Do you know each of these 9 hidden iOS 18.2 iPhone features?

Now that you’ve explored how to customize your iPhone’s home screen, added buzz to your text messages, and tried out the new Apple Intelligence features, what’s next to discover in iOS 18.2?

There is so much. Lots of new settings aren’t publicized so they stay under the radar, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

We’ve picked our favorite hidden iOS 18.2 features that you should know about.

For more, here are eight iOS 18 settings you’ll want to change right away, how to properly back up your iPhone, and how to fix these three annoying iOS 18 settings.

Restart your iPhone from the new Control Center

You don’t need to press any physical buttons to restart your iPhone if you’re running iOS 18. The redesigned Control Center offers all the classic controls you’re used to, like brightness, volume, orientation, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi, but there are several new controls, including one for restarting your iPhone.

All you have to do is swipe down from the top right corner of your iPhone and press and hold the new power button at the top right of the control center. You can’t just press it; you need to hold it down for a second or so and then the slider will appear to turn off your iPhone.

To turn your iPhone back on, you still need to press and hold the physical side button.

Use a QR code to share your Wi-Fi password

There are a few ways you can share a Wi-Fi network and password with people via your iPhone, and there’s a new way to do it in iOS 18. Using a QR code fills in a few gaps for to quickly share your Wi-Fi network. Fi information:

• Share with multiple people at once. Instead of sending out your Wi-Fi password individually, you can have everyone scan the QR code from your phone.
• Share with someone not saved as your contact. Nearby sharing for Wi-Fi doesn’t work unless this person is among your contacts.
• Share with someone who has Android. Nearby Share and AirDrop do not work with Android devices.

So if you face any of these scenarios and you don’t want to text the Wi-Fi password to them, you can use the QR code. Go to the new Passwords app, go to the Wi-Fi section, tap the network you want to share, then tap Display the network’s QR code. If the other person scans the QR code with their camera, they will be connected to the Wi-Fi network.

Adjust the beam width of your flashlight

The flashlight on the iPhone is getting a big upgrade. You’ve long been able to change the intensity of the flashlight, but on iOS 18 you can now also adjust the beam width of the light, as long as you have a compatible model. You can go wide to cover more area with less light, or go narrow to use more intense light over less area and everywhere in between. It’s a fun feature to play around with to light people for photos.

To use the new feature, turn on your flashlight (use the lock screen or control center) and a new user interface will appear on the dynamic island. You can change the light intensity by swiping up and down, but To change the beam width, swipe left and right. If you press anywhere on the dynamic island, you can turn the flashlight off and on.

Note: This feature only works on iPhone models with the dynamic island, including ‌iPhone 14‌ Pro, ‌iPhone 14‌ Pro Max, iPhone 15 series, and iPhone 16 series.

Transcribe voice memos and make them searchable

The Voice Memos app is incredibly handy for capturing ideas or song snippets, but they’ve always been obscured. You can give them a descriptive title, but that won’t help when you want to find that one memo you recorded that contains the word “hedgehog.” In iOS 18, the app can create transcriptions of your voice memos and search for words previously only available as audio waveforms.

In the Voice Memos app, tap one of your notes to reveal its controls, then tap Edit recording button that looks like a waveform. Or tap the button with three dots to the right of a note and select Edit recording.

Then tap on Transcriber button to create the transcription (or view the text if it has already been transcribed). Press on Done.

Now, when you use the search box, the app looks through the transcripts in addition to the titles for results. The text is also available throughout iOS. When you perform a search from the home screen, you’ll see Voice Memos as a category with the memos that contain the search term (you may need to tap Show more results to reveal it).

Hide app labels for a cleaner home screen

Does your home screen feel a little too cluttered? If so, this new feature can help. Now with iOS 18, you can get rid of app labels, or the names of the apps you see under each app icon on your home screen. If you can recognize an app from just the icon, who needs the label?

On your home screen, tap and hold an empty space until you enter jiggle mode, then tap Edit > Customize. A menu appears at the bottom of the screen; choose Great option, which will make your app icons slightly larger and remove the app labels.

Change an app to a widget without leaving the home screen

Not every iOS app has a widget for your home screen, but if it does, you don’t have to dig through the widget editor page to find it. If you’re running iOS 18 and there’s an app that you want to turn into a widget, you can do it very quickly right from your home screen.

On a supported app, press and hold the icon on your home screen to bring up the quick action menu. If the app has a widget, you’ll see an app icon next to a variety of widget icons (up to three). Tap one of the widget icons to change the app to a widget. To go back from the widget to the app, go to the quick action menu and tap the app icon on the left.

Secretly identify songs using the action button

No lie, it’s satisfying when someone asks, “What song is this?” to be able to activate Music Recognition on the iPhone and get answers quickly. Getting the answer very noticeably means asking Siri to run Shazam or enable music recognition in Control Center. Wouldn’t it be fun to let your friends think you’ve been blessed with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music?

In iOS 18, you can get close using the action button. Go to Settings > Action button and swipe through the options until Recognize music is selected.

To make it work, just press and hold the action button for a few seconds. Shazam appears on the dynamic island to listen to what is playing and identify the song. If you’re sneaky about activating Shazam and looking at your phone, no one needs to know you’ve had the help of a supercomputer in the cloud.

Find pictures with handwriting and illustrations in the Photos app

A lot changes in the Photos app in iOS 18, from the way things are organized to the ability to use generative AI to remove objects in photos. Apple has also hidden a few surprises in the app to help you sort through your library.

Scroll down past the main library itself to see categories such as People and pets and Memories until you reach Utilities. Tap it to see the full list — but note that a new feature in this interface is the ability to swipe left to see additional panels. Prior to iOS 18, Utilities included options to view hidden, recently deleted, and duplicate photos.

Now it contains many more options. Press on Handwriting to see pictures with handwriting in them. Looking for images that are illustrations and not photographs? Press on Illustrations (although in our tests it also seems to take a lot of screenshots).

Share a specific section of a podcast

Did the hosts of your favorite podcast say something particularly funny or thought-provoking that you’d like to share with someone? In the Podcasts app in iOS 18, you can send an episode to a friend where playback is advanced at that point — but the option isn’t easy to find.

Press on Now playing bar in the app at the bottom of the screen to see playback controls and pause the episode. Use the progress bar to go back to the start of the section you want to share.

Then tap on More (…) button and select Share episode. In the sharing settings that appear, tap From Start below the episode title, then select From (the current time). Press on Done.

Finally, choose the sharing method, such as via Messages or Mail. When the recipient receives the shared episode and opens it in the Podcasts app, they will see the option to Game from (time).