Today I’m to be showing you some new settings in iOS 15 that you need to change on your iPhone right away. So, these are going to be settings that will have an impact on your privacy, your battery life and just overall ease of use throughout iOS 15. So, now let’s go ahead and get into the settings that you should strongly consider changing immediately once you have an iOS 15.
1. Safari.
The first one has to do with Safari and your IP address. So, if you open the settings of your iOS and navigate to Safari click on it, and then scroll down until you see hide IP address, you want to tap on that and make sure that is turned on, you do not want this off. this will hide your IP address. your IP address can be used to determine personal information like your location and this is going to protect you from that. Now you might also see from trackers, so you need to make sure that’s enabled, that’s only if you have a private relay enabled. if you don’t have private relay enabled.
2. Private relay.
So, in iOS 15 and iCloud there is a new feature called Private relay, and you can see that in your iOS settings. If you tap on that, you may want to consider turning this on. So, this is going to hide your IP address and your internet activity, so that websites cannot build a profile for you based on your web activity. however, this is not a VPN, it only works in Safari and it can’t hide the region you’re connecting from, so you’re not going to get the same benefits that you do from a VPN, but this is still a very great feature to have in iOS 15.
3. Hide my email.
So, this is another really great privacy feature in iOS 15 that’s going to allow you to use a unique random address that forwards to your actual email address, this is going to keep your personal emails private. this is great if you want to maybe sign up to a website’s newsletter, to get a discount, or if you just thought your information might get sold to a third party, then you definitely want to have an alias email set up and of course if you start getting spammed, you can delete that alias email and just create a new one, very easily.
So, if you want to do it just tap on create a new address on Hide my email section in your iOS settings. Once you click on “create new email” You will see that it gives a random email. basically, it just combines random words with numbers and that’s what you get for your alias email address which you are able to label them.
4. Focus mode.
Now the next thing you might want to change has to do with focus modes and notifying others when you are in a focus mode. so, as you may know already in iOS 15 once you enter a focus mode, an alert will be shown to other people who attempt to text you and it will let them know that your notifications have been silenced. you can disable this if you go into your settings and navigate to focus, then change the focus status. you could turn it off for everybody or selected people only. so that is definitely a setting you should consider changing if you don’t want specific people seeing when you’re in that focus mode.
5. Background sound.
The next setting, you may want to change is inside of accessibility. so, if you go into your accessibility of your iOS settings, you then navigate to audio visual and then to background sounds. So, what this feature does is, it plays some background sound like the rain, ocean and just different ambient noises that will help you concentrate or go to sleep and you can also stop sounds when locked.
6. Preserve night mode.
The next setting, you may want to change in iOS 15 has to do with the Camera. so, if you go into camera settings, navigate to preserve settings and then turn on your night mode and also live photo. This feature helps you to take better photos at night or in low light.
7. Notify when left behind.
Now the next thing that will be good to change is the “notify when left behind” feature. so, this is also brand new in iOS 15 and this is going to be very beneficial if you have an air tag, and also if you have multiple Apple devices. So, if you go into the Find my application, and then go to your device, you will see under notifications, it shows a notify when left behind. if you tap on that, you can enable it and you can see it says “receive a notification when you leave backpack behind. This can be helpful when taking this item with you”. And then below it you also have “notify me except at”, where you can add in your home address because obviously if you leave your house, without that product it’s not lost, so you don’t want to get a notification for that. So, this is going to be very beneficial for traveling, and just really any other time that you maybe leave something if you’re very forgetful, you may want to have this enabled.
8. Apple card security.
The next setting that you need to change is for those with an apple card, and this is going to help prevent fraudulent transactions. So if we go into wallet application on your iPhone, where your apple card is set up and if you tap on the little card icon up in the top right to view your card information, you will see that it has a new toggle button in there for advanced fraud protection, and you can see it says, to keep your card information safe, your security code will change periodically, so you definitely want to make sure that is enabled to prevent fraudulent transactions, and you will see next to your security code, you will now get a new little icon. so that is a must enable feature, if you have an apple card.
9. Mail privacy.
The next setting, you guys need to change is inside of the mail section. so, if you go to mail, and then down to privacy protection. You want to make sure that protect mail activity is enabled. This is an important one and when you are there, you can see it says “mail privacy protection works by hiding your IP address and loading remote content privately in the background, even when you don’t open the message”, so essentially this feature not only hides your IP address but it’s also going to prevent senders from tracking if you open their email or not. So now, people are not going to be able to see if you open the email or not, they’re not going to be able to see if you forwarded the email or not. So basically, this is going to prevent follow up emails and other spammy tactics used by websites and others who have little hidden pixels in the emails, so I strongly suggest turning this on, if you use Mail on your iPhone.