Aside from launching the new smaller, more powerful iPhone, Apple’s also released the new update for iOS. Version 9.3 is considered a minor release but it brings with it some handy new features. Here are some you can try out:
Night Shift mode to help you get better sleep
If you’re familiar with the tool F.lux, you’ll know what this feature brings to the table. Night Shift mode reduces the amount of blue light the iPhone emits based on the time of the day or where you are at the moment. Research studies have said the the blue light emitted by LED screens are stopping the production of melatonin, which is the hormone that tells your brain to sleep at night. By switching to the warmer colors that the Night Shift mode will go into, this is supposed to make it easier for you to fall asleep (although, of course, putting your phone away before bedtime should also help). You can toggle Night Shift to turn on once it’s nighttime and have it switch off in the morning.
Lock up those notes
The Notes app gets an extra security boost. You can now protect your notes behind a password and even unlock these using Touch ID. The app also now lets you sort notes by date or title.
Get news you might want to read
Apple’s News app is getting a bit more personal. The For You section now shows you stories the app thinks are of interest to you. It also shows suggested trending topics and gets a performance boost to make it load faster. You can also now watch videos from your feed.
Apple Health comes to the Apple Watch
The tech giant really wants you to make use of its Health app. The app now highlights the third-party apps that can connect to Health so it’ll be easier for you to keep track of things like workouts, weight, and sleep quality. It also now integrates with Apple’s wearable so you can see the movement data it collects from the app.
Apple brings multi-user support, sort of
We get a glimpse of multi-user support on the iPad through the new education-related tools. The iPads used in classrooms have gotten some extra features. Teachers can use the Classroom app to deliver lesson plans and track student progress. The app also lets students share an iPad by letting them log into different accounts on a single tablet.
The extras
Some of the other new features include new 3D Touch shortcuts for Weather, Settings, Compass, Health, Stocks, and Store. CarPlay gets the ability to add song suggestions for music and nearby points of interests if you need to find certain places. You can also duplicate photos in the Photos app so you can edit one copy while keeping the original shot. Siri has also added support for Hebrew, Finnish, and Malay.
