Installed iOS 15? Here are some of the most helpful new features to try

IOS 15 is all about privacy and making your phone feel smarter but less intrusive. Here’s a look at some of the most important new features to set up.

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One of the biggest new features is Live Text. Now, when you take a picture, look for a new icon in the lower right-hand corner.

Tap it to make text come to life. You can dial phone numbers, visit website, copy and paste text and much more. It’s like Google’s Lens feature but built into the entire phone and Apple really did a great job of implementing this new feature.

Focus is a big new feature that lets you set up custom profiles for about any activity you do. Think of it as Do Not Disturb, but for sleeping, reading, working out, the weekend and more.

The only thing is that it will take some set up to get these custom focus profiles up and running. You have to specific the contacts and apps that are accessible and can notify your phone. Apple will help you along here by suggesting different focus modes and activating them when you do certain things, like drive or go to work.

Weather gets a total redesign. It’s much more detailed now and has full screen maps that show all kinds of data. The best part is that weather will now notify you when it’s about to rain or snow. The feature is pretty accurate, Apple got it from an app acquisition a bit ago called Dark Sky.

Ever have a friend text you a link and you mean to read the article or check out the photo when you have the time, but you forget all about it? You’re not the only one. Apple is addressing this memory gap with a new feature called “Shared with You.”

Now, when a friend sends you a link, song, photo, news article and more, Apple will keep track of it and include it in a special section of the appropriate app. Of course, this feature will only work with Apple’s own apps like Safari, News, Photos and more.

For example, to see the Shared with You Section in Safari, just open a new tab and there it is in the center of the screen.

Speaking of tabs, the default look and feel is different in iOS 15. The address bar is now at the bottom of the Safari page so you can easily swipe through your open tabs. If you don’t like this setup, you can change the address bar back to the top. Just go into Settings > Safari to change it.

If you subscribe to iCloud, you can now create unlimited disposable email addresses as part of their new iCloud+ feature. You can use these email addresses to sign up for things like websites or whenever you don’t want to share your actual email address.

Go to Settings > iCloud and look for the option to “Hide my Email.” This will help you generate a unique proxy email that will forward to your real email until you delete it.

Hopefully, you’re never hacked or forget your password or passcode to your iOS device, but this happens to you, there’s a new feature called Account Recovery that can help.

Set it up under Settings > Apple ID > Password and Security > Account Recovery. It will allow you to set a trusted contact that can help you access your account in case you ever get locked out.

Another helpful new feature can save you a few seconds of time whenever you need to search for something. You can now start a search right from the lock screen. Just pull down on the center of the screen to start a search fast.

Finally, to see if an app is spying on you, go into Settings > Privacy > Record App Activity.

Turn this feature on and after a few days you’ll get a report that lists which apps are snooping on your phone, including which ones accessed your camera, microphone, contacts, location, and photos.

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