11 hidden features in iOS 16 that will make using your iPhone so much better

You might be happy with everything your iPhone can do, but if you’re on iOS 16, your phone is more powerful than you think. Under all the major new features, such as Not sending text messages and a Renewal of the lock screenThere are lesser-known and impressive tools and settings that can help make your everyday life more efficient, interesting, and enjoyable.

I’m going to walk you through what you need to know about the best hidden gems in iOS 16, like password-protected photo albums and Easily accessible Wi-Fi passwords.

Read more: All new features in iOS 16.3

And while you’re here, make sure you also brush up on the major New iOS 16 features you’ll love And A Few You Might Hate (Fortunately, There’s A Solution).

View and share saved Wi-Fi passwords

View and Share Saved Wi-Fi Passwords Apple has allowed iOS users to share Wi-Fi passwords for a while now, but only by placing two Apple devices close together. And if this feature doesn’t work automatically, you can’t just find out the password from your settings. Additionally, if you want to share a saved Wi-Fi password with someone else, like an Android user or someone on a computer, you have to remember the password. So far.

In Settings, go to WIFI And tap the little info icon to the right of the network you want the password for. To view the network password, tap password Then use Face ID or enter your passcode to view it. You can then click copy Copy the password to your clipboard and share it.

Find and remove duplicate photos and videos

Perhaps you’ve saved the same photo multiple times or downloaded a video more than once, littering your photo album with duplicates. It may not be a problem if you have backup storage, but you are running out of storage space, now you can remove every copy easily with iOS 16.

Read more: You can finally see the saved Wi-Fi passwords on your iPhone

in Pictures > albumsyou should see a new file redundant album under facilities. Apple scans all of your photos and shows you any photo or video you’ve saved more than once to this album. From there, you can either delete any duplicates, or simply compress Mergewhich will keep the highest quality image (and related data) and then move the other images to the trash.

Although you’ll likely want to go through each set of duplicates, to make sure they are actually exact copies and not mirror images, you can also click Choose > Select all > Merge To remove every photo and video that Apple thinks is a duplicate, all at once.

End a phone call or FaceTime call with Siri

Siri does many things. You can use the virtual assistant to send a text, get directions, or play music — but one thing you couldn’t do was hang up on the phone. weird right? Now this is finally possible with iOS 16.

In Settings, go to Siri and Search And make sure first Listen to “Hey Siri” it was turned on. If so, you will see a new option below – Disconnect connection. Go to this option and toggle it off Disconnect connection. When you’re on a phone call or FaceTime video chat, just say, “Hey, Siri,” and ask her to end your current call.

Pair your Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons to your iPhone

Apple has long allowed you to pair third-party controllers, like the PS5 Sony DualSense and Xbox Core Controller, to your iPhone and iPad, in order to comfortably play mobile video games like Apple Arcade Library, Minecraft, and Call of Duty. You can now add another controller to that list.

If you own a Nintendo Switchyou can now Pair Joy-Con controllers with your iPhone or iPad Running iOS 16. To get started, press and hold the little black pairing button on the Joy-Con, until the green lights start to flicker back and forth. This means that the device is in pairing mode. Next, unlock your iPhone and go to settings > bluetooth and select a file Joey Con from the list. Repeat this step for the other Joy-Con.

Recently deleted and hidden albums are now password protected

Obviously, the hidden album in the Photos app is not hidden, as anyone can easily see it. This makes hiding private photos and videos impractical. While Apple has an option to make a hidden album “invisible,” anyone with access to your phone can make it visible again and view everything inside.

Thanks to iOS 16, you can now lock the hidden album. You don’t actually need to do anything to toggle this feature on. If you want to check this out, launch the Photos app and go to albums tab at the bottom of the screen. If you scroll down, you will see a small padlock next to a file hidden And Recently deleted albums. To view the contents of those albums, you’ll need to use Face ID or your passcode.

Copy and paste photo and video editing

If you use the editing tool in the Photos app, you’ll be happy to know that you can now copy and paste adjustments, including saturation, contrast, and brightness, between images. If you’ve edited one photo or video and are happy with the look, you can paste those same edits onto any other photo or video in your Camera Roll.

To do this, launch the Photos app and open an edited photo in full screen. Next, tap on the three-dot menu at the top-right corner and then tap Copy edits. This option will only appear if the photo was edited within Photos, not any third-party photo editor. Finally, go to the image you want to copy these edits to, hit the three-dot menu and press Paste edits. After a second or so, the image adjustments should appear.

Bring haptic feedback to your keyboard

iPhone has long had tactile feedback. It’s what you feel under your fingertips when you try to delete an app from your home screen or enter an incorrect password on the lock screen. Oddly enough, haptic feedback was never available for the stock iOS keyboard — until now.

If you’d like to enable a slight vibration for each key you type, go to settings > Sounds and tactile sensations > keyboard notes And switch my touch. The sound option you see is the loud and annoying crackling sound you might hear when you’re typing something and your phone isn’t on silent mode, so keep that disabled.

Pin your favorite tabs to Safari

Safari limits your open tabs at 500, and if you’re getting close to that limit, it can be very difficult to find the exact tab you’re looking for. You can scroll endlessly, but now there’s an easier way to find the exact tab you’re looking for.

In Safari, if you press down on an open tab, you now have the option to click Pin tab. This will move that tab to the top of Safari, where it will be present as a small tab preview, permanently pinned there, which you can then click to view. If you press down and unpin a tab, it will move first in the open tabs grid.

Use Face ID while lying down

If you’ve ever tried to unlock your iPhone while it’s portrait, like when you’re lying on your side, you might have noticed that it didn’t work. You have to hold your iPhone in portrait orientation, or portrait, for Face ID to work. With iOS 16, you can finally use Face ID to unlock your iPhone when it’s in landscape orientation. However, for this to work, you must have an iPhone 13 or 14 running iOS 16.

Copy your screenshots to your clipboard without saving them

You don’t need to save a screenshot to your photo album to share it with someone else. The new iOS 16 feature allows you to take a screenshot, copy it to your clipboard, delete it from your phone, and paste it where you see fit. After taking a screenshot, tap the screenshot preview that appears, and hold did in the upper right, then click Copy and delete Copy the screenshot to your clipboard.

Remove more pre-installed Apple apps

Since iOS 10, I’ve been able to remove some of the pre-installed iOS apps like Stocks, Maps, and Calculator — but not all of them. With the release of iOS 16, you can add three more apps to this list of apps you can remove: Find My, Clock, and Health. However, deleting these apps can negatively affect support with other apps and connected devices, such as the Apple Watch.

For more on iOS 16 and iPhone, check out Cheat sheet for iOS 16.