Wednesday February 11, 2026 11:22 am PST by Juli Clover
No matter how well you think you know your iPhone, there are always tons of hidden features and shortcuts that you aren't aware of, or might have forgotten about. We've rounded up 10 useful iPhone features that are worth knowing about to make using your iPhone just a little more pleasant.
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Many of these tips require the latest version of iOS, iOS 26, but there are a few that work for older versions of iOS, too.
- Alarms in Reminders - You can set an alarm for a reminder, so you get a pop-up that has to be snoozed or dismissed rather than just a notification.
- Adaptive Power Mode - Adaptive Power Mode is a setting you should turn on, because it uses AI to learn your iPhone usage habits. If you're using more battery one day, it can adjust background app refresh and other features to preserve battery so you get all-day use. This is limited to newer iPhone models, but you can get some of the same benefit by adjusting which apps are able to use background app refresh on older models.
- Link to Specific Text - When you send a link to someone, you can use Safari's Copy Link with Highlight feature to direct them right to the spot on a webpage that you want them to see.
- Action Button Menu - You can pick one thing for your Action Button to do by default, but if you set it to a Shortcut, you can create a multi-option pop-up that lets you access multiple quick access buttons. It's entirely customizable, and you're only limited to what Shortcuts can do.
- Text Message Search - Search in the Messages app isn't exactly great and it can be hard to find what you're looking for, but there's a Messages Shortcut that lets you add parameters like date and organize results with the latest messages first.
- AirPods Camera - You can use the button on your AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and AirPods 4 as a remote for your iPhone's camera, and when paired with the timer feature, it's a great way to get group shots where everyone is in frame and no one has to hold the phone.
- Alarm Snooze - With iOS 26, you're not limited to a 9-minute snooze duration when an alarm goes off. You can customize your snooze length to be longer or shorter in the Clock app.
- Podcast Show Tweaks - For podcast fans, you can use the Podcasts app to create per-show settings for Enhance Dialogue and playback speed, so you don't need to use the same settings for every podcast.
- Snooze Notifications - For notifications from apps like Calendar and Reminders, you can long press on the notification on the Lock Screen to snooze it for a few minutes, an hour, or a custom length of time.
- Screenshots - Tired of full-screen previews for screenshots? You can turn them off and go back to the prior screenshot method that just saves them right to the Photos app.
To see how to set up all of these features, make sure to check out our full video up above where we walk you through the steps.
Have a useful tip that we didn't list here? Share it in the comments and we might add it to our next video.
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