to Settings > Photos, scroll down until you see Loop Videos and turn the option off. A video will play on its own but then stop at the end as it should. Turn off Loop Videos to stop every video from replaying automatically. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET If you'd rather the video didn't play at all until you tap the Play button, also turn off Auto-Play Motion in the same Settings screen. Adjust the view of your calendar Big new features like locking and hiding apps are great additions but so are the tiny changes that you encounter every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule. In iOS 18, when you're in the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. As you "zoom in," individual events appear as colored bars and then as labeled events with times, all while keeping the monthly grid of days and weeks. In the Calendar app's Month view, pinch to zoom in and see more details. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new Multi Day view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what's coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button at the top of the Single Day view and choose Multi Day from the popup menu. The new Multi Day view in the Calendar shows two days at once (right). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Improve movie and TV show dialogue 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 buy soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech. There are a lot of reasons it's harder to hear dialogue but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern. While you're watching a video in the TV app, tap the More (…) button and then expand the Audio heading in the menu that appears; if the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost. They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue's audio. Turn on Enhance Dialogue in the TV app to discern characters' speech better in noisy scenes. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET These are just a few new features and changes in iOS 18. 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 iPhone 16 models.
CNET
4 days ago
- CNET
Have You Installed iOS 18.6? Be Sure to Change These 10 Settings Now
iOS 26 arrives this fall, but before it gets here Apple has released iOS 18.6. This may be the last big update for iOS 18, and delivers security updates along with some bug fixes. After updating, it's the perfect time to poke at the settings of your iPhone and ensure your device is in tip-top shape. By customizing your settings you can make sure you're getting the most from it, and avoid problems down the line. After digging into the latest version, I found 10 settings that made an immediate difference in how I use my iPhone. Some are simple quality-of-life upgrades, while others help cut down on background drain or boost privacy. You don't need to be a tech expert to make these changes, and most take less than a minute to apply. If your iPhone has been feeling a little sluggish or just not working the way you want it to, these quick adjustments might be all it takes to get things back on track. For more on what's new in iOS 18, learn about improvements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. And don't forget to consult our iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which includes making sure you have a proper backup before upgrading. Watch this: 11 Hidden Features in iOS 18 06:44 Turn off categories in the Mail app When it comes to something like email, everyone has their own way of dealing with the influx of messages. Traditionally, the Mail app has kept a chronological list, but that can get unwieldy if you also get scores of promotions, receipts and other types of email. The new categories feature creates virtual buckets for Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, and guesses how your messages should be sorted. If that approach doesn't work for you, here are two things to try. • In the event that categories are somewhat useful, but you still want a chronological view of your Inbox, swipe all the way to the right of the categories and tap All Mail. • To turn off categories altogether, tap the three-dot menu (…) in the top-right corner, and then tap List View. Turn off Mail Categories from within the Inbox. (iOS 18.5 beta shown here.) Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Change the default buttons on the lock screen In real estate, location is everything, and the bottom corners of the iPhone lock screen are the prime spots, each an easy thumb press away when your device is still locked. Before iOS 18, those posts were held by the flashlight and camera buttons, with no way to change them. In iOS 18, you can finally replace them with other buttons -- or remove them entirely, a balm for folks who unknowingly activate the flashlight (believe me, there's a better way to turn it on). You can add buttons to recognize music via Shazam, enable Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, enable Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, send money via Tap to Cash and more. Here's how: 1. On the iPhone's lock screen, touch and hold anywhere on the display until you see the Customize button. You'll need to unlock the phone using Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. If it opens the home screen, swipe down from the center-top of the screen (not the right edge, which brings up Control Center. 2. Tap Customize and then choose Lock Screen. 3. Remove one of the buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon. 4. To replace the button with another function, tap its space (now with a + icon) and then choose the one you want on the next screen. (You can also opt to leave that space empty with no button.) 5. Repeat those steps for the other button if you want to change it. 6. Tap Done when you're finished. 7. Tap the lock screen again to exit the customize mode. Remove a lock screen button by tapping the – (minus) button, and then choose a new control to replace it. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Get important alerts using Prioritize Notifications For iPhone models that can run Apple Intelligence, a new option in iOS 18.4 is fast becoming one of my favorite AI features. Go to Settings > Notifications, and under Apple Intelligence, tap Prioritize Notifications. As new alerts come in -- and some days feel like they arrive in floods -- Apple Intelligence determines which ones are more likely to be important to you. For example, texts from people in your contacts could be flagged in favor of random scam messages. On that settings screen, you can enable or disable priority notifications for individual apps. In iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence can prioritize notifications to grab your attention. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E and iPhone 16 Pro replaced the dedicated mute switch found on every earlier iPhone model with a configurable control. 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, performing multiple actions at once or even ordering coffee. The iOS 18.4 update adds Visual Intelligence as an option for the Action button. That makes the AI technology available on the iPhone 16E, which does not include the novel new Camera Control but is now an option for any iPhone with an Action button. In iOS 18, the Action button gets new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and choose a control of your choice, such as opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or using Shazam to identify a song. To choose a different action for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to select and activate one of the available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the Choose button to pick which specific action to run. iOS 18 now lets you program the Action Button with your favorite Control Center control. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Give your home screen a radical new look You wouldn't think that putting icons where you want is a radical new feature, but that's because iOS has always had a locked arrangement. 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. In iOS 18, apps can be positioned nearly anywhere. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They still adhere to a grid -- Apple isn't about to sanction anarchy -- but can be placed freely. 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. Arrange apps: Touch and hold the home screen to enter "jiggle mode," and then drag the icons to new positions. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want. Position app icons where you want so this very good girl isn't covered. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. Maps, for instance, can be a map of your current location with shortcut buttons to search for places or bring up a list of nearby places (such as dinner spots). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a row of resize buttons in the menu that appears. Once expanded beyond the standard icon size, you can drag the handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon. To get it back to its single icon size you need to touch and hold again and choose the single-icon button Some apps can be expanded into larger icons that act like widgets. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Set Dark mode: 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. iOS has previously included a Dark mode, where light backgrounds switch to black or dark gray, text switches to white or light gray and other interface elements are dimmed to 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. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and choose Customize from the menu. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: Automatic, Dark or Light (I'll get to Tinted in a moment). In Dark mode, the icons gain black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock become 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.) In the home screen's Dark mode, icons and the background are given a darker treatment. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET In Dark mode, the background image also changes. Apple's default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output. If you want dark icons but aren't a fan of the dimmed photo treatment, tap the sun icon in the corner of the options sheet at the bottom of the screen to toggle back to Light mode just for the background. Tinted icons: A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. In the Customize options at the bottom of the screen, choose Tinted as the icon style. You can then adjust the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range) to choose the color tint you prefer. Apply a universal tint to all app icons, with controls for adjusting the hue and luminosity. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET What if you want to match a color from a background image? Tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle to pinpoint the color you want -- the border indicates the selected 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. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button. Make the home screen icons larger and hide the app labels. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET After making any of these changes, tap anywhere on the screen to apply them and exit the Customize interface. Change up how the Control Center looks Control Center was once a convenient place to quickly access controls such as playback volume and Airplane mode but under iOS 18 it's a configurable 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). To enter edit mode, touch and hold or press the + button at the top-left corner. Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. Many of the controls also include a bottom-right handle that can resize the control -- in most cases, it reveals the name of the control and its current status (such as Flashlight Off). Rearrange the controls in Control Center and, for some, expand them to reveal more information (or just make the button a larger target for pressing). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Control Center also now spans 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. Look closely and you'll see that those screens are actually individual controls expanded to occupy the entire Control Center area. 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). Some controls get their own screens, such as Home. Normally it's on the third screen, but here it's been moved to the second screen. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET To remove controls, tap the – (minus) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll through the available options ranging from starting a Screen Recording to a host of accessibility options. Read more: All the new controls you can add to Control Center Lock or hide any of your sensitive apps Our phones carry some of our most sensitive data and yet it's not uncommon to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up something online. That doesn't mean they're going to snoop but it doesn't not 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. For example, let's say you keep an ongoing set of lists of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Maybe a few ideas were made as individual quick notes or drawings. 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 Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled) from the menu that appears. Confirm your choice by tapping Require Face ID (or similar) in the next dialog. Lock individual apps. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose Don't Require Face ID (or similar). Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked -- you'll find out when you try to open it. There's one more level of app security available, which is to hide apps in a special locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose Require Face ID and then tap Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog. Confirm the action by tapping Hide App 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 Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID. When you choose Hide and Require Face ID to protect an app, it gets put into the Hidden folder in App Library (top). Tap the folder and authenticate to access the app (bottom). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET 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. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself when you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library. Turn off Loop Videos in the Photos app Many apps have implemented a small but annoying (to me) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18.2 has it too: 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. Now I can take action once. Go to Settings > Photos, scroll down until you see Loop Videos and turn the option off. A video will play on its own but then stop at the end as it should. Turn off Loop Videos to stop every video from replaying automatically. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET If you'd rather the video didn't play at all until you tap the Play button, also turn off Auto-Play Motion in the same Settings screen. Adjust the view of your calendar Big new features like locking and hiding apps are great additions but so are the tiny changes that you encounter every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule. In iOS 18, when you're in the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. As you "zoom in," individual events appear as colored bars and then as labeled events with times, all while keeping the monthly grid of days and weeks. In the Calendar app's Month view, pinch to zoom in and see more details. Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new Multi Day view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what's coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button at the top of the Single Day view and choose Multi Day from the popup menu. The new Multi Day view in the Calendar shows two days at once (right). Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET Improve movie and TV show dialogue 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 buy soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech. There are a lot of reasons it's harder to hear dialogue but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern. While you're watching a video in the TV app, tap the More (…) button and then expand the Audio heading in the menu that appears; if the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost. They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue's audio. Turn on Enhance Dialogue in the TV app to discern characters' speech better in noisy scenes. Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET These are just a few new features and changes in iOS 18. 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 iPhone 16 models.
WIRED
31-07-2025
- WIRED
Still Using Windows 10? Here's How to Get Another Year of Updates for Free
Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica If you're not ready to upgrade, you can still get security updates until October 2026 by enrolling in Microsoft's ESU program. Photograph:Officially, Microsoft will stop providing new security updates for Windows 10 PCs after October 14, 2025, a little over a decade after its initial release. It's a stick that Microsoft is using to push upgrades to the newer Windows 11, whether you install it on a PC you already have or buy a brand-new PC to meet Windows 11's system requirements. But if you can't or don't want to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft has made it reasonably simple to get an extra year of Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for Windows 10, extending its official support window to October of 2026. But this won't happen automatically; users will need to enroll their PCs in the ESU program to get the updates, using an enrollment feature that Microsoft just released to Windows 10 PCs recently. For anyone looking to get that extra year of updates, here's how to enroll your PC, how to make sure your PC is enrolled, and how to avoid paying the $30 fee that Microsoft is nominally charging for these updates. Enrolling Your Windows 10 PC in the Esu Program To enroll your PC in the ESU program, you'll need to meet Microsoft's list of requirements and anti-requirements, which we'll summarize here for convenience: A PC running Windows 10 Home, Pro, Pro Education, or Workstation with all available update installed. An administrator account. A Microsoft account. Even if you usually sign in with a local account, you need a Microsoft account to acquire the ESU license. The PC can't be in kiosk mode, joined to an Active Directory domain, joined to Microsoft Entra, or enrolled in any kind of mobile device management (MDM), which will cover a lot of workplace PCs. Microsoft has separate ESU programs for businesses, schools, and other large organizations. If your PC meets those conditions, you'll enroll in the ESU program by opening the Settings app and clicking Windows Update. You should see a status message telling you that Windows 10 updates end in October of 2025, with an "enroll now" link you can click to enroll in the Extended Security Updates program. If you're not already signing in with a Microsoft account, you'll be asked to use one here. This can be temporary, if you want it to be—once you've enrolled a given PC, you can sign back out of the Microsoft account and still get the ESUs. But you'll need an account every time you enroll a new PC, or if you do a fresh install of Windows 10 on your PC and need to re-enroll. There are three ways to get an ESU license: You can pay a $30 one-time purchase, you can redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or you can back up settings with the Windows Backup app. Of these, the Backup app is the most painless; it backs up some saved credentials, some Windows settings, and some Windows apps to your account. It can also back up folders you specify, if your account has the space for them (the paltry 5GB you get for free won't be good for much, but it's there). I had already used the Windows Backup app with my Microsoft Account at some point in the past, so I was automatically offered free enrollment into the ESU program. Whichever option you choose, click the Enroll button, and your PC will be signed up for the extra year of updates. A status message in the Windows Update app will confirm that your PC has been enrolled. You'll get security updates for Windows itself through October of 2026, and Microsoft has separately committed to providing Microsoft Defender Antivirus definitions updates and security updates for supported Microsoft Office versions through at least 2028. What if I Don't Want To Store Anything With Microsoft? We know that some of you want absolutely nothing to do with a Microsoft account, despite the company's push to require one as a precondition of using any version of Windows 11. If this describes you, the good news is that you can enroll in the ESU program without needing to stay enrolled in Windows Backup or without staying signed in to a Microsoft account at all. To stop using Windows backup, navigate to Settings, Accounts, and click Windows backup, and turn off all the toggles to stop future backups from happening. You should be able to clear any previous backup settings by going to your Microsoft account settings in a web browser, navigating to the Devices tab, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "Clear stored settings." Any files synced via OneDrive can be managed via its web interface. To sign out of a Microsoft account altogether, navigate to Settings, Accounts, and the Your Info tab. There, you should either be able to click a link labeled "sign in with a local account instead" or "stop signing in to all Microsoft apps automatically," depending on how you signed in in the first place. After swapping back to a local account, you can also navigate to Settings, Accounts, and the Email & Accounts tab and remove any Microsoft accounts you see here if you don't want to use them for Edge or other Windows apps on your PC. Even after removing all vestiges of all Microsoft accounts from your PC, you'll still see the "your PC is enrolled to get Extended Security Updates" status message on the Windows Update page. We'd prefer to be able to get the updates without the rigmarole, but for people who can't or don't want to install Windows 11, the extra year of security patches is worth 10 or 15 minutes of irritation. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
Tahawul Tech
29-07-2025
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Microsoft SharePoint suffers hack by Chinese groups
Microsoft has reported that their SharePoint servers have been hacked by Chinese 'threat actors' targeting the data of businesses using the service. China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have 'exploited vulnerabilities' in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service. The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them. 'China firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks and cyber crime,' China's US embassy spokesman said in a statement. 'At the same time, we also firmly oppose smearing others without solid evidence,' continued Liu Pengyu in the statement posted on X. Microsoft said it had 'high confidence' the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates. 'Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,' Microsoft said in a statement. It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues. Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server 'enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors'. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre said this included 'a limited number' of SharePoint Server customers in the UK. Charles Carmakal, Chief Technology Officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told BBC News it was 'aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies'. Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target. A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims' SharePoint data, he said. 'This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That's why this is significant,' Carmakal said. Carmakal said the 'China-nexus actor' was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing. Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had 'focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organisations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights' for 13 years. It added that Violet Typhoon had been 'dedicated to espionage', primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organisations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia. Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was 'assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor'. Source: BBC News Image Credit: Microsoft
CNET
28-07-2025
- CNET
Microsoft Is Giving Windows 10 Users Free Security Updates for a Year, but There's a Catch
As Microsoft gets ready to sunset Windows 10, security support is scheduled to end in October. You can get a one-year extended security update for $30. But if you want to stick with Windows 10 for another year, you might be better off with Microsoft's free option -- you'll just need to use cloud backup and connect it with your OneDrive account. The ability to get free updates on Windows 10 is a pretty big deal because it is still the most widely used Windows OS, accounting for just over 53% of installs as of May 2025. That leaves millions of people without security support in just a few months unless they upgrade. So the cloud backup option gives users a way out without costing them any money. The only potential issue is OneDrive. Anyone with a Microsoft account gets up to 5GB of storage for free. However, as The Verge points out, some backups may exceed this limitation, requiring users to purchase a monthly or yearly plan. At $2 per month for 100GB of cloud storage, a year of OneDrive still costs less than the $30 for a year of additional security updates, but it may still cause frustration among some customers. Windows 10 was released a decade ago, in July 2015. Microsoft will be rolling out the ESU wizard in July 2025. Microsoft How to get Windows 10 security updates for free Per Microsoft's blog post, there are now three options for those who want to stay on Windows 10 and still receive security updates: Use Windows Backup to sync settings to the cloud via OneDrive. Redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points. Redeeming those points can buy you one year of security updates. Pay $30 for the extended security updates program. You will be presented with these options starting in July, which is when Microsoft plans to roll out the sign-up wizard for the Extended Security Updates program. Signing up for this option will guarantee updates until Oct. 13, 2026, although businesses will have the option to purchase up to three years of additional updates. So, this isn't a long-term solution, but rather gives you more time to upgrade to Windows 11. It's been an uphill battle for Microsoft, as people have been reluctant to upgrade their existing hardware. There are myriad differences between the two operating systems, but Microsoft's string of unpopular decisions along with Windows 11 compatibility issues have kept the prior generation OS around a lot longer than it normally would be.
