As the year draws to a close, many bewildered smartphone users haven’t had a chance to explore the major updates to Google and iPhone operating systems that arrived this fall. As you finally catch your breath — or maybe a new phone in your gift haul — why not start with some of the more personally engaging features that will help you ease into Android 14 o iOS 17? Here are some highlights.
Express yourself
Google’s release of Android 14 is largely focused on improvement security and accessibility features. But Google has also added new ways to customize phone screens with new wallpaper, app widgets and shortcuts. To get started, open the Settings app, select Wallpaper & Style and make your choices to personalize your device.
Apple has many options with this iOS 17 wallpaper settingsbut on iOS last week 17.2 updateusers can get personal in other ways with new Journal app included in the software; this too in the App Store. The journal is a free digital diary for recording thoughts and feelings through text, images and topic suggestions. You can back up your encrypted entries to your iCloud account, where you get five gigabytes of free online storage before Apple will start charging.
Apple’s multimedia Journal is similar to third-party apps such as First day and Travel, which has free and paid premium versions. Although Google hasn’t yet added its own dedicated diary app to Android, some people use the company’s free keep and Docs apps for their moments of thought.
Find Your World
Image-based search adds another dimension to activities like shopping, going to a museum, traveling or just walking around town. Apple exists Visual Look Up The feature for identifying objects in photos got a boost in iOS 17 and now works with videos as well. To use it, just open a photo or pause a video on your phone and tap the Info icon (the third one from the left) at the bottom of the screen. If more information is available about the subject of the photo, tap Search to see search results.
(Another Visual Look Up trick: When you see a glowing white outline around the main object in a photo, tap it to open a pop-up menu. Select Add Stickers to save a silhouette copy of the object that you can send in a message or insert from iPhone emoji keyboard.)
Google Lensintroduced in 2017, has steadily become more accurate in its matching of object identity and related internet search results. Say you’re in a museum and would like more information to the artwork you’re viewing through your phone’s camera. Tap the adjacent Google Lens icon to see articles aggregated by Google Search.
Google Lens works with objects in still photos and exported frames from video clips. It is available as a Android apps but integrated elsewhere, including in the stand-alone Google app for Android and iOS.
Same with Apple Visual Look Up and Google Lens can recognize, copy and translate the text in the images you see through the camera. Check each company’s privacy policy if you have data collection concerns.
Blast Off
Android developers have been hiding little surprises in the system code for years, and this year’s update brings a hidden game. To uncover it, open the Settings app and scroll down to About Phone. Tap it and then tap Android Version.
On the next screen, quickly tap Android Version three times to start the game. On the game screen, press and hold the Android 14 logo until the phone starts vibrating and a small spaceship appears. Touch your finger on the screen to get steering controls and use corner position information to fly to different stars.
Slip into Standby
Apple’s iOS 17 includes a Standby feature that turns the iPhone lock screen into a smart display to show the time, temperature, photos, music, recipes and other apps. When enabled in iPhone Settings, Standby mode starts when the phone is charging and sitting stably in horizontal screen orientation.
If you don’t care for the default widgets, press and hold your finger on either side of the screen to select new ones from the list of Standby-compatible options. The Night Mode option in the settings gives the screen a red color if you decide to use the phone as a bedside clock.
