Ten iOS 15 Features You Need to Know

In the latest Apple News, with the release of iOS 15, there’s an abundance of notable features. With all the new updates, there are a number of features that have gone under the radar. Here are a few important features of iOS 15 to improve privacy, accessibility, and ease of use!

1. Focus Mode for work, leisure, and more

With Focus Mode, you can restrict or limit notifications from specific applications (like iMessage or Mail). Doing so will allow you to eliminate daily distractions that may get in the way of work or rest. 

To adjust your focus settings, go to Settings > Focus

Now you can add tags to the Notes in your Notes application! Add any tag by using the “#” hashtag symbol. For example, tag any of your work-related notes with “#work”. 

Tags need to be continuous, with no spaces, but you can use hyphens and underscores when necessary.

Using these tags is a great way to easily sort through your notes and find whatever you’re looking for. 

With the new iOS 15 updates, you can schedule a summary of notifications to be delivered to your phone when it’s convenient for you. 

To do so, go to Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary

This feature will keep you productive by limiting the notifications you receive on your phone throughout the day. Instead of receiving certain notifications when they arrive, you’ll get a summary of notifications at a designated time instead. 

Another great feature of iOS 15 is the ability to relocate the web address bar on Safari. 

You can do this by going to Settings > Safari > Tabs 

You can choose to move the web address bar to the bottom of the screen if that’s more comfortable for you, or keep it at the top of the screen.

Apple has made its Spotlight feature even more powerful with its latest update. Now you can search for photos by location, objects, and even text! 

To enable this feature, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Photos 

Next, turn on the following options: Show App in Search, Show Content in Search, Show on Home Screen, and Suggest App

Now you should have the Spotlight for Photos feature effectively set up.

While the process of finding and setting up widgets hasn’t changed with the new iOS 15 update, there are a new host of home screen widgets. 

A notable addition to the Apple widget catalog is Contacts, which includes a list of 1-6 contacts that you frequently interact with. 

Others include Find My, Mail, App Store, Game Center, and Sleep (which only works if you set up sleep tracking in the Health app). 

Now you can duplicate apps from your App Library to spread them across your home screen pages. For example, you could Duplicate your Twitter app to put it on each one of your home screen pages instead of just one--making it easier to access. 

To do this, go to the App Library and hold down your app of choice to drag and drop it onto whichever page you want. 

You can also use the Spotlight feature to duplicate your apps! Search for the app you want to duplicate and drag it out of Spotlight and onto whichever page you desire. 

There have been new updates to the Apple Translate app that make communication much easier. 

Now you can easily switch to conversation mode by going to the Conversation tab. 

You can even translate speech automatically, instead of tapping the microphone button, by using the new Auto Translate feature.

If you swipe up on any of your photos in your Photo Library you’ll be able to see the image metadata. Now you can see details like location, camera, and lens type. You can even adjust some details like the time and location. 

Another highly-talked-about feature of iOS 15 is the Hide My Email feature. 

To use this feature go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Hide My Email 

This feature will allow you to create temporary “dummy” email addresses to keep your real email address protected from scammers, ad agencies, and other third parties.