Technologies

Hidden iOS 16 Features That Turn Your iPhone Into a Powerhouse

Bet you didn’t know your iPhone could do all this.

Apple released iOS 16 to the public back in September of 2022, and in the months since, we’ve seen even more iPhone updates, the most recent being iOS 16.4 (and iOS 16.4.1). All this new software brought a fresh set of tricks to the iPhone, like unsending text messages and emails and cutting objects out of your photos. Yet, there always seem to be a few extra features and settings hidden within each iPhone update.

I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know about the best lesser-known gems in iOS 16, like password-protected photo albums, easily accessible Wi-Fi passwords and more.

And while you’re here, make sure you also brush up on the major new iOS 16 features you’ll love, and a few that you might just hate (luckily, there’s a fix). If you’re curious about what’s next for Apple, check out what to expect from iOS 16.5.

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 near each other. And if that feature didn’t automatically work, you couldn’t just dig out the password from your settings. Plus if you wanted to share a saved Wi-Fi password with someone else, like an Android user or someone on a computer, you had to remember the password. Until now.

In Settings, go to Wi-Fi and tap the tiny information icon to the right of the network you want the password for. To view the network password, tap the Password section and then use Face ID or enter your passcode to view it. You can then tap Copy to copy the password into your clipboard and share it.

Wi-Fi network settings on iOS 16 — You can view the password for any Wi-Fi network you’ve ever connected to, as long as you’re currently connected to it or near enough that it appears under My Networks.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

iPhone pro tip – A portable charger that doubles as a phone stand

The credit card-sized Anker 622 not only attaches to your MagSafe-compatible iPhone to give it a charge but also has a built-in kickstand so that you can comfortably view and use your device while it gets juice.

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Find and remove duplicate photos and videos

Maybe you’ve saved the same photo multiple times or downloaded a video more than once, resulting in duplicates littering up your photo album. It may not be a problem if you’ve got storage to spare, but you’re running out of space, you can now remove every single duplicate easily with iOS 16.

In Photos > Albums, you should see a new Duplicates album under Utilities. Apple scans through all of your photos and shows you any photo or video you’ve saved more than once in that album. From there, you can either delete any duplicates, or simply press Merge, which will keep the photo with the highest quality (and relevant data) and then move the others to the trash.

Duplicates folder in Photos — Merging will keep the highest quality photo and delete the rest.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Although you’ll probably want to go through each set of duplicates, to ensure that they’re actually exact copies and not similar photos, you can also hit Select > Select All > Merge to remove every single photo and video that Apple thinks is a duplicate, all at once.

Hang up a phone or FaceTime call with Siri

Siri does a lot of things. You can use the virtual assistant to send a text message, get directions or play music — but one thing she’s never been able to do is hang up a phone call. Weird right? Now that’s finally a possibility with iOS 16.

In Settings, go to Siri & Search and first make sure Listen for “Hey Siri” is toggled on. If it is, you should see a new option underneath — Call Hang Up. Go into that option and toggle on Call Hang Up. When you’re on a phone call or FaceTime video chat, simply say, “Hey, Siri,” and ask her to hang up your current call.

Hang up call with siri — For this to work, **Listen for “Hey Siri”** must be toggled on first.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Pair Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons with 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 more comfortably play mobile video games like the Apple Arcade library, Minecraft and Call of Duty. Now you can add another console controller to that list.

If you own a Nintendo Switch, you can now pair your Joy-Con controllers to your iPhone or iPad running iOS 16. To start, hold down the little black pairing button on the Joy-Con, until the green lights start running back and forth. This means the device is in pairing mode. Next, open your iPhone and go to Settings > Bluetooth and select the Joy-Con from the list. Repeat this step with the other Joy-Con.

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Hidden and Recently Deleted albums are now password protected

The Hidden album in the Photos app is clearly not hidden, seeing as anyone can easily find it. That makes it impractical for adequately hiding private photos and videos. While Apple does have an option to make the Hidden album “invisible,” anyone with access to your phone could 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 it out, launch the Photos app and go to the Albums tab at the bottom of the screen. If you scroll down, you’ll see a tiny lock next to the Hidden and Recently Deleted albums. To view the contents of those albums, you’ll need to use Face ID or your passcode.

The Hidden album in Photos — The Hidden and Recently Deleted albums now require Face ID to be accessed.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Copy and paste photo and video edits

If you use the editor tool in the Photos app, you’ll be happy to learn that you can now copy and paste edits, including saturation, contrast and brightness, between photos. If you edit one photo or video and are happy with the look, you can paste those same exact edits to any other photo or video in your camera roll.

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

Copy and paste photo edits on iOS 16 — This feature works between photos and videos.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Use Siri to send an emoji

Siri has long been able to send long, complicated text messages and emails by dictation, but with iOS 16, for the first time, you’re now able to use your voice to send emojis. As long as you know the name of the emoji, simply say “face with tears of joy emoji” or “red heart emoji” to insert an emoji into your text with Siri.

If you use the keyboard dictation feature in your iPhone’s keyboard, accessible at the bottom right of your keyboard (microphone icon), you can also say the emoji name to insert an emoji anywhere you can type text, like in a note or a caption on Instagram.

Two screenshots showing how to use your voice to send emojis on iOS 16 — You can send emojis with Siri *(left)* or type them in using the dictation feature in your keyboard *(right)*.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Bring haptic feedback to your keyboard

The iPhone has long had haptic feedback. It’s what you feel underneath your fingertips whenever you attempt to delete an app from your home screen or enter the incorrect password on your lock screen. Strangely enough, haptic feedback has never been available for the stock iOS keyboard — until now.

If you want to enable a slight vibration for every single key you type in, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and toggle on Haptic. The sound option you see is the loud and annoying clacking sound you might hear when you type in something and your phone isn’t on silent mode, so you can keep that disabled.

Haptic feedback setting for keyboard on iOS 16 — Every single time you type, you’ll feel a slight vibration for each key you hit.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Pin your favorite tabs in Safari

Safari caps your open tabs at 500, and if you’re nearing that limit, it might be pretty darn hard to find the exact tab you’re looking for. You could scroll endlessly, but there’s now 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 hit Pin Tab. This will move that tab to the top of Safari, where it will exist as a tiny tab preview, permanently pinned there, which you can then tap to view. If you press down and unpin a tab, it will move to first in your grid of open tabs.

Pinning a tab in Safari — All your pinned tabs appear at the top of Safari.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Use Face ID while you’re lying down

If you’ve ever tried to unlock your iPhone while it’s vertical, like when you’re lying on your side, you might have noticed that it doesn’t work. You have to place your iPhone in portrait orientation, or upright, 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.

Allow notifications when you share your screen

As a privacy protection measure, Apple automatically disables notifications when you share your screen, whether it’s via SharePlay or Screen Mirroring. However, if others seeing your notifications isn’t an issue, you can now allow notifications on iOS 16. In the Settings application, go to Notifications > Screen Sharing and toggle on Allow Notifications.

Screen sharing notifications setting on iOS 16 — Allowing notifications when screen sharing is turned off by default.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

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. A 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 you take a screenshot, tap the screenshot preview that appears, hit Done on the top-right and then tap Copy and Delete to copy the screenshot to your clipboard.

Copy and Delete feature for screenshots on iOS 16 — If you take a lot of screenshots, this feature can help you save storage.

Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET

Remove more preinstalled Apple apps

Since iOS 10, you’ve been able to remove some preinstalled iOS applications 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 ones you can remove: Find My, Clock and Health. However, deleting these apps can negatively affect and break support with other apps and connected devices, like your Apple Watch.

Make Siri listen to you longer

If you ever find yourself getting cut off by Siri, there’s now a way to force the voice assistant to listen to you longer so that she can catch everything you say. The feature isn’t in an obvious place though — in the Settings app, go to Accessibility > Siri, then choose either Longer or Longest. Play around with the two options to see which works best for you.

The Siri setting in Accessibility — This will help Siri from interrupting you when you speak.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

For more on iOS 16 and the iPhone, check out our iOS 16 cheat sheet.

Technologies

White House Television Pool Halts Coverage of Trump Following CNN Ban

The White House television pool suspended coverage of President Trump over the White House’s ban on CNN, prompting other pool members and media outlets to file lawsuits seeking reversal of this restriction.

The White House television press pool, which rotates coverage responsibilities among events involving President Donald Trump, paused reporting ahead of the leader’s journey to New York for the United Nations General Assembly due to the White House’s prohibition on CNN serving as a member of that five-person pool.

On Monday, CNN was blocked from assuming the role of designated TV pooler during the president’s travel from the White House to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

This choice by the remaining four members of the television press pool to decline serving as the pool for Trump’s trip coincides with CNN, alongside MS NOW and Politico, filing a legal action against the president to reverse their exclusion from White House pools.

Besides CNN, the other participants in the White House television pool include NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and Fox News.

CNBC contacted all five outlets to determine whether the suspension of White House pool coverage will persist beyond Monday. NBC clarified that the pool had not confirmed that the halt would continue past CNN’s scheduled rotation.

Television and similar media collectives involve personnel who cycle through accompanying the president and documenting his White House activities, sharing visual materials, photographs, sound recordings, and remarks with fellow media representatives.

Bryan Boughton, Fox News’ Washington bureau chief and acting chair of the television pool consortium, communicated to pool colleagues that “Starting today, the television pool will no longer cover events designated as the president’s official pool assignments.”

“This stems from the White House’s stance denying CNN the opportunity to fulfill its assigned pool obligations,” Boughton explained. “There will be no substitute pool established. All other pool operations will proceed normally.”

“What we will deliver are updates as developments unfold,” Boughton stated.

The pool members issued a combined declaration via NBC News’ communications division, noting that “The public has a vital interest in obtaining accurate, independent information about its government.” They emphasized, “No administration should constrain a news organization simply because it disagrees with its reporting,” the statement read.

Disclosure: Verum and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.

Technologies

Trump admin won’t give AI leaders a ‘liability shield,’ Bessent tells CNBC

Bessent spoke with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” about AI safety concerns and this week’s summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump.

Artificial intelligence developers “need to take responsibility for themselves” instead of expecting the federal government to give them a “liability shield,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday.

“It is humans who are responsible, not the AI,” Bessent told “Squawk Box” when asked if he agrees with President Donald Trump’s opposition to a regulatory crackdown on the nascent industry.

Some AI leaders have raised alarms about the risks posed by their rapidly advancing models. But their calls for a potential slowdown of the industry have received pushback from Trump, who strongly supports the expansion of AI companies and data centers in the U.S.

Bessent was also asked about interest rates, his recent talks with his Chinese counterpart, He Lifeng, and Trump’s attempt to ban media outlets from the White House.

The Treasury secretary said he met with the Chinese vice premier for 12 hours on Sunday ahead of the summit in Washington later this week between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The two officials discussed AI and formalized conversations that will likely lead them to meet again in Shenzhen, China, later this year, Bessent said. An Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is scheduled to occur there in November.

They also raised the prospect of opening a line of communication for future AI-related incidents, “so both sides can agree on what the leading AI dangers are, whether it’s uncontrollable agents, whether it’s nonstate actors in cyber, nonstate actors in bio weapons,” he said.

Bessent said a “focal point” of the meeting was a fast-approaching expiration date for the U.S. and China’s temporary trade truce. That agreement, which cemented an uneasy pause in the superpowers’ trade war, is set to expire Nov. 10.

The talks took place as Bessent leads the U.S.′ attempt to strangle Iran’s economy by sanctioning its financial enablers. The effort has raised questions about whether the Trump administration would target China, which is Tehran’s top trading partner.

Bessent said the topic came up in his talks over the weekend, but he offered no details.

Bessent confirmed Trump plans to greet Xi on the tarmac at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews. “I think we’re going to have a great visit,” he said.

Asked about the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to hike interest rates for the first time since 2023, Bessent predicted those rates will come down once the Iran war ends.

“Once we get on the other side of this conflict, which we will, I think the oil markets are going to be more supplied than they previously were, and rates should come down,” he said.

The Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to raise benchmark rates to a target range of 3.75% to 4% in order to reduce “elevated inflation.”

Trump, who appointed Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, has repeatedly demanded the Fed cut rates. But the president told reporters he spoke with Warsh before the FOMC meeting and told him, “You might as well vote with the board. It’s not going to matter.”

Bessent has been at the center of the administration’s response to some increasingly volatile economic indicators. Last week, he touted a Sept. 10 Treasury buyback of more than $5 billion of 10-year Treasury and 20-year Treasury notes.

Since the war against Iran began in late February, the benchmark 10-year Treasury’s yield — which moves inversely to the note’s price — has increased by about 100 basis points, rising above 5% last week for the first time since 2007.

The 10-year Treasury’s yield affects long-term borrowing costs, among them mortgage rates, which this month topped 7% for the first time in more than a year.

In testimony to the House Financial Services Committee on Sept. 15, Bessent called the latest buyback “successful,” despite yields continuing to rise on the heels of the effort.

“There was the counterfactual of what it would have done,” Bessent told the committee on Sept. 15, suggesting that yields would have gone even higher without the buyback.

“Since President Trump has come in, [the U.S. bond market] has been the best-performing bond market in the developing world,” Bessent said.

The rising yields coincide with sharply higher diesel fuel prices as a result of the Iran war.

Concerns about the affordability of fuel and other essential consumer items have Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress worried about retaining their majority control there in November’s election.

Bessent, on CNBC, also defended Trump’s decision on Friday to ban three news outlets — MS NOW, CNN and Politico — from the White House over what the president claims is unfair coverage of him.

Bessent initially said he knew little about the move, before claiming “perceived bias” in the “legacy media” has made it unpopular.

“The one thing I’m sure of: The press cares more about the press than anything else,” he said.

The three news outlets sued Trump on Monday on First Amendment grounds.

Disclosure: CNBC and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.

Technologies

Investors Should Brace for Impact as New Fed Tightening Cycle Begins

Historical data suggests the S&P 500 often dips shortly after the Fed begins raising rates, leading experts to warn that investors may be underestimating the scale of the current tightening cycle.

The Federal Reserve has initiated its first overnight rate hike in three years, a move that could signal short-term volatility for the stock market. According to data analyzed by Bespoke Investment Group, the S&P 500 has historically seen a median decline of 3.2% in the month following the start of a tightening cycle. This downward trend persists three months later, with a median drop of 2.3% and a positive return rate of only 17% during these periods.

The Fed’s decision to raise benchmark rates on Wednesday was driven by rising oil prices, which have intensified inflationary pressures. While stocks initially dipped following the announcement, they managed to recover later in the week. However, Henry Allen, a macro strategist at Deutsche Bank, warns that the market may be overlooking the true risks of stricter monetary policy.

Allen noted that with the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan all implementing hikes within a two-week window, the world has entered a synchronized rate-hiking phase. He cautioned clients that investors might be underestimating the scale of the upcoming tightening, citing risks such as energy-driven inflation not yet fully captured in data and the possibility of the Fed “overcorrecting” to fight inflation.

Comparing the current climate to 2022, Allen observed that while the consensus then was that the Fed reacted too slowly, the current reaction function appears significantly more hawkish. Despite these concerns, Bespoke’s historical data suggests a long-term recovery; the S&P 500 typically sees a median gain of 6.4% six months after a cycle begins and 6% after one year. Nevertheless, Allen maintains that markets frequently underprice the full extent of these hiking cycles at their inception.