7 Useful But Little-Known iOS 18 Features

Apple touts a number of new features with iOS 18, but some of them get a little less attention thanks to Apple Intelligence and other notable additions. Here are some lesser-known iOS 18 features that will change the way you use your iPhone.

1. RCS support

Apple may never bring iMessage to Android for a better cross-platform messaging experience, but they have added RCS messaging support to the Messages app in iOS 18, which should make the messaging experience a lot better when you’re texting friends who have Android phones.

Thanks to RCS, Android users will get typing indicators, be able to share high-resolution images and videos, enjoy better emoji reactions to messages, and more. As an iPhone user, you may not know about RCS. But when it rolls out, it will dramatically improve the messaging experience with other Android users.

Please note that RCS support in iOS 18 on iPhone is carrier-dependent, so you may have to wait for your carrier to enable support for the standard even after updating to iOS 18.

Also, RCS won't remove green and blue text bubbles. Messages from your Android friends will still use green bubbles.

2. Improved control center

The iPhone's Control Center has always felt limited. Unlike Android, Apple doesn't offer many toggle options, and worse, third-party apps can't add their own custom toggles to Control Center.

Apple is overhauling Control Center in iOS 18, adding support for third-party toggles, multiple pages, and more customization. More types of toggles are also supported, including launching Shortcuts, opening an app, Translate, Tap to Pay, and more.

You can now move and place toggles anywhere you want in Control Center. Even better, Control Center can now have multiple pages, so you can have as many toggles as you like. You can take advantage of this by having separate Control Center pages for smart home controls, music controls, and so on.

On an iPhone 12 running the iOS 18 beta, I set up one Control Center page to quickly toggle various phone settings, another for smart home controls, and a third page with toggles for music playback and media content.

Another small but useful Control Center-related change is that you can swap out your iPhone's Lock Screen shortcuts with the Control Center toggles.

3. Schedule messages

Among the many improvements coming to the Messages app in iOS 18 is the ability to schedule messages. With this feature, you can set your iPhone to automatically send a text message to a specific contact at a specific time and date.

It's great to wish a friend or family member a happy birthday right as the clock strikes midnight without having to wake yourself up.

Here's how you can schedule messages on your iPhone running iOS 18:

• Open the Messages app on your iPhone.
• Select a new contact or an existing conversation you want to schedule a message for.
• Tap the plus (+) icon and select Send Later . Select the date and time you want to schedule the message.
• Click the Send button when finished.

Please note that the message scheduling feature in iOS 18 only works with iMessage, not regular messages or RCS.

4. T9 Dialing in Phone app

iOS 18 will finally fix one of the biggest complaints users have with the iPhone's Phone app by introducing predictive T9 Dialing.

Remember how you could scroll through your contacts on an old feature phone using the T9 keypad? T9 Dialing in the Phone app brings that same functionality to the iPhone. So next time you want to call your "wife," open the Phone app and dial 9-4-3-3 (WIFE).

This method applies to all the contacts in your phone book, with the Phone app displaying the best match above the keypad. You can then tap the person's name to make the call.

Another small but important improvement in the iOS 18 Phone app is the ability to search through your call logs. For this, a search bar will appear above the Recents tab in the Phone app.

5. Multilingual keyboard

iOS 18 adds support for multilingual typing on the iPhone keyboard. Depending on the language, you can use up to three keyboards at once, although in most cases you'll only be able to use two. So how will multilingual keyboards improve your iPhone typing experience?

It will allow the keyboard to show suggestions from selected languages ​​at the same time. And you can switch between language suggestions with just one tap of a button.

6. Summary of AI in Safari

All the hype around Apple Intelligence in iOS 18 on iPhone revolves around Writing Tools, a smarter new Siri, and AI image generation. But Apple Intelligence is bringing one more AI-powered feature to iPhone: AI Briefing in Safari.

As the name suggests, when you use Reader mode in Safari on a website, Apple Intelligence displays an AI-powered summary of the page's content at the top of the page. This is a great way to quickly get an overview of what the page is about, especially if it's long.

AI summarization in Safari is not automatic. You have to manually create summaries for every web page after entering Reader mode in Safari.

7. Customize the home screen

One of the best features of iOS 18 is home screen customization. Apple is finally giving iPhone users what they’ve been asking for for years by allowing full home screen customization. You can place app icons and widgets anywhere on the home screen. They no longer have to follow a grid. While you can’t change app icons yet, you can add a dark theme or customize them to get the look you want.

These are just a few of the many features that iOS 18 will bring to the iPhone. The update includes more features, including the ability to hide and lock apps, a standalone Passwords app, an improved Photos app, and Messages via Satellite.