Once you have successfully installed iOS 10 (which is harder than it sounds, considering the update effectively bricked many users’ iPhones), you’ll notice that Apple has made some pretty awesome changes under the hood. Here are the 19 features we are most excited about.
1. Quickly unsubscribe from newsletters. Now you can unsubscribe from those newsletters that are clogging your inbox and that you know you’ll never read — right from within the Apple Mail app! At the top of the message, there is a dialogue box informing you that the content was sent to you as part of a mailing list, along with a helpful blue “unsubscribe” button. Easy-peasy!
2. Filter messages by unread. Another great feature in the Mail app — a little late to the game maybe, but it’s here now — is the ability to filter your emails by unread. A simple tap on the filter icon in the bottom left corner will allow you to change the setting to “Filtered by: Unread.” No more sifting through your thousands of emails to find the two unread messages that are keeping that annoying red badge present on your nicely organized home screen.
3. Prioritize app installation. If you’ve ever downloaded multiple apps (or app updates) at once and been frustrated when the one you really wanted ended up being last, you’ll love iOS 10. Now you can use 3D Touch on any app waiting to be downloaded and you’ll get the option to “Prioritize Download” so you don’t have to wait anymore for the apps you really care about.
4. Hide unwanted apps. FINALLY Apple has heard our prayers and now allows the removal of those pesky apps that no one uses (looking at you, Stocks). Simply long press on the apps like you would with any other apps and press the little “x” that appears.
5. Optimized storage. Apple Music has made some changes as well. If you find your music is taking up too much space on your iPhone (and you haven’t pre-ordered the new, larger-capacity iPhone), you can tell Apple Music to free up that space by removing downloaded songs you haven’t listened to for a certain period of time. Go to Settings > Music > Downloaded to access this feature.
6. Enjoy nonstop tunes. Now the music won’t stop if you open up Camera to take a photo. It will still stop if you take video or record your voice, however.
7. Close all Safari tabs. If you’re like us and somehow accrue upwards of 20 tabs in Safari, rest assured you can now close them all simultaneously; just open Safari and hit the tab view button (the two overlapping squares in the bottom right). From here, long press on “Done” to bring up the option to “Close 20 Tabs.”
8. Close all notifications. No longer do we have to suffer through hitting the “x” for each group of apps in the Notification Center. Now you can do it by just using 3D Touch on ONE “x” to bring up the option to “Clear All.”
9. Choose flashlight dimmer options. Now you can avoid blinding your S.O. as you fumble around in the morning trying to get ready for school or work. Pulling up the control center and using 3D Touch on the flashlight icon will pull up three options for brightness: low, medium and high. Perfect for when you need light, but not that much light.
10. Send read receipts only to certain people. If you only want to let some people know when you’ve seen their messages, you can tap on the ‘i’ icon in the circle at the top right of their messages to toggle read receipts for that contact only. You can toggle “Do Not Disturb” here too, so if someone is bothering you, you can silence them for a while.
11. Conserve data with lower quality images. Usually you don’t need to send National Geographic-worthy photos to your friends, so if you head over to Settings > Messages> Enable Low Quality Image Mode, it will reduce the image quality so that you don’t use as much data.
12. Go back to Touch to Unlock. If you’re like us and miss simply touching the home button to unlock your iPhone, don’t worry — you can restore this feature by going to Settings > General > Accessibility > Home Button and enable “Rest Finger to Open.” Pretty retro, right?
13. Raise to wake. We’re sure you’ve discovered this one already, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s so dang useful. Now you can simply raise your phone to see the notifications on your lock screen without accidentally bypassing it because you need to touch a button to wake it up.
14. Third-party apps can now use Siri. Before, the use of Siri was limited to Apple apps and simple requests like looking up something on the Internet or calculating a sum. Now, the apps Siri supports include LinkedIn, Lyft and Venmo, to name a few. Go to Settings > Siri > App Support to toggle which apps can use Siri.
15. Handle notifications from the lock screen — and other apps. Using 3D Touch on various notifications on the lock screen will allow you to interact directly with them without unlocking your phone and opening the app in question. You can also handle notifications from other apps. For example, if you get a message while you’re surfing the Internet, you can pull down on the message alert to quickly respond to it — a lot easier than going back and forth between apps.
16. Search photos with keywords.If you can’t find a photo you’re looking for just by scrolling through all the photos you’ve taken, you can search using simple keywords like “sunset” or “lawn.”When you search, you’ll see that some categories have already been created.
17. Shout (or whisper) in iMessages. Sometimes, messages just don’t carry enough weight. Sometimes you need to shout. After you’ve typed your message, long press on the blue send button (this only works in iMessages, not regular SMS messages) and options will appear to make the text loud or gentle, and you can make an even bigger impact by having the message slam into place.
18. Send fireworks, lasers and confetti. If the loud and quiet features aren’t enough for you, you can also shower your friends’ screens with confetti, lasers and fireworks, among other things.
19. Have your voicemails transcribed. When you receive a voicemail and hit “play,” your iPhone will now transcribe your voicemail so you can quickly read it instead of having to listen to it. Since this feature is still in its early stages, it can’t capture every single word perfectly, but we’ve tried it and are happy to say that it does well enough to make the message understandable, even if there are a few blanks.
