5 Settings to Change Immediately on Your New iPhone

We all know the awesome feeling that is getting a new iPhone, setting it up, and customizing it to our specific needs. But while the process is a highly individualized one, there are some things that you definitely should look into when setting up a new iPhone. Press the right arrow to learn about 5 iPhone settings you'll want to change immediately.

5 Customize Your Mail Settings

Although this depends on your individual circumstances, most of us don’t need our iPhones to constantly monitor our email accounts for new messages. For those of us who don’t, Push and Fetch email are both pretty big battery drainers.

If you don’t need to check your email much, it’s best to go to Settings > Mail, and set Fetch to manual — that way, you’ll only receive new messages when you actually open the app. You can set it to a longer interval if you need it, or set it to Push. On that last option, there are conflicting views about whether or not it saves battery life, so weigh your email-receiving preferences with your battery life needs to find the best fit.

4 Turn Off Background App Refresh

Background App Refresh, in the simplest terms possible, is a feature that lets apps check for new content the background so that it’s ready for viewing when the app is launched next. It can also unnecessarily drain battery and data if you’re not careful.

There are some other concerns about the feature, too. Such as whether or not it’s actually critical for apps to remain updated (honestly, the answer to that is usually no). Also, there’s the matter of whether or not you actually trust the app developer in question to not abuse the feature. If the answer to either of those is no, then go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

3 Tweak Location Services

On the topic of battery life and privacy, consider tweaking Location Services. While sharing your location with some apps, like Uber and Waze, is probably a good thing, leaving Location Services on for other apps is just unneeded.

To manage the feature, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. You have a couple of options here. For some apps, the best way to go is just to turn Location Services to Never. For others, you’ll have the option of sharing your location with the app while you’re using it or always. The best fit is up to you, so do a bit of thinking about which apps actually need your location.

2 Set Do Not Disturb

Smartphones are amazing things, but they have a well-known adverse effect on your sleep. Similarly, they’re obviously not safe to use while driving. You can help make those less of a problem with Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature.

In Settings > Do Not Disturb, you can tweak the feature to turn of automatically when you normally sleep. That way, your phone isn’t buzzing on your nightstand all night. You can allow calls from certain people, and it’s recommended that you leave Repeated Calls on in case of emergencies. Similarly, you can set your preferred Do Not Disturb While Driving settings in this same menu in iOS 11.

1 Customize Your Control Center

If you got a new iPhone recently, and it’s pre-loaded with iOS 11, one of the best things you can tweak and customize in the OS is the new Control Center. There are a lot of options here, and they’re all up to you.

In Settings > Control Center > Customize Options, you’ll get a wide list of buttons you can add or remove via the Plus or Minus buttons. These include accessibility shortcuts, new features like built-in Screen Recording, and quick access to various native apps like Wallet, Home, Notes and Apple TV Remote. Obviously, the best part is that you can tailor the Control Center to your needs, so how you customize it is up to you.