iOS 16 is finally here, and after spending a few weeks on Apple’s best iPhone operating system, we’ve discovered a lot more than the headlines Apple revealed. Yes, the lock screen overhaul is great, the added widgets are great, and so are the deeper integration of focus modes. However, iOS 16 offers more than that. Here are some of our favorite “secret” iOS 16 features you might have missed.
Extract subject from photo
If you’ve browsed your photo library in iOS 16, you might accidentally start dragging parts of your photo out of the background. That’s thanks to a new feature in iOS 16 that lets you drag subjects from Photos to move them to different apps. There are even apps that turn those photos into stickers for use in iMessage.
Change lock screen notification layout
You can show all notifications on the screen, or swipe them down to show only the most recent notifications. You can even hide all of them, leaving only a small section at the bottom of the screen. To do this, just drag the notification to the bottom of the screen.
Bypass captcha
iOS 16 allows users to skip captcha by essentially requesting a security token on their behalf. Go to settings, then your iCloud account and password and security. You’ll find the option to enable automatic verification at the bottom.
Tactile keyboard
The haptic keyboard setup in iOS 16 is great for providing feedback when you’re using your device’s haptic input.
To turn it on, open Settings, then select Sounds & Haptics, then Keyboard Feedback. Here, you can use the toggle switch to turn on haptics, sound, or both.
Clear your photo duplicates
While organizing your photo library isn’t the most enjoyable task, there’s a way to instantly identify duplicates and combine them into a single image.
To find it, open Photos and tap Albums at the bottom. Scroll all the way to the Utilities section at the bottom and tap Repeat. Here, you’ll see all your doubles and can merge them into each image, saving space on your device or iCloud account.
Use Face ID in landscape orientation
It’s a little touch you may not have noticed yet, but it’s certainly a welcome touch. Face ID has been around since the iPhone X, but it always works in portrait mode — which means you’ll often have to flip the phone over. Borrowing a trick from recent iPads, you can now also unlock your phone in landscape orientation.
Use Live Text in Video
Live Text is a great way to extract key data from images you take yourself or find online. iOS 16 brings this feature to video, with one caveat – it can only handle still images.
Custom Spatial Audio
If you have any Spatial Audio-enabled Apple headphones, connect them to your iPhone and open Settings. Tap Bluetooth, then tap the “i” icon next to the headset. Then head to the Personalize Spatial Audio option.
Your phone will need to scan your ear shape with the camera (it works much like the original Face ID setup process), and you’ll build your custom spatial audio profile in seconds.
Full screen audio player
If you’ve been wondering how to let the audio of your choice take over your lock screen, just tap the album art. Doing so maximizes it and matches the lock screen’s colors to whatever you’re listening to. Click it again to minimize it. It’s a nice feature that adds more variety to your lock screen, but it’s also easy to miss.
Added battery percentage indicator
When Apple unceremoniously removed it, iPhone users were just getting used to having a battery percentage indicator on the status bar.
Thankfully, it’s back with iOS 16, but not on all phones — some users report it’s not present on the iPhone 11, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 13 mini, or iPhone XR.
However, if your Face ID iPhone is not one of these models, go into your Settings app, tap Battery, and check the battery percentage option.
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