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THE USEFUL TECH
5️⃣ THE USEFUL FIVE · FRIDAY ROUNDUP · ISSUE #009
👋 HEY, IT'S RAJA
The iPhone 18 Pro reaches stores today, along with AirPods 5, the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Ultra 4. If you ordered one, enjoy it.
Most of you did not, and that is the sensible position. So here is what you got on Monday instead, for nothing, on the phone already in your pocket.
Siri AI took every headline this week and needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. Every one of the five below works on any iPhone that can run iOS 27, which means the iPhone 11 and later. I think you will use all five more than you use Siri.
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1️⃣ Alarms finally have their own volume
Settings → Sounds & Haptics
You can now set an independent volume for alarms and timers, separate from your ringtone.
This sounds trivial until you remember the specific misery it ends. Turning your ringer down for a meeting and silently disarming tomorrow's alarm. Or cranking the ringer up so the alarm will actually wake you, then being detonated by a text at eleven at night. Everyone has solved this badly for years. It is fixed.
iCloud Shared Albums now share at full resolution.
For as long as Shared Albums have existed, anything you put in one came out the other side compressed. Which meant the feature built for sharing photos with family was quietly the worst way to do it, and everybody drifted to WhatsApp, which is worse still.
That is over. Shared Albums are now a legitimate way to hand someone real photographs, and a very good reason to stop sending holiday pictures through a chat app that squeezes them into mush.
3️⃣ FaceTime can use both cameras at once
Front and back simultaneously, after many years of one at a time.
The obvious use is showing someone what you are looking at while they can still see your face, which is most video calls with a parent, ever. Also useful for anything you are explaining with your hands.
The catch: this one needs an iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, or iPhone Air, plus iOS 27. It is the only item here with a hardware requirement, and I nearly left it out for that reason.
4️⃣ You can build your own Wallet passes
Wallet now lets you create custom passes natively, without a third-party app.
Think about what lives in your pockets and your camera roll because no app ever supported it properly. Gym membership barcodes. Library cards. Event tickets from a site that emailed a PDF. Loyalty cards from shops too small to have an app. All of that can now sit in Wallet, one swipe away, alongside your cards and boarding passes.
5️⃣ Everything is faster, and Apple barely mentioned it
The least glamorous item and quite possibly the one you will feel most.
Apple worked on fundamentals across iOS 27. The Camera opens faster in Low Power Mode. Safari's start page loads quicker and runs JavaScript faster. Mail loads messages faster. Apple Music starts playing faster. PDFs save faster. HomeKit accessories pair faster. The Health app updates faster. App launches and AirDrop transfers were both improved.
None of that gets a slide at a keynote. All of it is a second or two, thirty or forty times a day, which adds up to considerably more than a chattier assistant.
If you did buy one today
The first week decides how your phone works for the next three years, and most people spend it restoring a backup and accepting whatever Apple set as default. Restore the backup, but then go through the settings properly rather than inheriting choices you made on an iPhone you no longer own.
For the first week with a new iPhone
The Ultimate iPhone Setup Guide is 89 pages of settings, apps, shortcuts and buried features, written to be worked through with the phone in your hand. It is $29, which is about a fortieth of what you spent this morning.
Five things, all free, all on a phone you already own. That has been the better deal most years, and it is the better deal this year.
See you Monday.
Keep it useful,
Raja · The Useful Tech
P.S. Enjoyed this? Forward it to a friend who loves their Apple gear a little too much.