Technologies

Picking Up Your iPhone 15 Today? Change These 4 iOS 17 Settings Right Away

Here’s how to customize your iOS experience on your new iPhone.

What a week. First we got iOS 17, Apple’s latest software update for the iPhone, on Monday, and then today we get the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. The new iPhone OS has lots of cool features, including StandBy, which turns your phone into a smart display, and Contact Posters, which bring full-screen visuals to your contacts and your call screen.

Don’t miss: Do This Before Downloading iOS 17

Most of the biggest features are ready to use as soon as you start using iOS 17 on your supported iPhone. However, a few are disabled by default, and so it’s your job to go into your settings and turn them on. To truly tap into the full potential of iOS 17, these are the settings you need to configure as soon as you download it.

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If you want to learn more about iOS 17, check out the best hidden iOS 17 features and everything else you need to know about iOS 17.

Turn on Face ID to browse privately in Safari

Safari has added several new privacy settings on iOS 17: You can now choose a different search engine (like DuckDuckGo) when privately browsing, automatically strip all tracking information from URLs, and securely share passwords with friends and family. And you can even lock your private browsing tabs in Safari — but you’ll need to toggle this setting on before you can use it.

In Settings, go to Safari and toggle on Require Face ID to Unlock Private Browsing. That’s all you need to do! If you want to test out the feature, open the Safari web browser and make your way to Private Browsing. If you attempt to browse privately, you’ll be asked to use Face ID to access your private tabs.

Automatically delete your verification codes

We’ve talked about this iOS 17 feature extensively here at CNET, and for good reason. It’s very useful and cleans up the clutter of verification codes in your text messages, and it’s somewhat hidden in your settings. And oh yeah, it’s not enabled by default, so it’s up to you to turn it on.

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In the Settings app, go to Passwords > Password Options and toggle on Clean Up Automatically. Now, when you receive authentication notifications in Messages (or even in Mail), they’ll be automatically deleted from their respective applications — as long as you use the verification code with the autofill feature at the top of your keyboard. If you don’t use the autofill feature, the verification code will stay in your messages or emails.

Make haptic feedback faster

After you perform certain actions on your iPhone — like long-press on your home screen to delete an application or even type on your keyboard — you should feel a tiny vibration underneath your fingertip — that’s haptic feedback. It’s how your phone interacts with you as you interact with it, meant to improve your experience. And with iOS 17, haptic feedback is a whole lot better.

If you want to make haptic feedback faster (snappier even), you can do so. In Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Haptic Touch, you can change the duration of haptic feedback: You can choose from Default, Fast and Slow. Underneath these options, you have an image of a flower that you can touch and hold down on to test the various haptic feedback options.

Enable the level in your camera

If you want to take better photos, or at least straighter photos, the native Camera application on your iPhone has a new, somewhat hidden feature that adds a virtual horizontal level as you snap a photo. You’ll know the shot is level with the ground when it turns yellow and you feel the haptic feedback.

This feature isn’t enabled by default, so go to Settings > Camera and toggle on Level under the Composition section. Now when you take a photo, you should see a broken straight line in the middle of your screen. This is the level. Adjust your phone to make it yellow, signifying that it’s now level to the ground.

Interested in the new iPhone 15, which will come shipped with iOS 17? Check out our comparison of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 and the best deals on the iPhone 15.

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The Hottest Switch 2 Accessory Could Be… a Lap Desk

Commentary: How else will you use the Joy-Cons’ cool new mouse feature?

One of the most interesting rumors about the Nintendo Switch 2’s Joy-Cons was that you could use them like computer mice. Now that the feature has been confirmed in the April 2 Nintendo Direct, and we’ve seen it used for action and strategy games, it’s pretty clear: The most-needed accessory for the new Switch 2 is a lap desk.

Given its rich history of introducing wacky new ways to control games, Nintendo can perhaps be forgiven for introducing a novel control function in a console that is otherwise largely identical to its predecessor. But the Switch 2 is a couch console when docked and freely roaming otherwise — rarely near a flat surface to use the Joy-Cons’ mouse functionality.

As a lap desk owner, fan and evangelizer, lap desks are the obvious answer to the mouse problem: portable around the house, multipurpose for work or play and somewhat affordable. Or at least, there are reasonable options that aren’t any pricier than the $90 Nintendo is asking for Switch 2 Joy-Cons.

While yes, any flat surface will technically do, just look at the gameplay for Drag x Drive, where players are shown running their dual Joy-Cons up and back in rapid succession. That seems hard to do on a makeshift surface like a clipboard or container lid. And for strategy games like Civilization 7, imagine not having a wide surface to move around the map and click in and out of menus.

Nintendo’s Treehouse stream for the launch game Drag x Drive showed how to use both Joy-Cons in mouse mode to move around. The presenter — playing on a desk — noted that players could run the controllers flat on their legs as alternative surfaces.

As CNET’s Scott Stein noted in his hands-on with the Switch 2, using the Joy-Cons on his legs was «a little less tiring» than on a desk — but presumably this only works well for a game like Drag x Drive, which relies on forward-and-back motion rather than side-to-side (unless you get really good at wrapping around your legs).

It’s worth pointing out how few of the Switch 2’s launch games and those coming later have mouse functionality — right now, only Drag x Drive requires it, while Civ 7 and Metroid Prime 4 Beyond optionally use Joy-Cons in mouse mode. Mario Party Jamboree will have also added mouse functionality in its Switch 2 version. We’ll wait to see how many games truly take advantage of this control potential.

Admittedly, the $450 Switch 2 and $80 Mario Kart World prices are already ruffling feathers, so expecting gamers to pay more for furniture just to get basic functionality for certain games is a big ask. But for all those couch crusaders planning their most relaxing way to play, a lap desk is the best way to have your Switch 2 and mouse with it, too.