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Apple touts several new features with iOS 18, but some of them have not received their due spotlight due to Apple Intelligence and other standout additions. Below are some underrated iOS 18 features that I believe will change how you use your iPhone.
1RCS Support
Apple will likely never bring iMessage to Android for a better cross-platform messaging experience. However, it did the next best thing by addingRCS messaging supportto iOS 18’s Messages app. This will help greatly improve the messaging experience when you text your friends who use Android phones.
Thanks to RCS, Android users will get typing indicators, can share high-resolution pictures and videos, enjoy better emoji reactions to texts, and more. As an iPhone user, you might not know about RCS. But once the feature goes live, it will dramatically improve the texting experience with your fellow Android users.
Do note that RCS support in iOS 18 on the iPhone is carrier-dependent. So, you may have to wait for your network operator to activate support for the standard even after updating to iOS 18.
Also, RCS will not killthe green and blue text bubbles. Texts from your Android friends will still use the green bubble.
2Revamped Control Center
iPhone’s Control Center has always felt limited. Unlike Android, Apple does not provide many toggle options, and to make matters worse, third-party apps cannot add their custom toggles to the Control Center.
Apple is revamping the Control Center extensively with iOS 18, adding support for third-party toggles, multiple pages, and greater customization. More types of toggles are also supported, including running a Shortcut, opening an app, Translate, Tap to Cash, etc.
You can now move and place toggles anywhere you like in the Control Center. Even better, the Control Center can now have multiple pages, so you can fit as many toggles as you want. You can use this to your advantage by having separate Control Center pages for your smart home controls, music controls, and more.
On my iPhone 12 running iOS 18 beta, I have already set up one Control Center page for quickly toggling various phone settings, another for smart home controls, and a third with toggles for music and media playback.
Another small but useful Control Center-related change is that you can swap your iPhone’s Lock Screen shortcuts with Control Center toggles.
3Message Scheduling
Amongthe many improvements coming to the Messages app in iOS 18is 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 specified time and date.
It’s great for wishing your friends or family members on their birthday as soon as the clock strikes midnight without having to wake yourself up.
Below is how you can schedule messages on an iPhone running iOS 18:
Do note that message scheduling in iOS 18 only works for iMessage, not regular or RCS texts.
4T9 Dialing in Phone app
iOS 18 will finally fix one of my biggest gripes with the iPhone’s Phone app by introducing predictive T9 dialing.
Remember how you could go through your contact book on old feature phones using the T9 keypad? T9 dialing in the Phone app brings the same functionality to your iPhone. So, the next time you want to call your “wife,” open the Phone app and press 9-4-3-3 (W-I-F-E).
This method works for all contacts in your phonebook, with the Phone app displaying the best match above the keypad. You can then tap on the person’s name to make the call.
Another small but important improvement in iOS 18’s Phone app is the ability to search through your call log. For this, a search bar appears above the Recents tab in the Phone app.
5Multilingual Keyboard
iOS 18 adds support for multilingual typing on the iPhone’s keyboard. Depending on the language, you can use up to three keyboards at once, though in most cases, you’ll be limited to two. So, how will a multilingual keyboard improve the typing experience on your iPhone?
It will allow the keyboard to show suggestions from the selected languages simultaneously. And you may switch between the language suggestions at the tap of a button.
Here’s how you can set up a multilingual keyboard on an iPhone running iOS 18:
To switch back to your primary language on the keyboard, tap the language icon again, which will now appear on the left side of the predictive suggestion bar.
6AI Summaries in Safari
Allthe hype surrounding Apple Intelligence in iOS 18on the iPhone has been around Writing Tools, a smarter new Siri, and AI image generation. But Apple Intelligence will bring one more AI-powered feature to your iPhone: AI summaries in Safari.
As the name suggests, when you use Reader mode in Safari on a web page, Apple Intelligence will show an AI-powered summary of the page’s content at the top. This is a great way to quickly get an overview of the page’s content, especially if it’s too long.
AI summaries in Safari are not automatic. You must generate it manually for every web page after enteringthe Reader view in Safari.
7Home Screen Customization
One ofthe best features of iOS 18is Home Screen Customization. Apple is finally giving iPhone users what they have been asking for years by allowing full-fledged Home Screen customization. You can place app icons and widgets anywhere on the Home Screen. They no longer need to conform to a grid. While you can’t change the app icons yet, you can add a dark or custom color tint to them to get your desired look.
Another handy improvement iOS 18 brings is the ability to adjust a widget size right from the Home Screen. You don’t need to remove and re-add the widget for this. Plus, you can see an app’s available widget options by long-pressing its icon.
These are just some of the many features iOS 18 will bring to your iPhone. The update includes a lot more, including the ability to hide and lock apps, a standalone Passwords app, a revamped Photos app, and Messages via satellite.
