After months in beta, iOS 9 hits iPhones and iPads today! Hurrah!
Want to be the master of all things iOS 9? We’ve compiled a list of some of the neat but not-so-obvious features, many of which are tucked away enough that you might not otherwise stumble upon them on your own.
We’ll expand this list throughout the day as we poke out the new features. Let us know if you find any you like.
Public Transit Returns!
Stripped from iOS when Apple moved away from Google Maps back in 2012, public transit support finally returns to the default Maps app in iOS 9.
Apple Pay Shortcut
Need to jump into the Wallet app to pick which card you’re using with Apple Pay, but dont want to unlock your device and find the app? Just double tap the home button while your device is locked. Apple Pay should pop right up.
Request Desktop Site
We’ve all been there: you’re using a site, and it’s …being weird. The problem seems to stem from the fact that you’re on a phone, and the developers did a bad job of building their mobile site. If only you could get it to load the desktop version of that page!
There’s a quick shortcut for just that in iOS 9: hold the refresh button in the URL bar. After a second or two, a prompt will allow you to request the desktop version of the current page.
Disable "Shake To Undo"
I’ve been using iOS on and off for years now. I think I’ve intentionally used shake to undo… maybe 5 times. I’ve accidentally brought up the shake to undo prompt probably 45,000 times. In iOS 9, you can finally disable this gesture. Find the option under Settings> General > Accessibility.
Detailed Battery Usage
Sometimes the apps that eat your battery the most are the ones you actually see the least.
iOS has long been able to tell you how much battery each app was guilty of eating, but now it provides an extra bit of information: the amount of time you were actually looking at it, compared to how much time it spent just devouring juice in the background. To expose the new info, go to Settings > Battery, then tap the clock icon at the top of the app list.
Attach Any Type of File
You can now attach any type of file (as opposed to just images). By default, it’ll pull files from the iCloud Drive app — but you can also hook it into things like Dropbox and other third party apps by tapping the “Locations” button in the upper left.
Image Markup
Want to point directly at something in image you’re attaching? Just doodle it right on the photo.
Attach the photo to the email (hold your finger in the body of the email for a second, release, hit the right arrow button, then tap “Insert Photo or Video” and pick your image). Once it’s in place, do another long tap on the image itself, then release. An option labeled “Markup” should appear; tap that, and doodle away.
Convert Website to PDF in Safari
Need to save a website to a PDF for some reason? You can!
It’s a bit obfuscated, but there’s a button for it in iOS 9’s build of Safari. Bring up the share sheet, then scroll the middle section over a bit until you see “Save PDF to iBooks”. Tap that, and voila! You can then share this PDF via email via the iBooks app.