As the year draws to a close, many frenzied smartphone users haven’t had a chance to explore major updates to Google and iPhone operating systems arriving this fall. As you finally get a breather – or maybe even a new phone in your gift collection – why not start with some of the most exciting features that can help you use Android 14 or iOS 17? Here are some of the highlights.
Express yourself
Google’s Android 14 release focused heavily on improving security and accessibility features. But Google has also added new ways to customize phone screens with new wallpaper, app widgets and shortcuts. To get started, open the Settings app, select Wallpaper & styles, and make your choices to personalize your device.
Apple has a lot of options in its iOS 17 wallpaper settings, but with last week’s iOS 17.2 update, users can go deep in a different way with the new Journal app included in the software. it’s also in the App Store. Journal is a free digital diary for recording thoughts and feelings through text, images and topic suggestions. You can back up your encrypted entries to your iCloud account, where you get five gigabytes of free online storage before Apple charges.
Apple’s media magazine is similar to third-party apps like Day One and Journey, which have free and paid premium versions. While Google hasn’t yet added its own dedicated calendar app to Android, some people use the company’s free Keep and Docs apps for their reflective moments.
Search your world
Image search adds another dimension to activities like shopping, visiting museums, traveling or just walking around town. Apple’s existing Visual Look Up feature for identifying objects in photos was enhanced in iOS 17 and now works on videos as well. To use it, just open a photo or pause a video on your phone and tap the Info icon (third from the left) at the bottom of the screen. If there is more information about the subject of the image, click Search to see the search results.
(Another Visual Look Up trick: When you see a glowing white border around the main object in a photo, tap it to open a pop-up menu. Choose Add Sticker to save a silhouetted copy of the object that you can send in a message or input from the iPhone emoji keyboard.)
Introduced in 2017, Google Lens has steadily become more accurate by pairing object recognition with relevant internet search results. Let’s say you’re in a museum and you want more information about the artwork you’re seeing through your phone’s camera. Tap the Google Lens icon next to it to see the articles that Google Search completes.
Google Lens works on objects in still photos and extracts frames from video clips. It’s available as an Android app, but it’s integrated elsewhere, including the standalone Google app for Android and iOS.
Both Apple’s Visual Look Up and Google Lens can recognize, copy, and translate text in images you see through the camera. Check each company’s privacy policy if you have any concerns about data collection.
Blast off
Android developers have been hiding little surprises in the system code for years, and this year’s update brings a hidden game. To reveal it, open the Settings app and scroll down to About phone. Tap it and then tap Android Version.
On the next screen, quickly tap Android Version three times to start the game. On the game screen, press and hold the Android 14 logo until the phone vibrates and a tiny spaceship appears. Tap your finger on the screen to get the steering wheel controls and use the corner position information to fly to different stars.
Go to standby mode
Apple’s iOS 17 includes a standby mode that turns the iPhone’s lock screen into a smart display to show the time, temperature, photos, music, recipes and other apps. When enabled in iPhone Settings, sleep mode is activated when the phone is charging and sitting still in landscape orientation.
If you don’t care about the default widgets, press and hold your finger on either side of the screen to select new ones from the list of standby-compatible options. The Night Mode option in the settings gives the screen a red tint if you decide to use the phone as a bedside clock.
