If You Got a New iPhone With iOS 16, Immediately Do These 3 Things

The iPhone 14 is sure to be one of the most popular gifts for Christmas this year, and if you’ve finally got your hands on Apple’s latest flagship phone, there are plenty of exciting new hardware features to explore, such as the always displayed and the Dynamic island (Both features are only available on the iPhone 14 Pro series). But you will also have the chance to explore the latest software update, iOS 16.

Before you get into all the hidden features or most annoying settings, if this is your first experience with iOS 16, there are three things you should do first before anything else to help improve your iPhone experience. In this story, we will show you what these things are, and how they will make your life better.

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1. Create a new wallpaper option for your iPhone lock screen

Apple has completely redesigned the lock screen on iOS 16, allowing you to fully customize various elements, such as the date and time, adding small widgets to let you keep track of the weather and trending news, and various wallpaper profiles to create that you can easily change to and from.

And if that sounds tempting, customizing your lock screen should be the first thing you do after installing iOS 16.

To customize your lock screen, press your finger down anywhere on the screen while it’s locked, then unlock your device when prompted. Once you’ve done this, a brand new lock screen interface will appear, where you can shuffle and customize your different lock screen backgrounds.

If you tap on the + button at the bottom right to create a new wallpaper, you can browse through various Apple wallpapers, with weather and astronomy, emojis and more. A few of these backgrounds have built-in widgets, but you can also add them later.

If you choose to upload your own photo, look for one that clearly features a person or object in the foreground. If you adjust the image just right, you’ll be able to use the new depth effect feature, which pushes the time behind any object into focus, creating a layered sort of look.

You can then tap any of the lock screen elements, such as the date and time, to adjust the appearance. If you hit Add Widgetsyou can add small transparent widgets to that section of your wallpaper.

When you’re done, tap add and choose whether you want to use the wallpaper only on your lock screen or also on your home screen. Here’s how Apple is change the lock screen on iPhone 14.

2. Set up a Focus profile so you don’t get distracted by notifications

Last year, Apple introduced Focus, the evolution of Do Not Disturb, which you can set to only show important notifications and alerts and block out all others. But the productivity feature has been heavily reworked on iOS 16, and it’s worth checking out and setting up if you want to reduce distractions on your iPhone.

In Institutionsgo to Focus and then select a profile or profiles you want to set up. Within a Focus profile you can then choose to receive notifications from certain people and apps, show muted notifications on your lock screen, hide notification badges and have your lock screen and home screen backgrounds automatically change when your Focus profile is activated become .

Additionally, you can schedule when you want your Focus profile to turn on (when you go to sleep) and turn back on (when you wake up). If you use the Health app, you can retrieve your sleep information to choose an adequate schedule for Focus.

And finally, you can use Focus filters to customize how apps and system settings interact with you. For example, you can add an app filter to Safari so that only certain tabs appear, or add a filter to the Mail app so that only certain email messages get through to you. For system settings, you can use a filter to automatically turn on Dark Mode and Low Power Mode when your Focus profile is turned on.

Once your Focus profile is done, you can swipe down from the top-right side of the screen to access the Control Center, then tap the Focus control to turn on whatever profile you’ve created.

3. Set up iPhoto to remove duplicate photos and videos to clean up clutter and free up storage

And if you need a quick way to clear some space on your iPhone, there’s now a built-in feature in Photos that searches your Camera Roll for any duplicate photos and videos. This is a great way to not only do some spring cleaning, but also to remove files that are taking up storage on your iPhone.

In Photosgo into the Albums tab, wipe completely and tap on Duplicates. Now you can go through all your photos and videos and either print Add together for each set of duplicates or type Choose > Select All > Add together to delete all the duplicates at once. At the bottom of each photo or video, you’ll see the size of the files, so you’ll want to prioritize larger files first.