01 Smarter and faster
CHECK OUT THESE BRILLIANT NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS THAT MAKE YOUR IOS DEVICE EVEN MORE PLEASURABLE TO USE.
SEARCH IN SETTINGS
At the top level of Settings is a search bar. Type something into it to get a list of matching settings, including the path to reach them, although you can just tap an item to jump straight to it.
DEAL WITH BAD WI-FI
If Wi-Fi Assist is switched on at the bottom of ‘Settings > Mobile Data’, iOS will fall back on your mobile network when it recognises that the Wi-Fi network you’re using is doing a poor job of getting you online.
ON-SCREEN KEYBOARD
OK, breathe a sigh of relief: letters on iOS 9’s on-screen keyboard reflect the case in which you’re typing. The top row of the iPad’s keyboard contains shortcuts to features such as copy and paste, undo/redo, formatting controls and buttons to attach photos and items in iCloud Drive in apps such as Mail.
If you type quickly and with high accuracy, the character previews that appear above your nger each time you tap a key can be a distraction. ey can be turned o in ‘Settings > General > Keyboard’.
BLUETOOTH KEYBOARDS
When using a Bluetooth keyboard, the shortcuts bar appears at the bottom of the iPad’s screen, along with an option to hide it. When you press ‘Command-Tab’ on a hardware keyboard, iOS 9 presents an OS X-inspired app switcher that’s faster than the touch option. It enables you to reach any of the last eight apps you’ve used.
TEXT INSERTION
Positioning the insertion point just got easier on the iPad. Hold two ngers on the on-screen keyboard and the keys become greyed out. A blue
vertical bar appears at the insertion point’s current location, and you can move it like you would with a mouse or trackpad on a computer by sliding both ngers around the screen; the insertion point will follow. Li your ngers to nish.
CHOOSE SIRI’S ACCENT
Until now, the language you selected for Siri would determine its accent in addition to guiding its expectation of how you say words — but not anymore! If you prefer to have it speak to you in a North American or Australian accent, you can choose that in ‘Settings > General > Siri > Siri Voice’, which replaces the simpler Gender setting from iOS 8.
TEXT TO SPEECH
If you use iOS’s ability to read out text that’s selected, new voices can be found in ‘Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech > Voices’.
NEW ACTIONS
New actions for dealing with email attachments enable you to save things to iCloud Drive, or to use Markup to annotate PDFs and images and return that in your reply.
MUSIC
In ‘Settings > Music’ you can choose stream from iCloud and Apple Music in high quality. Maybe disable this if you’re on a limited mobile data plan.
DEVICE AND DATA SECURITY
e next time you set a passcode that unlocks your device, you’ll nd that iOS 9 wants it to contain six digits — but tap ‘Passcode Options’ if you still want to use four digits, or to pick Custom Numeric Code. is new option enables passcodes as worryingly short as one character, or much longer than six. As an added level of security, this option stops the Lock screen giving away the length of your passcode, making it harder for people to guess as what is entered is submitted only when OK is tapped.
In ‘Settings > General > Auto-Lock’ is a new option to lock your device a er 30 seconds.
Your website accounts and saved bank cards (in ‘Settings > Safari’) are now protected by Touch ID rather than your passcode, provided you have set up Touch ID.
CAMERA
In ‘Settings > Photos & Camera’, you can lock in settings for the resolutions and frame rates used to record regular or slo-mo video. Tap Record Video or Record Slo-mo to choose from the available qualities, which vary between generations of iPhone. ere’s also some on-screen guidance about how much space a minute of footage at each quality will take up. (Remember, the amount available is shown in ‘Settings > General > About’.)