12 hidden features in iOS 10
After months of beta testing, Apple has finally released the first official version of iOS 10.
The update brings Siri to third-party apps and supercharges Messages with a lot of new superpowers. Siri and Messages may be the stars of iOS 10, but there are still plenty of new features to get excited about -- even if they aren't immediately obvious.
Whether it's better 3D Touch features or new ways to check your voicemail, these 12 additions will help you get the most out of iOS 10.
1. Voicemail Transcription
iOS 10 will now transcribe your voicemails, so you can get a preview of the message before you listen. The feature is still in beta, so the transcriptions aren't 100 percent accurate just yet, but many are still pretty dang close in our experience so far.
2. Change your Home button back
One new feature that may take some getting used to is the new way you unlock your phone -- instead of resting your finger on the home button, you need to press it.
But you can change this in your accessibility settings. Head to Settings --> General --> Accessibility --> Home Button and switch on "Rest Finger to Open."
3. Notifications grouped by day
The notifications center has been redesigned and notifications are now grouped by day, making it much easier to clear the screen. You can also use 3D Touch to clear all your notifications at once.
4. Control flashlight brightness
Part of iOS 10's redesigned Control Center, you can now control the brightness of the flashlight using 3D Touch. Hard-press on the flashlight icon to choose bight, medium or low light.
5. Low-quality mode for photos in messages
If you're concerned about data use, you might want to take advantage of this new feature. iMessage now includes a "Low Quality Image Mode" setting.
Head over to Messages from the main settings menu and scroll all the way to the bottom to find the option. Note that once enabled, this setting only applies to photos you send to others and won't affect the quality of images people send to you.
6. Edit Live Photos
One of the many improvements to photos in iOS is new editing controls, including a brilliance slider. But these new editing tools also apply to Live Photos, which you can now edit just as you would any other image.
Unfortunately, you can't adjust the frames that appear within the Live Photos, but you can crop them, add filters and tweak the lighting.
7. Close all tabs in Safari
Now that you can have an unlimited number of Safari tabs open at once, you may easily find yourself with too many. While previously the browser required you to close them one by one, you can now get rid of them all at once. Simply hold down on the tab button (the icon that looks like two boxes on the bottom right in Safari) to shut them all.
You can also tap the tab button and hold down on the "Done" button to bring up the same view.
8. Doodle on your photos
The Photos app now allows you to make Snapchat-style doodles on any of your photos using Markup. Open an image in the Photos app and tap the edit button, then the "..." menu.
This opens up the Markup interface, which allows you to quickly add doodles or text to your photos.
9. Siri does selfies
Ask Siri to "take a selfie" to launch your front-facing camera. You'll still have to actually press the shutter button yourself but it's a handy way to open the camera.
10. Maps + apps
Maps now allows you to access third-party apps, such as Yelp and OpenTable, from within the app. Tap on a location to pull up a new place card and the card will link to relevant apps to make a reservation or check out a menu.
11. 3D Touch notifications
One big improvement to 3D Touch in iOS 10 is how it works with notifications. You can now use 3D Touch to interact with notifications. This is particularly useful for multitasking, as you can now do things like respond to incoming messages without leaving your current app.
12. Handwriting in Messages
While Apple's iMessage improvements have been one of our favorite new features of iOS 10, not all of the new additions are immediately obvious. Adding handwriting to messages, for instance, could easily be overlooked.
In order to add a quick hand-written note or doodle to a message, simply turn your phone to landscape while in a message. This will automatically bring up the handwriting input.
Bonus: iMessage automatically saves your most recently used messages, so you can send them again. If you want to delete one entirely, simply hold down on the image and delete, just like you would remove an app.
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
