5 iPhone Features Most Users Never Turn On

Apple has spent nearly two decades quietly stacking useful tools into the iPhone, and most owners still only scratch the surface, calls, messages, camera, done. Meanwhile, some genuinely handy features sit a few taps away in Settings, never advertised, rarely discovered by accident. Here are five worth switching on today.

1. Turn your keyboard into a trackpad

Trying to position a text cursor precisely with your finger is one of the most fiddly things about typing on a touchscreen. Apple already solved this: press and hold the spacebar, and your keyboard temporarily becomes a trackpad, letting you glide the cursor exactly where you want it instead of tapping and hoping. Press and hold again after that to expand your selection precisely. It works almost everywhere you can type, and it's one of those features that feels obvious in hindsight.

2. Customize your flashlight's beam

Tap the flashlight icon on your Lock Screen (or ask Siri) and a flashlight icon appears in the Dynamic Island. Most people never touch it again, but tapping that icon lets you adjust the beam itself, swipe left to make it narrower and more intense for pointing at something far away, or right to make it wider and more diffuse for lighting up a room. You can still slide up and down to adjust brightness as usual. On non-Pro iPhones you'll only get the brightness control, but Pro models get the full beam adjustment.

3. Assign custom vibration patterns to specific contacts

You can set a unique haptic vibration for individual contacts, so you know who's calling or texting without even glancing at your screen. It's set up per contact, open their contact card, go to Ringtone or Text Tone, and choose Vibration to pick or create a custom pattern. It sounds like a small thing until you're in a meeting and can tell it's your spouse calling without touching your phone.

4. Set up a one-tap ultra-dark mode shortcut

Regular Dark Mode still leaves plenty of white and bright colors on screen. There's a deeper option hiding in Accessibility called Reduce White Point, and you can turn it into an instant toggle: go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Accessibility Shortcut, and select Reduce White Point. From then on, triple-clicking your side button switches between your normal display and a much darker, lower-glare version, useful late at night or when your eyes are tired.

5. Share your Wi-Fi password just by bringing phones close together

If someone visiting needs your Wi-Fi password, you don't need to read it out or type it into their phone. Have them go to their Wi-Fi settings and select your network as if to join it, hold their iPhone near yours while you're unlocked and connected to that network, and a prompt appears on your screen letting you share the password with a tap, no typing, no spelling out long passwords. It also works with Android phones running recent versions of Android.

Worth the two minutes

None of these need a jailbreak, a hidden menu, or even the latest iPhone model, just a couple of taps in Settings you've probably scrolled past before. If you've had the same iPhone for a while, it's worth spending a few minutes exploring Settings and Accessibility; Apple keeps adding capability through software alone, no new hardware required.

Shop verified new and UK-used iPhones at 360GadgetsAfrica.