The Best Hidden Features of iOS 14

This is a unique year, around the globe and in Silicon Valley. In Cupertino, Apple released its next-gen mobile operating system, iOS 14, before it even unveiled its new flagship iPhone thanks to coronavirus-related delays. But the new OS brings a host of new features to several generations of iPhone (6s and above), so it's time to dive in and look at the tips and tricks that make it stand out.

Enhance Your Voice

Do you use the Voice Memos app to record yourself or chats with others? Now there's an Enhanced Recording option, which should reduce background noise. Make a recording, click the three-dot ellipsis menu, and select Edit Recording. Click the magic wand icon at the upper right and then Done. Your voice memos will sync across iOS and macOS devices and iCloud. Plus, you can now organize voice memos into folders or mark your favorites.

Change Your Default Browser, Email

In the past, you clicked a link in iOS, and it would take you to Safari or Apple's Mail client. As of iOS 14, you can pick a different browser—like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or something privacy-oriented like DuckDuckGo—or different email client, like Outlook. Here's how to do it.

Passwords Get Security Recommendations

You probably store a lot of passwords on iOS, which autofill in apps and the browser. In iOS 14, Apple adds a Security Recommendations feature, which will alert you when your password has appeared in a known data leak/breach, and also suggest you change passwords that are used by other people, which makes them easy to guess. Navigate to Settings > Passwords > Security Recommendations to activate it.

Name Your Group

If you're in a message thread with a bunch of other iOS/macOS users, you now get more control of the conversation. Specifically, you can name the conversation (called a Group Name), and even assign it a shortcut image using any emoji or even an Apple Memoji.

At the top of the convo screen, you'll see a small text link under the icons for the participants, which will say something like "2 People" or "3 People," whatever the number is. Click that, then Info > Change Name and Photo. On this page, give it a Group Name. To give the group an avatar, click an option below in a circle. You're not stuck with that—on the next screen you can backspace the emoji out and pick any you like. Pick a Style as well—all that does is change the background color of the emoji. Now when you go back to the list of conversations in iMessage, you'll see the group name and one icon, rather than the swirl of contact pictures.

Note, this does not work if someone in the conversation is using SMS messages on an Android phone. It only works if all the participants are using iMessage.

Pin Your Favorite iMessagers

Got a particular person or group you talk with the most in iMessage? You can now pin up to nine of them at the top of iMessage. Click the three-dots-in-a-circle menu at top of iMessage, select Edit Pins. Click the yellow pin icon next to the person or group you want to access the most. This works with groups that include Android/SMS messages in a group.

Thread Messages in a Group Chat

Group iMessages can get crazy, making it hard to find the reply to your question. You can now reply directly to a specific message in the group, giving you a little inline mini-thread to follow. Hold your finger down on the message you want to reply to directly, click Reply, and all the other messages will get grayed out except the one you picked. Send a reply, and the mini thread appears at the bottom. It's not private. Everyone in the group can see the direct reply.

Apple Can Translate

Translation apps abound, but Apple always wants to be the default. Its new Translate app is built into iOS 14 (don't worry, you can delete it if you want). The interface is simple. Pick two languages, the one on the left being your default. Type in a word or phrase, or click the microphone button to speak a word or phrase. The translation will be spoken aloud by the phone, and you can click the play arrow to repeat it over and over. When you're looking at it in portrait mode, click the star on a translation you want to save as a favorite to use over and over. Keep it in landscape for complete conversations in two languages, with Siri recognizing each and putting the translation on screen. Translate can currently handle 11 languages, which can be downloaded for access when you're without an internet connection.

Finally: Picture in Picture

A feature that's long been on TVs and iPads finally comes to the iPhone. If you're watching a streaming video service—or even if you're on FaceTime—and switch to another app, you'll find the video follows you in a small, floating window you can move to different corners of the screen and even pinch to resize. (It's not supported for YouTube unless you sign up for YouTube Premium.) You can also move it to the edge of the screen, where video will disappear but audio will continue; swipe back to resume video. Turn off PiP in Settings > General > Picture in Picture.

Bye, Bye, Scroll Wheel?

You've used it many times and learned to hate it—the scrolling wheel that was used to set things like times in the Clock app or dates in the Calendar app. Apple is done with that. To enter something like that now, click the provided time (typically 12:00) and iOS brings up a keyboard for you to type in the time, or a real calendar for entering the date. But the scroll does still exist. See that spot where you tap on the time/date to get the keyboard? Hold your finger on it. You can still scroll it to get appropriate increments.

Hide a Screen of Apps

Got some questionable apps on your phone you'd rather everyone not see? (I mean, of course, hiding Netflix from the kids so they will stop watching GO GO Cory Carson all the time). Put the apps all on a single screen. Then, hold your finger on the screen to go into the wiggle mode that lets you delete apps, and click the new set of home screen scroll dots at the bottom. You'll get an Edit Pages interface that lets you turn off the view of an entire page of apps. This doesn't delete apps, and anyone can still swipe down on the screen to access Spotlight search and find the apps easily. But it's a quick and dirty way to keep some apps from being seen by prying eyes.

Really Hide Photos

You've long been able to "hide" a photo (in the Photos app) by viewing it, then clicking Share > Hide. It would take the image right out of the photo stream. The problem is, that simply moved the pic to a folder called Hidden, which was still easy to access from the Photos app. But now, in iOS 14, you can actually hide the Hidden folder. Got to Settings > Photos > Hidden Album and toggle it off. The photos are still there, but now people can't see the Hidden folder, either. (Not that they can't get to the settings if they're holding your phone, but they're probably not as smart about iOS as you are.)

Stack Your Widgets

You probably noticed the new widgets of iOS that blow up the size of some of the widgets for Apple's own apps like Weather, Stocks, Music, etc. (Third-party widgets like Google's are coming.) These big widgets can be placed on the home screen alongside your app icons. Overdue, but still pretty limited, right? Well, one smart thing is, you can stack widgets on top of each other, up to 10 of them. So put one of those 2x2 or 4x2 sized widgets on the home screen, keep the phone in Edit Home Screen mode (wiggly!) and drag a widget on top of the other widget. You can then swipe up and down through them for quick access to data you'd otherwise have to open an app for, like a chump. Hold your finger on the stack of widgets to get Edit Stack and change the order, or Remove Stack to get rid of it entirely.

Hide Your Precise Location

It's no secret that iOS (and all phones, and the companies that make them) are tracking not only what you do, but also where you are, because it all goes into the big data mine used to sell sell sell (and sometimes worse). Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and you can see it for every app, even apps you can't imagine really need to know where you are. That's old news. What's new in iOS 14: go into that area and click on the apps, where you can now turn off the Precise Location you're in. Because some apps need that—AAA wants to find you to help you fix your car—but Twitter and Chipotle and many others don't need exact coordinates on you.

Watch for the Recording Indicator

Is your iPhone spying on you? Well, you can at least tell if you've started recording, voice or video, because now a small orange dot will appear at the top (to the right of the notch, if you have one). If that orange dot is there, your microphone or camera is in action. You can also see it at the top of the Control Center.

Recognize the Sounds

For another new Accessibility feature that can be put to use by anyone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition and turn it on. Click Sounds to pick the audio your phone will monitor for and alert you to, such as fire, siren, cat, dog, appliances, door bell, door knock, water running, and a baby crying. Note that if you use this feature, your phone will no longer be listening for a "Hey, Siri" wake word command—that's turned off until you cancel Sound Recognition, then go back into Accessibility > Siri and turn it on.

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Caption Your Photos

iOS finally lets you put a caption on every picture or movie you take. Simply swipe up on the image and type it in. Very handy for finding images later. (Sadly, you can't do this in a batch, only one photo or video at a time.)

Limit Access to Photos

Before, if an app was going to get access to the photos and videos on your iPhone, it was all or nothing. In iOS 14, you'll be asked for permissions by many apps that want to access your photos—but you don't have to let them see it all. You can designate access only to select photos in an album, or even a limited number of photos you select. If you already gave an app full access and want to restrict it, go to Settings and select the app (like Google Photos or Dropbox), click Photos and on the next page either click None or Selected Photos.

Instant 4K and FPS Change

In the camera, shift to Video mode. Up top you'll see a little indicator of the current cam settings, such as if it's shooting in HD or 30 frames per second (FPS). You used to have to go into Settings to change that. Now you can do a little tap on the words and instantly change it. On an iPhone XS, for example, that means the rear camera can go from HD 30 FPS to 4K 60 FPS with two taps. It works in Slo-Mo mode as well, where it's always HD but the FPS can be set from 120 to 240 (the more frames, the slower it looks).

Mirror Selfies

If you look at yourself in the front camera of your iPhone, you are seeing a mirror image (to keep it natural to humans used to seeing their reflection). That's great and all, but when you take a pic or video, the image gets flipped, so it appears as it would if somewhere were behind the camera. You usually want that—after all, if some letters or numbers appear in the image with you, they'd be backwards if it was still a mirror image. Still, some people want it to appear like they see it. So go into Settings > Camera and turn on Mirror Front Camera if you want that option.

New QuickTake Video

With Photo mode on the Camera app, you usually hold down the shutter button to take a Burst—a number of still pictures in a quick burst, which is great for action shots. But now, if you press and hold the shutter button, you'll get a quick video. You have to drag the shutter button to the left for a Burst. Optionally, go into Settings > Camera > Use Volume Up for Burst, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Back-Tap to Control Phone

This new Accessibility feature lets you set up actions that happen by tapping the back of your iPhone twice or three times, a stunning bit of interface enhancement if you set it up right. For example, imagine being able to double-tap and instantly mute your phone? Or triple-tap to take a screenshot, or turn up the volume? It works on iPhone 8 or higher. Here’s how to set it up.

Customize Your Icons, Widgets, and More

iOS is now (almost) as customizable as Android. This is thank to the powerful Shortcuts app provided by Apple, which allows a modicum of personal scripting to take place in the OS. For full details read How to Add Custom Icons, Widgets to Your iPhone Home Screen in iOS 14.