If you have an iPhone, you probably recently downloaded the new iOS 10 update. At first you thought, “Okay, this doesn’t seem that different, hitting the home button to unlock my phone won’t change my life that much,” but then as your day went on, you realized Apple had once again provided you with seemingly hundreds of new, mostly completely useless, features that add extensively to the already numerous ways to procrastinate on your phone. So for those of you who haven’t yet explored all of the hidden features of the new update, here are seven for you to check out when you need a break from homework:
1. Invisible Ink Texting
You can now send all of the secret texts your heart desires with the invisible ink feature available when you hold down the send button. You can also send “loud”, “gentle”, or “slam” messages for when you’re really not sure if you’re getting your point across.
2. Screen Backgrounds
Apple has also provided another way of emphasizing texts by including a function that allows you to send balloons (there will never be another boring “Happy Birthday” text again!), confetti, lasers, fireworks, or a shooting star along with your message.
3. Digital Touch Message
Perhaps the most confusingly useless feature of this update, you can now text a variety of different digital symbols, from orange balls of fire, to beating or breaking hearts. Regardless of this function’s lack of purpose or even fun, I still managed to spent over an hour sending these to my sister last week instead of doing work (sorry Katie).
4. GIFs!!!
No question the best new feature is the new GIF keyboard available. Thank you Apple for providing me with the perfect Kanye GIF for every situation.
5. Unsubscribe Easily from Emails
We all know the feeling of going to look at our email app and getting so excited when we see a notification for five new emails, just to be disappointed when we find that they are ALL chain emails that we don’t care about, but also don’t have the time or energy to unsubscribe from. Whenever you get an email from any kind of mailing list now, the mail app gives you the option to hit unsubscribe right when you open the email.
6. New Photos Feature
The IPhone photos app now has a feature that can recognize the faces of your friends in your photographs, and it creates a folder for each face. Although the concept is (maybe?) helpful in some way, it’s not incredibly accurate, and it gets a lot less fun when you realize that it thinks you and your twelve-year-old cousin are the same person.
7. Lyrics in the music app
For all of you Taylor Swift fans who heard “Starbucks lovers” in Blank Space, this new feature is for you. You can now view the lyrics of whatever song you are listening to on the “now playing” screen when the music app is open. Finally, we can all have our own at-home lip sync battles whenever we want.