Shear & Be Shorn?

Voice Isolation

Do you often talk on the phone in areas with a lot of background noise? No longer are you restricted to using special headphones with noise cancellation.

On iPhone models released since 2018 and running iOS 16.4 or later, you can enable Voice Isolation for phone calls. To do so, while you are on a call, swipe down from the top-right corner to open Control Center (or up from the bottom if you have a Home button), tap Mic Mode, and choose Voice Isolation.

On the flip side, if you want to make background sounds audible, choose Wide Spectrum from the same menu. The Mic Mode menu is only present in Control Center while on a call. You can also use this function for FaceTime and some third-party apps.

Mic Mode will keep your preferred setting across calls until you change it.

Scan QR Codes

In iPhone’s early years, users commonly installed a third-party scanning app to capture QR codes. iPhone’s built-in Camera app gained this capability in iOS 11, so you can probably delete your old scanner.

To scan a QR code, simply point your camera at the code. When iPhone recognizes the code, a yellow frame will appear around it with a yellow tag below that identifies the embedded link.

Tap the tag to take the linked action, which could be visiting a website, joining a Wi-Fi network, or something else. iOS 17 will enhance this functionality by putting the tag at the bottom of the screen, making it easier to tap.

[Update: Even easier than opening Camera, you can add Code Scanner to Control Center. Holding it up to a QR code, the scanner launches the associated action automatically.]

Control Volume with a Swipe

Since iOS 13, the volume indicator on iPhone appears as a vertical white bar on the left side of the top half of the screen. Upon clicking the Volume Up or Volume Down button, the indicator initially appears as a wide bar with an icon at the bottom that indicates the current audio source, such as built-in speaker or Bluetooth, just like in Control Center.

If you continue adjusting the volume with the physical buttons, the bar becomes narrow. While you can hold a volume button to quickly increase or decrease the volume, either of these physical behaviors may require more force than your hand prefers.

Instead, once the volume bar is on the screen, you can touch it with your finger and swipe up or down to adjust. This additionally provides at least 20 times greater precision than the 16 indexed levels set by the buttons, and matches the experience of adjusting volume in Control Center.

QuickTake Video

iOS 13 introduced QuickTake, a rebrand of Apple’s 1990s-era trademark. The iPhone camera feature enables quickly capturing a video without leaving Photo mode.

Simply press and hold the shutter button to take a video. Swipe to the right (or up when in landscape orientation) to lock the capture so you can release your finger. Just like Video mode, you can tap the shutter button on the right to take a photo during video capture.

You can also hold a volume button to activate QuickTake, just as you can press and release a volume button to take a photo.

You might recall that holding the shutter button used to capture a burst of photos. So, on iPhones that support QuickTake (those released since 2018), Burst Mode has become optional and, if enabled in Camera settings, is triggered by holding the Volume Up button. Thus, holding Volume Down becomes the QuickTake activator.