Technologies
11 New Features That Will Change the Way You Use Your iPhone
iPhone owners: You’ll really want to check out these iOS features.

This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2023, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular product.
Apple’s iPhone software just keeps getting better. With iOS 16.3, first released in January, Apple added a number of small but significant updates to the iOS 16 iPhone software, including security keys for iCloud and new wallpaper options. A smaller iOS 16.3.1 update in February then threw in a few bug fixes and security updates as well. And now the release of iOS 16.4 and its new emojis is rapidly approaching.
All of these updates continue to add onto Apple’s iOS 16, which first came out in September for anyone with a compatible iPhone. Installing the operating system software on your iPhone gives you new features and settings, such as a more customizable lock screen, a way to edit sent messages and a magic photo editing tool. Plus, iOS 16 brings back the battery percentage icon.
iOS 16 was announced last spring at Apple’s WWDC conference prior to its public launch alongside the iPhone 14. If you’re curious about what else iOS 16 offers, read on as we break down the 11 best new features on your iPhone. Just make sure you’ve already completed these three steps first, and check out the lesser-known features lurking in iOS 16 too.
The ability to edit and ‘unsend’ messages
«Embarrassing typos are a thing of the past,» Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said at WWDC as he introduced three of the most requested features for the Messages app.
First, in iOS 16 you’re able to edit sent messages. So if you notice a typo after a message, you’ll be able to edit the message after the fact. A tiny «edited» appears in the status under the message.


In Messages, you can edit previously sent messages.
AppleNext, and this might be my favorite new feature, you can immediately recall a sent message. If you accidentally send an unfinished message, you can use the Undo Send tool to prevent it from being read and hopefully look less chaotic to your friends and family.
Last, you can mark messages and threads as unread. This could be an excellent tool for when you don’t have time to respond to a message in the moment, but want to make sure you come back to it later.
A new customizable lock screen
One of the things you look at the most on your iPhone is the lock screen, especially if you have a Face ID-equipped iPhone. iOS 16 brings the most substantial update to the iPhone’s lock screen yet. Press and hold to edit your lock screen. You can swipe to try out several different styles. Each style changes the color filter for the background photo and the font on the lock screen so everything complements each other. This feels a bit like Apple’s take on Google’s Material You, which launched with Android 12.
You can also customize the fonts for the time and date, and add lock screen widgets like temperature, activity rings and a calendar. The widgets are akin to complications on the Apple Watch lock screen.
Your iPhone will become more customizable in iOS 16. You’ll be able to choose how your lock screen looks, down to the font and color.
AppleYou can even set up multiple customized lock screens with different widgets and easily swipe to switch between them. There’s also a photo shuffle option that automatically changes the pictures on your lock screen.
One feature we’d been hoping to see Apple add was an always-on display. It’s something nearly all Android phones have; even the Apple Watch does. Well, with the new iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, the always-on display has finally arrived.


iOS 16 adds a feature that developers can use called Live Activities. This is essentially a mini view of the real-time progress of a workout, sporting event or Uber ride from your iPhone’s lock screen.
AppleNotifications and live activities
Sometimes notifications can cover up your lock screen’s photo, so iOS 16 moves notifications to the bottom of your display. As you receive them, instead of being compiled into a list, they appear like a vertical carousel. This not only looks better but should be a big help for one-handed use of your iPhone.
iOS 16 also aims to solve another notification problem. Sometimes you get a bunch of notifications in a row from one app, like the score of a basketball game. A new tool for developers called Live Activities makes it easier to stay on top of things happening in real time from your lock screen, instead of getting a series of interruptions.
Live Activities should make it easier to follow sporting events, workouts or even the progress of an Uber ride.
Skip CAPTCHAs using Private Access Tokens
The CAPTCHA — which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart — has been a necessary evil across the internet. CAPTCHAs are designed to make sure that a person is accessing a website or service, and not a bot. I find them annoying, as they often involve reading strangely written letters or having to find all the images that have a truck. With iOS 16, Apple plans to start replacing these awkward interactions with Private Access Tokens.
According to a video on Apple’s website demonstrating Private Access Tokens, websites that support the token will essentially log in and authenticate that you are indeed a human without your having to play any of the usual CAPTCHA games. Apple says in the video that the company is working with other companies to roll out support for this feature, so we can’t say the CAPTCHA will be dead after iOS 16 rolls out to the public. But the concept could provide some relief if it gets adopted.
Wallet and Apple Pay Later
ID cards from more states will be available in your Wallet app along with more security and privacy features. In iOS 16 you can also protect your identity and age. So rather than showing your exact birth date, the Wallet app will display your ID and that you’re over 21.
iOS 16 makes sharing keys easier with apps like Mail and Messages. When your friend receives the key, they can add it to the Wallet app on their iPhone. Apple said it’s working to make sure that shared keys are an industry standard and free for others.


The Wallet app in iOS 16 gets a bunch of small but notable updates, including the Apple Pay Later payment plan.
AppleApple Pay will support new types of payments and adds a new feature called Apple Pay Later, a Klarna-like service that lets you split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments spread over six weeks, with zero interest and no fees. Upcoming payments are managed through the Wallet app, making it easy to keep track of dates and payments.
But Apple Pay doesn’t stop there. A new feature will also help you track Apple Pay orders and lets merchants deliver detailed receipts and tracking information. This should make it easier to stay up to date on the status of all your orders.


You can tap and hold on the subject of a photo and separate it from the background. Then you can drag it into another app like Messages to share it.
AppleVisual Look Up’s tap and drag for photos
In iOS 15, Visual Look Up analyzes your photos and can identify objects like plants, landmarks and pets. iOS 16 takes this to the next level. When you touch a photo’s subject like the dog in the image above, you can lift it away from the background and add it to apps like Messages. Essentially it’s a tap-and-hold tool that removes a photo’s background.
Apple sometimes overuses the word «magic,» but this feature truly seems like it.


During the keynote for WWDC, Apple executive Craig Federighi introduces SharePlay for the Messages app.
AppleSharePlay comes to Messages
SharePlay, which debuted in iOS 15, lets you have a shared experience while connecting with someone over FaceTime. You can watch TV shows, listen to music in sync and other things. iOS 16 adds the ability to discover more apps that support SharePlay from within FaceTime.
But perhaps one of the coolest things Apple did for SharePlay was to make it work within the Messages app. Apple said that this was one of the biggest requests from app developers. Now when you want to share a movie on Disney Plus, you can start SharePlay together with a friend while chatting in Messages.


Safety Check lets you quickly reset location sharing and access to passwords. It’s intended to be helpful for people in abusive relationships.
AppleSafety Check aims to help people in abusive relationships
Safety Check is a new feature intended to be helpful for people in abusive relationships. It lets you review and reset who has access to location information as well as passwords, messages and other apps on an iPhone.
Focus mode updates and Focus filters
Focus mode gets several updates. The first applies Focus behaviors to widgets and lock screen looks. So you could have one lock screen set for when your Work Focus is enabled and another for workouts.
Apple added specific Focus filters that apply your iPhone’s Focus mode within apps. For example, in Safari, you can limit what tabs are shown depending on what Focus mode you have active.
Apple Maps adds transit fare cards
Maps gets several updates. You’ll be able to plan trips with up to 15 different stops along the way. If you start planning a trip with the Maps app on your Mac, you’ll be able to share that to your iPhone.
And in something similar to what Google announced for Google Wallet in Android 13, you’ll be able to see transit fare estimates as well as add more money to a fare card from within Apple Maps.


In iOS 16 you’ll be able to customize Quick Start with a specific child’s iCloud parental controls and settings.
AppleiCloud family checklist
iCloud gets several new features. One of the more interesting ones is the option to quickly set up a new device for your child. When Quick Start appears, you have the option to pick a user for the new device and use all the existing parental controls you’ve previously selected and configured. However, this is not what many of us still want: the ability to set up separate users for the same device.
There’s a new family checklist with tips for updating settings for your kids as they get older, like a reminder to check location-sharing settings or share your iCloud Plus subscriptions.
For more, check out everything Apple announced at its Sept. 7 «Far Out» event. Plus, here’s how to download iOS 16.
Technologies
How Apple Will Analyze Your Data to Train Its AI — While Protecting Your Privacy
The company said it’s testing AI improvements on opt-in devices without collecting user content.

Apple said it will begin analyzing on-device user data as part of a broader push to strengthen its AI platform.
In a blog post, the company outlined a new approach designed to expand its AI capabilities while safeguarding user privacy, especially as competitors like OpenAI and Google advance more quickly with fewer restrictions. Apple said it will train its AI models using synthetic data, known as information that mimics the format and characteristics of real-world messages without including any actual user-generated content.
«When creating synthetic data, our goal is to produce synthetic sentences or emails that are similar enough in topic or style to the real thing to help improve our models for summarization, but without Apple collecting emails from the device,» the company said in a blog post.
For Apple Intelligence features including summarization and writing tools that handle longer content, the company said its usual methods, like those used for short-form prompts in Genmoji, aren’t effective.
Instead, its new approach will generate a large set of synthetic emails on various topics – such as, «Want to play tennis tomorrow?» – without referencing any actual user data. Each message is converted into what Apple calls an «embedding,» a numerical summary capturing attributes including topic and length. The embeddings are sent only to opted-in devices, which then compare them to a small, private sample of recent user emails stored locally.
«This process allows us to improve the topics and language of our synthetic emails, which helps us train our models to create better text outputs in features like email summaries, while protecting privacy,» the company said.
Apple said it will start using this approach «soon» with users who opt in to sharing device analytics.
A «sophisticated» approach to privacy
Jason Hong, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said this type of «differential privacy» is a sophisticated approach for analyzing and using data aggregated from large numbers of people.
«Apple could have taken the easy approach of just taking everyone’s data and using it to build their AI models,» he said. «Instead, Apple chose to deploy these differential privacy approaches for Apple Intelligence, and they should be applauded for putting their customers’ privacy first.»
However, he said there will likely be tradeoffs, including the possibility that Apple Intelligence may not be as effective as some competitors because rivals will have more access to people’s data. He also said Apple’s models may likely be harder to debug and might take more battery power to deploy.
«It’s hard to say at this point,» he said.
Technologies
You’ll Pay More Upfront for Xfinity’s New Price Guarantee. Here’s Why It’s Still a Good Deal
Technologies
Take Stunning Landscape Photos With Your Phone Using These Pro Tips
Whether you have an iPhone or Android phone, these pro tips will up your landscape photography game.

Today’s best phones, such as the iPhone 15 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, have amazing cameras that can take images that would make even the best cameras jealous. Even older or more affordable phones, like 2021’s iPhone 13 Pro or the new Google Pixel 8, can take beautiful images that you might want to print and display on your wall.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to take landscape photos with your phone, whether you’re heading into the countryside or deep into the heart of the mountains. While some of the tips apply to recent phones with multiple lens options, many are relevant whether your device is three months or three years old, Apple or Android.
Read more: Best Camera Phone to Buy Right Now
Sort your phone camera settings
Your phone is probably capable of taking a cracking landscape photo in its default auto mode, but let’s take things a bit further.
If your phone has a «pro» mode that gives you manual control of settings, switch into that. If it doesn’t, an app like Moment, Lightroom or MuseCam lets you take control of settings like ISO, shutter speed and white balance.
Crucially, these apps also let you shoot in raw format. Raw images don’t save many of the automatic camera settings that your phone would normally apply to a JPEG image, such as white balance or sharpening. The result is an image that lets you change the white balance, alter color tones and rescue detail from the highlights and shadows much more easily — and with less image degradation — than you can with a simple JPEG. I’ll come back to this more in the editing section below.
Apple’s last few generations of Pro iPhone can use the company’s ProRaw format, which uses some computational photography techniques like HDR blending but still generates an easily editable DNG file. Tapping the Raw button on the camera screen will turn on raw shooting. Google has a similar raw function built into its Pixel line.
In landscapes, altering white balance is often crucial as auto white balance might see a scene with a lot of warm tones (such as fall leaves on trees) and try to use a cool white balance to even it out, but in so doing, it loses all of that natural warmth. Being able to tone down some of the highlights from a bright sky or bring up the shadows in the foreground is important, and being able to alter your white balance after you’ve taken the shot gives you much more flexibility in your editing, rather than having the colors baked into the image when you take it.
The downside to shooting in raw is that your images will likely need some work in an editing app like Lightroom or Snapseed before you can share them. Photographing landscapes is often a slower, more methodical process, and spending time in editing is all part of the experience of crafting a beautiful image.
Shoot early, stay out late
Time of day is everything in landscape photography, because the lighting changes completely as the sun passes overhead. The best time of day to catch dramatic light is either at sunrise or at sunset. The sun is low in the sky both times of day, resulting in directional light and long shadows cast over the scene.
Midday is typically the worst time to shoot, as the overhead light doesn’t create much in the way of shadow detail, resulting in scenes that can look flat and lifeless.
If you have a particular location in mind, it’s worth setting your alarm and getting out early to see what you can capture during the sunrise. If time allows, try and return to shoot the same scene at different times of day to see when it looks best.
Watch the weather
Weather plays a huge part in any outdoor photography, but none more so than with landscapes. Different weather conditions will transform your scene, completely altering its mood, lighting and colors. But don’t assume that bad weather means bad photos.
Personally, I love the foreboding, moody atmosphere of a landscape with dark storm clouds billowing above. Often the light that comes after a storm can look particularly dramatic. So while the hike to your chosen location might be a miserable slog in pouring rain, keep your spirits up by imagining the beautiful photo you might get at the end.
The worst weather for landscapes is that plain, miserable gray sky where there’s no texture to the clouds, no interesting light on the land and no contrast to the scene in front of you.
Keep an eye on your favorite weather app and make the decision based on what’s predicted. As long as you’ve packed the right clothing, you can brave the worst of the weather, and if it gets too bad then navigate Google Maps to the nearest pub to sit it out with a good drink.
Experiment with your wide and zoom lenses
If your phone has a wide-angle mode, then now’s the time to give it a try. If you don’t have a wide mode on your phone as standard, you can use additional lenses to get the same effect.
Superwide landscapes can be particularly dramatic, as they capture so much of a scene in a single image. Mountaintops that would otherwise be out of frame are suddenly captured in all their majesty, while beautiful rivers can now be seen in their entirety, snaking their way into a scene.
But once you’ve had the excitement of seeing the scene in full, try using the telephoto zoom lenses on your phone to focus on some of the details within it. Look for interesting rock formations, patterns in the landscapes or unusual shapes in the scene — all of which can stand out when you zoom in or crop out other distracting elements.
Concentrate on composition
It’s easy to think that just using as wide an angle as possible is a guarantee of a cool landscape photo, but that’s not the case. In fact, to get the best out of your wide shots you need to think about composition even more.
Foreground interest
Look for foreground interest in your scenes. Tree stumps, moss-covered rocks, even some pretty wildflowers can all be used to draw the viewer’s eye into a scene. When you’re at the top of the hill taking your shot, spend a couple of minutes having a look around for something you can place in your shot to help bring the scene together.
Leading lines
Leading lines are also great elements of a brilliant landscape composition. Keep your eye out for pathways, nice walls or other long elements that wind their way farther into the scene — it’s exactly that winding perspective that allows your viewer’s eye to follow along a line and into your image.
Straight horizons
If your phone shows grid lines or a leveling tool on the screen, use that to make sure your horizon line is straight. Then double-check you’re not accidentally chopping the top off your subject, be it a mountain, a building or some trees. Remember, you can do a lot to improve a mediocre image with editing, but you can’t do anything to rescue bad composition.
Edit your photos
Your image isn’t finished once you’ve hit that shutter button; a few tweaks in an editing app is all it can take to transform a simple snap into a beautiful piece of art.
My favorite editing app is Adobe Lightroom Mobile, but I also get great results from Google’s Snapseed, which you can get for free on Android and iOS. You can check out my roundup of the best editing apps, which include various options for those of you who like to get a bit wild with your editing.
I tend to start by tweaking the white balance so the colors look accurate, or to give a warmth boost to a beautiful sunset. It’s here that shooting in raw becomes particularly beneficial. I’ll tweak the exposure levels, particularly the highlights and shadows, in order to bring a bright sky a bit more under control or to boost shadows in the foreground. A bit of additional contrast can help add some punch to the scene as well.
My advice is to make a coffee, sit back and play with the sliders in your chosen app to your heart’s content. Try out the different filters and experiment with layering different effects on top of each other by saving and reimporting your image. Remember that there’s no right or wrong way to edit an image, so enjoy playing around — you can always go back to the original image if you don’t like what you’ve come up with.
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