Your iPhone is packed with tools to help you get the most out of it. Here we celebrate the best of the lesser-known iOS tips and tricks

WRITTEN BY PETER WOLINSKI

Your iPhone comes loaded with handy hidden features and hacks that can make it much easier and more fun to use. In our opinion, it’s this plethora of littleknown features that really help to cement iPhones as the best smartphones out there.

But do you know all of the little tricks? Well, there are so many that we’d be willing to bet you probably don’t. To help with that, we’ve rounded up 28 of our favourite hidden iPhone features that everyone should know, and how to use them, with step-by-step walkthroughs where a little more explanation is needed – hopefully at least one or two are new to you.

Just a quick note before we begin: most of these hidden features have been embedded within iOS for a while, so even people using older devices should be able to utilise at least some. To ensure we’re all on the same page, though, make sure your device is up to date by going to Settings > General and tap Software Update. If an update is available, tap Download and Install. Once downloaded, tap Install Now. With that done, you’re good to discover more.

Customise the iOS Control Centre

1 One iPhone hack that makes life easier is being able to customise Control Centre. By adding your favourite and most-used widgets to Control Centre, you can access them with a simple swipe down, even when your iPhone is locked. This is super handy when you need a feature immediately. We find Music Recognition the most useful - no more fumbling around Home Screen folders, desperately trying to find the Shazam app before the song ends. To customise your Control Centre, go to Settings, then tap Control Centre. Scroll down to More Controls and add any controls that’ll be handy at a moment’s notice.

Use Back Tap for extra iPhone controls

2 With Back Tap enabled, you can assign a range of different functions to both a double and a triple finger tap on the back of your phone, kind of like gestures on a trackpad. You could, for example, use a double tap for your torch and a triple tap for your Camera – these are both incredibly useful when you’re using your phone at odd angles and can’t reach the Lock Screen icons or the Control Centre pull-down menu. There’s a range of different time-saving and accessibility functions you can assign, and you can even combine the feature with Shortcuts for even more customisation. To enable Back Tap, open the Settings app and tap Accessibility. Next, tap Touch, then tap Back Tap. Tap either Double Tap or Triple Tap to assign functions to each.

Share whatever is on your screen using Siri

3 iOS comes with advanced sharing abilities using Siri. Instead of sharing the old-fashioned way by tapping the Share button, you can use Siri to share whatever is on your screen with a contact. It’s not a life-changing feature, but comes in handy when you need to share something quickly or don’t have your hands free to do so. An image or photo can be shared, as can a song you’re listening to on Apple Music. If Siri can’t share your screen, for example with the Weather app, it’ll take a screenshot and send that instead. To share your screen with a contact, say “Hey Siri, share this with…” whomever you’d like to see it.

Access the iPhone’s hidden trackpad

4 Even people with the smallest hands can find the compact keyboards of phone screens a little hassle-prone. Scanning through large chunks of text to find the exact spot you want to edit can be a tricky task, although it has been improved in iOS 17. To help with this, your iPhone features a hidden trackpad, which can be used to scan easily and precisely across your screen. Just press and hold the Space bar on your iPhone’s keyboard to turn that keyboard into a trackpad.