Technologies

Doom: The Dark Ages Preview: Hands-On With a Heavy Metal Album-Turned-Shooter

The next action-packed FPS in the vaunted Doom franchise slows down the pace for a different flavor of gothic carnage.

The reboot of the Doom franchise starting with the titular 2016 title into a fast-paced shooter was a resounding success, and its 2020 sequel Doom Eternal ramped up the speed even more. So it may have come to surprise fans that developer id Software decided to slow things down for the third installment, Doom: The Dark Ages — but after playing several hours of the game, I’ve mostly enjoyed the new direction they’ve taken the gruesome shooter, which admirably reshuffles the ingredients to tickle similar Doom urges with new flavors.

At a preview event in Los Angeles, California, id Software and publisher Bethesda brought journalists and influencers to play an over 3-hour chunk of Doom: The Dark Ages. The substantial playtime included an early slice of the linear campaign, samplings of the mecha and dragon-back combat and a later extended segment in a huge map carved into arenas — enough time to get a feel for the flow of fights and upgrades.

The Dark Ages is a prequel to the 2016 Doom game, which itself had such a thin story that players shouldn’t worry terribly if they’ve forgotten what happened (or never played). The newest game is flung so far in the past that it doesn’t really matter — the Doom Slayer as a character is functionally immortal, so this adventure seems to be opening the games up to flinging him around in time to shake up the setting.

And boy, what a setting. As trailers have shown, The Dark Ages takes place in the kind of medieval fantasy splayed on metal album covers and airbrushed on the sides of vans — demons, dragons and Doom Slayers make for a rollicking mix of blood and thunder. Sure, there are some sci-fi starships and tech to handwave players teleporting between stages and equipping a plethora of firearms, but everyone agrees that it also makes sense to bring a shield with a buzzsaw to a gunfight.

That gun-and-melee alchemy is at the center of The Dark Ages, and it’s clear a ton of tinkering has gone into how players employ their new shield. This time around, players are rooted to the ground — no more dashing around — to transition from the frenetic fights of the recent Doom games into the brutal slugfests of The Dark Ages. Shoot, block, shoot, counter, deathblow — it’s a ballet of brutality.

I found myself missing the air-dashes of the earlier Doom games, and it took time to get used to bringing up my shield instead of keeping constantly on the move. But there are a handful of tools to keep you from hunkering behind the shield (which can only take so many shots before being temporarily disabled) — you can dash and bash with your shield to close distance as well as make special melee attacks (which have a certain amount of uses before needing to recharge).

I had to watch my limited ammo, health and armor on top of tracking enemies, which was a lot to keep track of, and it took practically the whole preview session to feel halfway competent in the combat flow. It’s color-coded: avoid the orange blasts but use your shield to block the green ones to damage or disable enemies; when near death, they’ll glow purple for you to finish them off. Further into the demo, I found more interactions — like enemies wearing armor, which needed to be shot enough to glow red-hot, after which I could throw my shield to shatter it, leaving them vulnerable.

The fantasy setting liberates the franchise from its high-tech veneer, setting aside pulse rifles for a menagerie of inventive, medieval destruction methods: a buzzsaw added to the shield to throw into enemies, a magazine-fed stake thrower, a gun that churns up skulls to spew room-clearing bone fragments and even a gun that fires a heavy ball on a chain like a projectile flail. Upgrades creatively expand the moveset: the plasma-firing gun, for instance, can be shot at an enemy you’ve lodged your shield into to electrify surrounding enemies.

Slaughter from on high: Mech and dragon segments are fun diversions

Amid the carnage of its new shield-and-gun focus, early trailers of Doom: The Dark Ages showed peeks at new gameplay sequences that got fans excited: piloting a colossal mech and riding a cybernetically enhanced dragon. My preview jumped to time with both, and I have a clear favorite. (It’s the mech.)

When I climbed into the Atlan, as the Doom Slayer-looking mech is called, the game zoomed out to accommodate my skyscraper frame. The scale is the fun here. Each prodigious step made the ground quake, and I effortlessly plowed through bridges filled with enemies that would’ve taken a lot of effort to eliminate on foot. I stomped on squads of tanks to get in range of massive demons — which, naturally, I punched the daylights out of.

Atlan combat is a slugfest, with amazing sound selling the colossal crunch of my massive fists colliding with a demon’s face. And yes, there’s a bit of a mechanical flow: pummeling enemies builds up a meter to stomp a directional column or fire energy blasts. While out of range, I engaged a rocket punch to close the distance. It sold me on how these Pacific Rim-esque sequences clashing with Kaiju-size demons will break up the extended gunplay on the ground (and feel metal as heck).

The dragon sequences were, sad to say, not as fun.

I hear you, readers: how can the Doom Slayer clambering on the back of a dragon with neon red holo-wings, jet thrusters and a machine gun be droll? But all that promised speed and excitement of riding an iconic fantasy beast straight off the cover of Heavy Metal gets slowed way, way down for the sections I played.

I dashed through levels at top speed until it was time to take on enemies, which just led to my dragon hovering around while I took out stationary foes shooting at me — which is fine to mix in some bullet hell gameplay, but disappointing compared with the swift and lithe dragon combat I was expecting. I might as well have been shooting out of a stationary helicopter.

There’s some cool toying with scope in the dragon section I played, wherein I systematically took down a demon battleship’s (Hell Carrier, technically) turrets and main gun before diving in to destroy the massive vessel’s central core from the inside. Rinse and repeat for a few more ships, which gave me time to understand and grudgingly adapt to a dodge mechanic in the stationary sections, which felt more punishing than rewarding.

But even after struggling through this section, there was the undeniable bright spot of the game’s commitment to fist-pumping moments — like whittling down an annoying colossal demon until I could activate a finisher, when my dragon flew forward and wrenched its jaws apart to spew jets of flame down its throat. Heavy metal as hell.

The best for last: Siege, an open range of death-dealing

The fourth and final section of the demo was simply called Siege. Whereas the first on-foot section I played followed early Doom games in a fairly linear path with a few offshoots, the siege opened up to a huge map — essentially multiple contained arenas connected by paths and walkways, each of which you could assault in the order you choose, with plenty of secret areas tucked into the sides.

If the first levels were a classroom teaching the rhythms of combat, this was the test: broad swaths of enemies, from foot soldiers to towering Cyberdemons, all hitting you at once. But hey, you’ve trained for this (right?), and in this section, Bethesda gave me plenty of tools to dish out death.

Like in previous Doom games, Dark Ages has a spread of difficulty settings for the gluttons for punishment — and in a big win for accessibility, there are lots of toggles to tweak enemy health, damage taken, lengthening the parry window and more to get the player experience just right. Of the six difficulties, I brazenly chose the third (Ultra-Violence), a hard mode just above normal (Hurt Me Plenty), and muscled through the demo session.

The first area of the siege stopped me short, and try as I might, the Cyberdemon leading that first array of enemies wiped the floor with me. After reluctantly dipping down to the normal difficulty, I eked out a win and pushed forward into the massive map, looking over the surrounding hills and deciding which pack of enemies to take on next.

Tucked into the corners of the maps were caches and secret sections that often awarded gold, which could be spent at Sentinel Shrine statues to upgrade my skills. These are split into multiple trees for melee, shield and guns, the latter of which I felt were most rewarding and brought out the individuality of each gun. Unlike previous Doom games where I mainlined one or two weapons, Dark Ages’ variety of enemies and situations had me fluidly rotating between my arsenal of guns (when I remembered to in the heat of battle, anyway).

The siege section took me about an hour to work through in its entirety, prying into secret areas and systematically clearing out arenas full of different mixes of demons. I wandered across grassy hills between gothic village buildings while, in the background, a friendly Atlan engaged in a prolonged slugging match with a colossal archfiend. It was atmospheric but not distractingly so; the game is tuned to keep the focus on the enemies in front of you.

In the first section of the demo, the grim future-fantasy story unfurls with the captive Doom Slayer, restrained by a mysterious energy bolt on his chest, shot down to a medieval planet as a last resort to save the people of a king. «Before he became a hero, he was the super weapon of gods and kings,» a title card read. It’s soon clear that the Doom Slayer is a pawn in a political game between squabbling humans and demonic nobility. It laid the groundwork for what is, canonically, the first story told about the mythical man who only knows combat against the forces of Hell.

But the last section of the demo, the siege, was the real bones of what players will experience in Doom: The Dark Ages. Bethesda has tinkered and tweaked the Doom formula to force players to shoot to a different beat; from the demo, they’ve succeeded, which is admirable considering how much players enjoyed the fast-paced combat of the earlier games. The gunplay is tight, but so are the animations and deliciously crunchy sound effects, timed perfectly to make the player feel they’re battering apart the meanest baddies Hell can summon.

These days, the games industry seems risk-averse, producing sequels that feel too much like rehashes of whatever came before. Judging by the demo, which was only about four hours of play, the Dark Ages could be the difference, delivering the brutal feel of fighting through a Doom game with entirely new systems, weapons and mechanics as medieval as its theme.

We’ll know if this demo is representative of the whole game when Doom: The Dark Ages comes out on May 13 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Dec. 27, #460

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Dec. 27, No. 460.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a real challenge. That purple category wants you to hunt out something related in four different words, and it’s a toughie. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Something you save.

Green group hint: An Olympic sport.

Blue group hint: Toronto pitchers.

Purple group hint: Think about the alphabet and look for something hidden.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Memento.

Green group: Types of wrestling.

Blue group: Blue Jays to win Cy Young Award.

Purple group: Ends in a homophone for a letter of the alphabet.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is memento. The four answers are collectible, keepsake, memorabilia and souvenir.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is types of wrestling. The four answers are arm, freestyle, Greco-Roman and sumo.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Blue Jays to win Cy Young Award. The four answers are Clemens, Halladay, Hentgen and Ray.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a homophone for a letter of the alphabet. The four answers are batter’s eye (I), blue jay (J), golf tee (T) and pool cue (Q).

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Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Dec. 27, #1,652

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Dec. 27, No. 1,652.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle came together pretty quickly for me this time. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with B.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with H.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a quantity of goods produced at one time.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is BATCH.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Dec. 26, No. 1651 was SPEED.

Recent Wordle answers

Dec. 22, No. 1647: CONCH

Dec. 23, No. 1648: GLINT

Dec. 24, No. 1649: SPOOL

Dec. 25, No. 1650: PRISM

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Technologies

Not Ready for iOS 26? 10 iOS 18 Tweaks You Can Make Instead

If you’re still holding onto iOS 18, make these 10 changes to keep your iPhone running smoothly.

Still holding out on the inevitable update to iOS 26? You’re not the only one; you’ve likely seen chatter about reports of severe battery drain and the overall disappointment with the new Liquid Glass design. Apple is clearly aware of the friction, as shown by its ongoing development of the iOS 26.2 beta. For those of us committed to the stability and performance of iOS 18, there’s no reason to rush to install an OS that’s unfamiliar.

If your iPhone is still running on iOS 18 and you’re determined to maintain peak performance without touching the newer OS, you’re in the right place. I’ve compiled 10 iOS 18 tweaks that can enhance your device’s performance. Implementing these adjustments is remarkably simple, requiring as little as one minute per change.

Before you consider an upgrade that could introduce lag or instability, optimizing your current OS is the best strategy. By using and modifying these lesser-known settings, you can ensure your iPhone runs smoothly and efficiently, getting the maximum performance from an OS you’re familiar with.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Turn off categories in the Mail app

With 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.

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 is an easy thumb press away when your device is still locked. Before iOS 18, those posts were held by the flashlight and camera buttons, and there was 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.

Get important alerts using Prioritize Notifications

For iPhone models that can run Apple Intelligence, a new option introduced 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.

Set up some of the new tasks available on the Action button

The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, iPhone 16E, iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 17 line 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 added 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, 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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 also to widgets. 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? Now, you can remove them and increase the size of the icons with one setting. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button.

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).

The Control Center also now spans multiple screens. Swipe up to view controls for currently playing media, 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).

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 pop-up menu.

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, 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.

These are just a few selected features and changes in iOS 18. Check out our broader coverage of AI, including Apple Intelligence.