iOS 18.5: 5 new iPhone options are coming subsequent week

Apple is nearly ready to ship its next iPhone update: iOS 18.5 is coming next week and will bring a handful of new features to users. Here’s what’s coming.

#1: Enhancements for Apple’s Mail app

Last December, iOS 18.2 brought major changes to Apple’s Mail app. The big redesign and new inbox features were a bit controversial, though.

In iOS 18.5, Apple brings two enhancements to Mail that should help:

The previously hidden ‘All Mail’ inbox view is now visible

and contact photos can be easily enabled or disabled

The first change makes it easier to keep the new inbox categories enabled, while bouncing between categories and ‘All Mail’ views as needed. Previously, you could only find ‘All Mail’ if you happened upon it with a swipe gesture, but iOS 18.5 makes it visible on the right edge of the screen.

Not everyone’s a fan of the Messages-inspired addition of contact photos to the inbox. If that’s you, tapping the three-dot icon in the top-right corner now reveals an option to show or hide contact photos. You could do this from the Settings app before, but now it’s right inside the app.

#2: New Pride wallpaper

It’s rare for Apple to add new system wallpapers to iOS, but in the last few years the company started doing so for certain annual occasions, such as Pride.

Now in iOS 18.5, your iPhone’s built-in wallpapers include a brand new Pride addition. It’s a colorful new option that joins existing Pride wallpapers from previous years.

#3: Screen Time notifications

Screen Time is Apple’s set of tools across iPhone, iPad, and Mac for having a healthier approach to your tech.

One aspect of Screen Time is parental controls, and those are getting a nice update in iOS 18.5.

Now, whenever a Screen Time passcode is entered on your child’s device, you as the parent will get notified about it. This ensures that your child isn’t bypassing Screen Time limits without your knowledge.

#4: Seamless Apple TV app purchases

The best big-screen experience with Apple’s TV app is generally found on tvOS. But many users don’t own an Apple TV 4K, and they stick with the built-in Apple TV app on their smart TV.

In iOS 18.5, an iPhone feature that previously only worked with tvOS is now extended to third-party TVs and streaming devices too.

‘Buy with iPhone’ enables you to purchase content in the Apple TV app by authenticating on your iPhone.

Basically, if you want to subscribe to a new service inside the TV app, or buy or rent a movie, iOS 18.5 makes that experience more seamless than ever when using third-party TV devices.

#5: Satellite features come to iPhone 13

Historically, if you wanted to use satellite features in iOS, you needed an iPhone 14 or newer.

But that’s changing with iOS 18.5, which enables you to access carrier-provided satellite features on an iPhone 13, 13 mini, 13 Pro, or 13 Pro Max.

T-Mobile, for example, lets users benefit from Starlink-based satellite connectivity when you’re in an area without network coverage.

However, some of Apple’s own satellite features—like Emergency SOS via satellite—remain exclusive to newer iPhones because of specific hardware requirements.

iOS 18.5 features: wrap-up

Overall, iOS 18.5 is a much smaller iPhone update than the norm. This isn’t entirely surprising, though, because Apple rarely adds big new features this late in a release’s annual cycle.

Next month, iOS 19 will be unveiled at WWDC. That major update has occupied Apple’s engineering resources for a while now. Thus, any remaining iOS 18 updates will offer more minor changes and bug fixes.

Are you interested in any of the new iOS 18.5 features listed above? Let us know in the comments.