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These Are the Most Annoying iOS 16 Features (and How You Can Fix Them)

Don’t let these frustrating iPhone features and settings ruin your day.

This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2022, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular product.

There’s a lot to discover in iOS 16. As you probably know by now, you can unsend and edit text messages, as well as emails, and easily crop people or objects from photos with a single press. There are also several hidden features you might not know about, like how to find all your saved Wi-Fi passwords.

But not every new iOS 16 feature is universally loved. For example, the new iPhone home screen search button and unexpected photo pop-ups are are not everyone’s cup of tea.

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Fortunately, most of these iOS 16 features and settings can be disabled or removed altogether.

I’ll help walk you through how to «fix» the most widely unloved new iOS 16 features. And while you’re here, make sure you’ve changed these clutch iPhone settings and brushed up on these two new Apple Maps features.

Read more: Best iPhone 14 Cases So Far

Strip the new search button from your iPhone’s home screen

Your iPhone’s search feature lets you quickly find a text message, third-party app, file, note or location — pretty much anything on your device or on the web. As you know, to get the search bar, you just swipe down anywhere on the screen, and it appears.

With iOS 16, Apple adds another way to access Search from the home screen, via a small button right above your dock.

However, the new search button is easy to accidentally trigger, because it’s near where your thumb might go when you swipe between your various home pages.

But, like many new features on iOS 16, you can turn this setting off. Simply launch the Settings app, go to Home Screen and toggle off Show on Home Screen to remove the search button from your home screen.

The Search bubble should disappear, replaced by a few small dots representing your various home screens.

Stop unexpected (and embarrassing) photo popups on your iPhone screen

Apple’s artificial intelligence helps surface photos and videos in various places across your iPhone, as a reminder of family vacations, couple photos and holidays — but you may not always want your personal pictures to pop up unexpectedly, especially if they’re private, embarrassing or inappropriate.

With iOS 16, you can now prevent Featured Photos, as well as curated collections known as Memories, from appearing in photo widgets on your home screen and the Search and For You sections in Photos.

To block these tailored photos, launch the Settings app, go into Photos and toggle off Show Featured Content. All featured content will no longer appear across your device — instead, it’ll only be available in your photo library and albums.

Keep from accidentally ending your own phone calls

The side/power button on the side of your iPhone allows you to quickly sleep and wake up your device, but if you accidentally hit it during a phone call, you’ll prematurely end your call. If that’s something you’ve encountered in the past, iOS 16 finally allows you to prevent that from happening.

In Settings, go to Accessibility > Touch and toggle off Lock to End Call to prevent the side button from ending your calls. If you do hit the side button accidentally, your screen will go to sleep, but you’ll stay on your phone call, uninterrupted.

Go back to using old iPhone lock screen notifications

Apple’s latest redesign brings widgets, customizable fonts and colors, a wallpaper gallery and stylized date and time to the lock screen, as well as one overlooked change to notifications. Instead of appearing at the top of your lock screen, notifications now appear at the bottom, which you can then tap on to appear full screen.

However, not everyone may be happy with this change. If you want to go back to the way notifications appeared on iOS 15, launch the Settings application and go to Notifications > Display As. You’ll then see three options:

  • Count: Notifications appear as a numbered count at the bottom of the screen.
  • Stack: Notifications appear in a stack at the bottom of the screen.
  • List: Notifications appear fully across your screen.

To go back to the old notification style, choose the List option.

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Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 29, #432

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Nov. 29, No. 432.

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.


It’s Rivalry Saturday, so Connections: Sports Edition gives a big game a nod with two caregories. 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: Fire it on in there.

Green group hint: Buckeyes.

Blue group hint: Wolverines.

Purple group hint: Not double.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Baseball pitching feats.

Green group: Associated with Ohio State.

Blue group: Associated with Michigan.

Purple group: Triple ____.

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 baseball pitching feats. The four answers are immaculate inning, no-hitter, perfect game and shutout.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Ohio State. The four answers are dotting the I, gray, scarlet and The Horseshoe.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Michigan. The four answers are blue, Hail to the Victors, maize and The Big House.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is triple ____. The four answers are A, crown, double and play.

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