iOS and iPadOS 18.2: Everything New Besides Apple Intelligence

Today, Apple is releasing iOS and iPadOS 18.2, the second major updates to the iPhone and iPad’s latest operating system versions. Once again, this release’s main highlight is a wave of new Apple Intelligence features that are now available to the public. And just like in October, we’re covering these new AI features separately in a special story for MacStories readers. Be sure to check out Federico’s story, which goes over the new Apple Intelligence features included in iOS and iPadOS 18.2.

But besides another batch of Apple Intelligence features, this release also includes a series of changes to the system, from updates to Safari, Find My, and Photos to the arrival of new system-wide settings for Default Apps and more. Here’s a roundup of everything new besides Apple Intelligence in iOS and iPadOS 18.2.

New Default Apps Settings

Earlier this year, Apple announced the addition of a new Settings screen in iOS and iPadOS 18.2 for choosing default apps as part of its plan to comply with the Digital Markets Act in the European Union, alongside a redesigned default browser choice screen. While it was possible to change these settings before, choosing a new default app required you to navigate to the individual app’s Settings screen (for example, Settings → Apps → Safari to make Safari the default browser). The new screen centralizes all of the default app options and is accessible at the top of the Apps section in the Settings app.

From this screen, you can set the default app for each of the following features:

Browsing the web

Sending emails

Sending messages

Dialing phone numbers

Filtering spam calls

Managing passwords

Using alternative keyboards

Performing contactless payments

If you live in the EU, you may notice an additional default app setting that allows you to set a default app marketplace instead of Apple’s App Store.

Note that you may not have any options currently available in one or more of the default app categories. To appear in the list of available defaults, developers will need to update their apps and make sure they qualify in their category.

Safari

Perhaps surprisingly, Safari ships with several new and previously unannounced features in iOS and iPadOS 18.2.

Since the release of iOS and iPadOS 15, we’ve had the ability to customize the browser’s start page with an Apple-provided wallpaper or with any image from Photos. Starting today, Safari now offers six new background options, bringing the total to 16. The first two each picture an abstract landscape, the next are renders of some of Safari’s glyphs and icons, and the last two form a pattern of curvy shapes and gradients. I’m a fan of the pastel color choices in these new backgrounds, but I do wish Apple would also make them available to use as wallpapers on the Lock and Home Screens.

These are the six new background options for Safari in iOS and iPadOS 18.2. They are also available on the Mac in Sequoia 15.2.

In addition to the new backgrounds, Safari now supports linking to text highlights on web pages. The idea here is that you can select text on any web page, tap ‘Copy Link with Highlight’, and share the copied link so that anyone opening it will immediately be shown the specific text you highlighted in yellow on that web page. It’s a small but amazing functionality for any kind of work that relies on referencing things from the web. This is what it looks like on the iPhone:

To share a highlighted portion of text on a web page in Safari, select the text, scroll the edit menu (1), and tap ‘Copy Link with Highlight’ (2). Anyone opening the link in a supported browser will automatically be directed to the highlighted text in yellow.

Linking to text highlights on the web isn’t entirely new; the feature was already supported by some web browsers, most notably Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. However, now that the feature is also available in Safari (on all of Apple’s platforms, including macOS), I suspect that it will slowly become hugely popular.

Last but not least in Safari, the app will spawn a Live Activity when a download is in progress, and it now features HTTPS Priority, an aptly named mechanism that will automatically upgrade HTTP URLs to HTTPS when available.

Photos

In iOS 18, the Photos app received a major redesign and a series of new features, including Collections. 18.2 includes several tweaks to the new Photos app, most of which revolve around navigation.

In the Recently Viewed collection, you can now clear the full history of recently viewed media. If you long-press on a photo or video, you can also remove it individually from the collection.

Navigating collections is now easier, too. Apple has finally re-added the ability to swipe right to go back pretty much anywhere in the Photos app, including when you’re several levels deep into an album folder. It’s hard to know whether it was a bug or if Apple was being intentional about not implementing the gesture in certain places in the app before, but I’m glad to report that it is now consistently available.

Swiping right to go back now works consistently across the app.

Apple has also improved the video viewing experience in the Photos app. Unlike in previous versions of iOS 18, the app will no longer zoom in and out on a video when you tap the screen. Instead, the video will now always fit the width of the screen, and you can tap the screen to show playback controls, the video scrubber, and the gallery view along the bottom of the screen. These will appear over the video and disappear if you tap the screen again. But that’s not all: you can now scrub videos on a precise frame-by-frame basis, and there’s a new option to disable auto-looping video playback.

The improved video player in Photos now lets you scrub frame by frame, which is indicated by a decimal in the timecode above the scrubber.

Overall, these small changes and improvements have helped reduce the friction I’ve been feeling since I first started using the drastically redesigned Photos app this summer. I’m hoping Apple will keep iterating on it.

And More…

Return of the volume slider on the Lock Screen. This will make a ton of people happy. iOS 18.2 brings back the volume slider on the Lock Screen when music or media is playing, in the form of an Accessibility setting. The slider was removed in iOS 16 when Apple redesigned the Lock Screen, and since then, it has only appeared under certain circumstances, such as when controlling an AirPlay device. But now, you can bring it back permanently.

To add the volume slider back to your Lock Screen, head to Settings → Accessibility → Audio & Visual, and turn on ‘Always Show Volume Control’.

Head to Settings → Accessibility → Audio & Visual to bring back the volume slider on the Lock Screen.

New Camera Control settings for iPhone 16 models. iPhone 16 owners now have the ability to lock the camera’s exposure and focus with a light press on the Camera Control. The AE/AF Lock option can be enabled by going to Settings → Camera → Camera Control.

There is also a new option to adjust the double-click speed of Camera Control. iPhone 16 users can choose between Default, Slow, and Slower. The new adjustment options are present alongside previously available options to tweak the double light-press speed and the light-press force.

New Voice Memos features for iPhone 16 Pro models. Originally announced at Apple’s September event, iPhone 16 Pro models now have access to an upgraded version of the Voice Memos app with support for layered recording. Additionally, these multitrack projects can later be imported into Logic Pro.

Natural language search in Apple Music and Apple TV. In the Music and TV apps, Apple says you can now use natural language to search for media by specifying genres, moods, actors, decades, and more. In my experience so far, natural language search in these apps doesn’t seem to make a huge difference when you’re only using a handful of words, and it starts to break down as soon as you try to input longer phrases.

Shazam history now includes location. If you’ve ever wondered where you heard a specific song, iOS 18.2 has you covered. Now, after you ask Shazam to recognize a song, you can go back to your song history and tap on each one to reveal a minimap pinpointing where you heard it.

A map pin is now included below each of your recently recognized songs.

Favorite categories in Podcasts. In Podcasts, a new Categories section has been added to the Library tab. This essentially gives you access to Apple Podcasts’ catalog of categories. You can now also choose favorite categories, and your favorites will appear at the top of the Categories section in your Library. Additionally, the Search tab in Podcasts now dynamically reorders the category tiles depending on your podcast listening habits.

Favorite categories and the personalized Search tab in the Podcasts app

Better consistency for dark and tinted icons across Settings and the share sheet. App icons in the share sheet and Settings now reflect your light or dark mode preference and even icon tinting if you’ve enabled it on the Home Screen.

Find My now supports sharing AirTags with airlines. Find My has a new option to share an item’s location with an “airline or trusted person” who can help you locate something that you’ve misplaced. In the app, select an item you’re tracking with an AirTag (or other Find My-compatible tracker), and tap ‘Share Item Location’. This will generate a link that you can share with someone else so they can view the location of the lost item.

New ‘Get Current App’ action in Shortcuts. This is huge news for Shortcuts nerds: you can use the new ‘Get Current App’ action to detect which app is currently active on-screen and automate accordingly.

AirPods Pro Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are available in more countries. The new Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features were recently launched in the U.S. and several other countries. However, these features were unavailable to many AirPods Pro 2 owners worldwide. This was primarily due to pending approval from the relevant authorities in each nation for these health features.

With iOS 18.2, Apple is rolling out the AirPods Pro 2’s Hearing Test feature to the following countries:

Cyprus

Czechia

France

Italy

Luxembourg

Romania

Spain

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

Sadly, the Hearing Aid functionality is only coming to one additional country in this release, the United Arab Emirates.

That’s it for iOS and iPadOS 18.2. Not unlike 18.1, this release includes a significant number of non-AI changes and additions, and I’m glad to see that Apple is still iterating on many of its native apps throughout the year.

You can update your device to iOS or iPadOS 18.2 today by navigating to Settings → General → Software Update.