iOS 27

Apple unveiled a new emphasis on saving the lives of its customers in September 2022, with a Crash Detection feature joining the existing array of safety and emergency functions on the Apple Watch and iPhone.

Most users will regard Crash Detection as a handy background feature: something that offers peace of mind while hopefully never being called into action. But you may feel differently if you start to experience false positives, as has been anecdotally reported by some rollercoaster riders as well as skiers.

If your iPhone or Apple Watch mistakenly believes it has detected a crash and you somehow don’t notice, you could end up in the embarrassing situation of having to explain to emergency responders why they’ve been called to a theme park or ski slope.

Hopefully that won’t happen. But if you are worried about experiencing false positives with your iPhone or Apple Watch, here’s how to turn off the emergency alert.

How to turn off Crash Detection on Apple Watch

If you want to disable crash detection on the Apple Watch, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Settings app on your Apple Watch.
2. Tap SOS, tap Crash Detection, then tap Call After Severe Crash.

The toggle will turn gray to indicate it’s off. Tap again to turn it back on, and it will turn green again.

How to turn off Crash Detection on iPhone

If you want to disable crash detection on iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max, you need to follow these steps:

1. Go into the Settings app.
2. Go to Emergency SOS.
3. Tap the toggle labelled Call After Severe Crash.

In both cases, what you’re turning off is the emergency call element; Apple doesn’t explicitly offer a way to turn off crash detection entirely, but it isn’t clear whether your device will continue to monitor for crashes if you follow the instructions above. What is clear is that detected crashes won’t be as much of an inconvenience if they don’t involve the emergency services and your emergency contacts.

Apple automatically performs math and offers suggested results in Messages for iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max when you type in patterns it recognizes, such as formulas and units, after you type = (equals sign). These suggestions are grayed out inline in the message field until you tap the suggestion in the field or in the QuickType bar.

What if you don’t like these suggestions? It would seem that going to Settings > General > Keyboard > Show Math Results and turning it off would disable formula and conversion autosuggestions. In testing, I found that I had to force quit Messages and relaunch it to have the change apply. (To quit the app, open the App Switcher, swipe right to find the app, then swipe up on the app.) Re-enabling happened immediately.

Math results appear elsewhere, too. If you don’t want them provided at all, go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions, enable Content & Privacy Restrictions, then tap Siri > Math Assistance, and set it to Block. This is a global switch.

It can be a heart-sinking moment. You’ve captured that precious moment forever on your iPhone 18 Pro Max, but when you go to play back the recorded video you find, for some unknown reason, it’s sideways. This could be due to holding the phone at a certain angle as you hit the record button, either way it needs fixing.

Thankfully, this is a reasonably straightforward process.

To rotate a video follow these steps:

1. Open the video in the Photos app on your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max.
2. Tap on Edit.
3. Tap on the Crop icon.

   

4. You can now simply straighten the video, if it was filmed at a bit of a jaunty angle. Tap a button below the frame to straighten, tilt vertically, or tilt horizontally. Drag the slider to make adjustments.
5. If you want to rotate it 90-degrees (or more if necessary!) tap on the rotate icon.
6. Then tap Done.

Is your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max not showing recent calls? This can be frustrating, especially when you need to keep track of important calls. Before you give up, here are some fixes you can try to get your iPhone to display recent and missed calls again.

1 Restart Your iPhone

Restarting your iPhone may seem like a simple step, but it can help resolve various temporary glitches, including those that might be preventing your call logs from appearing.

Since iPhones don’t have a dedicated restart option, you’ll need to turn it off and then back on manually. Press and hold the side button along with either of the volume buttons until the power slider appears. Slide it to the right to power off your iPhone. Once it’s completely off, press and hold the side button again to turn it back on.

2 Select the Correct Region

Having your iPhone set to the wrong region can also lead to issues like this. Here’s how to set your iPhone to the correct region:

1. Open the Settings app and head to General > Language & Region > Region.
2. Scroll through the list to select the correct region.
3. Select Change to [Region Name] to confirm.

Wait for your iPhone to update to the correct region, and this should resolve the issue. If your iPhone is already set to the correct region, select a different region and then switch back to the correct one to see if that fixes the problem.

3 Set the Correct Date & Time

Is your iPhone set to the wrong date or time? If so, this could also cause similar issues. That’s why I highly recommend configuring your iPhone to set the date and time automatically. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app and tap General.
2. Tap Date & Time.
3. Turn on the Set Time Automatically toggle.

4 Update Your iPhone

Your iPhone 18 Pro Max might not be displaying recent calls due to a buggy or outdated iOS version. Apple frequently releases software updates to introduce new features and resolve bugs. Therefore, downloading and installing any pending updates is a good idea to see if this resolves the issue.

To update your iPhone, open Settings and go to General > Software Update. Your iPhone will check Apple’s servers for any available updates. If an update is available, tap Update Now.

The update process may take some time, depending on its size. However, once the update is complete, the issue should be resolved.

5 Reset Your iPhone’s Network Settings

Several users on an Apple Community post have reported resolving this issue by resetting their iPhone’s network settings. So, if none of the other solutions work, you can give this a try. To reset your iPhone’s network settings, here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone.
2. Tap Reset and select Reset Network Settings from the menu that appears.
3. Enter your device passcode and tap Reset Network Settings.

Your iPhone will now reset its network settings. Once it’s done, your issue should be resolved.

It can be frustrating when your iPhone 18 Pro Max fails to display something as basic as recent calls. Hopefully, that’s no longer the case, and one of the troubleshooting steps above helped you resolve the issue.

HEIC images – a format Apple has used on its iPhones since 2017 – have many advantages over the Jpegs they replaced, but they have downsides too. Jpegs are compatible with a wider range of systems, and are more familiar to most people, and for this reason many of us would prefer to share our photos with family and friends in this format.

You can convert a HEIC to a Jpeg manually on a Mac via Preview.

But it’s easier to change a few settings on your iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Tell iOS to share Jpegs instead of HEICs

The simplest approach is keep on shooting HEICs – which take up less storage – but to get iOS to convert them on the fly to Jpegs whenever sharing them.

Open a photo in the Photos app, tap the Share button, then tap Options.

Tap Automatic for the best file format for the destination, tap Current to prevent a file format conversion, or tap Most Compatible and files may convert to JPEG or MOV.

Tell the iPhone to capture Jpegs instead of HEICs

A more drastic solution is to shoot in Jpeg instead of HEIC. This will obviously result in Jpegs being shared from your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max, but also means you lose the benefits that HEIC brings.

Still, if you’re set on this course of action, go to Settings > Camera > Formats. The option ‘High Efficiency’ means HEIC. ‘Most Compatible’ means Jpeg.

Reader Regina Laurent wishes to correct Siri’s pronunciation. She writes:

I like using Siri on my iPhone 18 Pro Max but she mispronounces my name as well as the names of some of my French friends. Is there anything I can do to teach her to speak properly?

You have a couple of options. The first is to deal directly with Siri (which I’ll refer to as “she” even though it can use a female or male voice).

When Siri mispronounces a name, reply “That’s not how you say that.” Siri will respond with “OK, how do you pronounce the name (firstname)?” where firstname is that contact’s first name. Say the first name and Siri offers you three pronunciation choices. Tap each sample and then tap Select next to the one closest to the pronunciation you prefer. If none of them are as close as you’d like, you can tap Tell Siri Again and she’ll take another stab at it.

You’ll then be prompted to say the last name. Follow the same procedure.

If that doesn’t work, open the contact within the Contacts app and tap Edit. Scroll down the screen and tap add field. In the resulting screen select a pronunciation name field, depending on the name that Siri stumbles over.

In the field that appears, enter a spelling that approximates the pronunciation you’re after. For example, if Siri pronounces your last name Lore-ent you’d enter Lore-ont. In some cases you’ll get closer by tapping on the keyboard’s Dictate button and pronouncing it the way you’d like it spoken. Tap Done and Siri should now pronounce the name correctly. Regrettably, Siri can’t be taught how to correctly pronounce place names.

Apple has made it simple to take a picture quickly with your iPhone 18 Pro Max: swipe left on the lock screen and the Camera app appears. (You can also touch and hold the Camera button on the iPhone Lock Screen. And you can also swipe to reveal the Control Center and tap the Camera icon.)

But what if you want to make it more difficult to trigger the camera, especially after you’ve wound up taking too many photos of your pocket lining? I recently captured an amazing series of lint action shots during a visit to the Palace of Versailles in France, for instance.

Apple doesn’t offer an option (yet) to disable using the Camera only at the lock screen. Instead, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition: you can either make it entirely impossible to use the Camera app on your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max, or you have to have it available everywhere.

If you find the lock-screen-swipe scenario unbearable, you could use a set of Apple tools to disable the Camera app and then trigger the launch of a third-party camera app instead. Here’s how to do so.

First, disable the Camera app using Screen Time:

1. Go to Settings > Screen Time.
2. If it’s not yet enabled, follow prompts to enable it for yourself (not for a child using the phone).
3. In Screen Time, go to Content & Privacy Restrictions, enable Content & Privacy Restrictions, tap Allowed Apps & Features, and disable Camera.
4. Tap the Back link at the top to make the change take effect.

Next, after installing your camera app of choice, such as Halide, follow these steps:

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. Tap the plus (+) icon in the upper-right corner to create a new Shortcut.
3. In the action window, tap Open App. (If it doesn’t appear, enter “Open App” in the search field at the bottom.)
4. Tap the blue-on-gray App link in the Open App action.
5. Select Halide (or another app).
6. Tap the dropdown arrow next to the name Open App at the top of the screen, tap Rename, and give the shortcut a recognizable name, like “Open Halide”.
7. Tap Done.
8. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap, then choose Double Tap or Triple Tap. This accessibility trigger lets you tap the back of your phone twice or three times to trigger an action, which includes shortcuts.
9. Select “Open Halide” from the shortcuts list.

Now, when you want to take a photo, you’ll need to either wake your phone by tapping the screen or unlock your phone, and then double- or triple-tap, depending on which shortcut you have assigned.

No map is perfect; all are approximations. But it’s galling to business owners when a modern digital map lists the wrong address, has incorrect business hours, or even says the business is closed when it’s still open. Or, to take real examples I’ve received, when an address listed offered a dangerous turnoff that wasn’t the main entrance–or when people living in a newly-issued U.K. post code were directed miles away from their destination.

Apple Maps offers a correction feature. You don’t have to be a business owner to suggest changes or request a correction. Mistaken addresses and routes of course affect homeowners and renters, too, as well as non-profits, schools, and other organizations. (Google Maps years ago placed my house four miles west for about six months, which was a constant problem for deliveries, service people, and parents trying to bring their kids over for playdates and birthday parties.)

Follow the steps below to report errors or add places that aren’t listed. Note that human beings do review the additions and changes; they’re not made higgledy-piggledy.

Apple also says you can call their helpline, AppleCare 1-800-APLCARE in the U.S. or 0800 0480408 in the U.K., to report map problems, though I know no one who has.

How to correct and add address information on iPhone 18 Pro Max

To correct a listing:

1. Launch Maps.
2. Tap your picture or initials next to the search field, tap Reports, then tap Report a New Issue.
3. Choose an option, then follow the onscreen instructions.

To add a listing:

1. Launch Maps.
2. Touch and hold the map until a pin marker appears, scroll to the bottom of the card, then tap Report Something Missing.
3. Choose an option, then follow the onscreen instructions.

You can also touch and hold the Maps icon on the Home Screen, then choose Mark My Location to quickly drop a pin at your location and then follow the steps above.

Apple has reduced the number of buttons on most iPhones over time, having them perform double, triple, or more duties. But managing alarms seems to be in a different category.

On your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max, you can snooze an alarm that’s going off by pressing the side button. You can press the volume down button, too. You can also say, “Hey, Siri, snooze alarm.” (There’s also a Snooze button onscreen.)

However, there’s no hands-off or physical button way to stop an alarm. Perhaps Apple worries it would be too easy to fumble with a phone and disable an important alarm where you only wanted to snooze it. You have to unlock your iPhone or tap the Stop button on the home screen. You can also say, “Hey, Siri, turn off alarm.” Let’s just hope your unconscious mind doesn’t learn how to say that in your sleep.

Your listening experience can get quite irritating when one of your AirPods sounds louder than the other on your iPhone 18 Pro Max. Often, you can fix this issue easily by cleaning your AirPods, resetting them, or adjusting their settings. However, if the hardware is at fault, you have limited options.

1 Clean Your AirPods

Just like any other device, you should clean your AirPods regularly. Over time, you may observe an accumulation of earwax around the speaker mesh of your AirPods. This buildup not only has the potential to obstruct sound output but can also diminish the overall audio quality.

To safely remove the earwax buildup, you can use a Q-tip or a cotton swab to clean around the speaker mesh carefully. Remember to remove the ear tips before cleaning if you own AirPods Pro. If you still find smaller particles trapped inside, you can use a soft brush to remove any remaining debris gently.

Trying to remove debris using a hard, sharp object such as a toothpick can cause permanent damage to your AirPods.

2 Adjust the Audio Balance

You may also feel like one AirPod is louder than the other due to a blocked ear or partial hearing loss in one ear. Luckily, you can adjust the volume balance between the left and right channels by following these steps:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone 18 Pro Max.
2. Head over to Accessibility > Audio & Visual.
3. Adjust the Balance slider as per your needs. Moving it towards the left will make the left AirPod louder, and moving it towards the right will make the right AirPod louder.

Although it’s recommended to set the slider to the middle for balanced volume between your right and left AirPods, the adjustment ultimately depends on your personal hearing preferences.

3 Turn Off Head Tracked Spatial Audio

The Spatial Audio feature includes a dynamic head tracking mode that utilizes the sensors in your AirPods to monitor head movement. It automatically adjusts the right and left audio channels to enhance immersion, resembling a theater-like experience.

Occasionally, this may result in one AirPod sounding louder than the other, particularly during transitions from movement to a stationary position. You can try disabling this feature by following these steps:

1. Make sure to connect your AirPods to your iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max.
2. Open the Control Center on your iPhone by swiping down from the top-right corner of your screen.

   

3. Touch and hold the volume control.
4. Tap the Spatial Audio (or Spatialize Stereo) option, then choose the Fixed or Off setting based on your preference. Remember that you’ll need to repeat these steps for every app that supports the feature.

4 Reset Your AirPods

If the above methods weren’t helpful, you can try resetting your AirPods to factory settings. To do that:

1. Open the Settings app and tap Bluetooth.
2. Tap the More Info button next to your AirPods.
3. Scroll down and tap Forget This Device, then confirm by tapping Forget Device.
4. When you receive a prompt indicating that your AirPods will be disconnected from all devices linked to your Apple Account, tap Forget Device once more.

Now:

1. Put your AirPods back into the charging case and leave the lid open.
2. Press and hold the Setup button on the back of the case for roughly 15 seconds. You’ll see the status light flash amber/orange, followed by white, to confirm that you’ve reset your AirPods.
3. Reconnect your AirPods to your iPhone 18 Pro Max.

AirPods 4 or 5, or AirPods Pro 3: Put the AirPods in their case, close the lid, then wait 30 seconds. Open the lid, then double-tap the front of the case three times. When you successfully reset your AirPods, the status light flashes amber, then white.

Experiencing imbalanced audio output or one AirPod sounding louder than the other can be frustrating. However, you can address and potentially resolve these issues with these troubleshooting steps.

If none of the tips worked in your favor, chances are your AirPods issue is hardware-related. In such cases, we highly recommend scheduling an appointment with an Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider to get your AirPods serviced.