iOS 18.2 is rolling out to all compatible iPhones today, and most of the focus is on the new Apple Intelligence capabilities, and for good reason: AI is Apple’s big marketing hook but the features are rolling out gradually over several months. The iOS 18.2 (and macOS 15.2) adds long-awaited image tools and ChatGPT integration that make Apple Intelligence a lot more useful.

But if you don’t have an iPhone 16 or iPhone 15 Pro (or just don’t care about AI), none of that matters to you. Fortunately, iOS 18.2 isn’t just an Apple Intelligence drop, it adds a host of other great quality-of-life features and improvements as well. Here are all the new things in iOS 18.2 coming to your iPhone that have nothing to do with Apple Intelligence.

Update December 11: Apple has announced that iOS 18.2 will arrive today. OS updates generally appear at 10am PT/1pm ET.

Camera Control improvements

After months of criticism, Apple is making several tweaks to the Camera Control button in iOS 18.2, for those with an iPhone 16. First, pressing and holding the button will launch the new Visual Intelligence feature.

But there are some other quality-of-life improvements, too. In Settings > Accessibility > Camera Control you’ll be able to adjust the double-click speed. You can also enable an autofocus/exposure lock in Settings > Camera > Camera Control, so a light press on the button locks exposure and focus much as it usually does on the shutter button of a DLSR.

Finally, there’s a new toggle that requires the screen to be on for the Camera Control button to launch a camera app. You’ll find that in Settings > Display & Brightness, which is sort of a confusing place for it.

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Foundry

New Mail app with smart categories

The Mail app will analyze the content of your emails and automatically categorize them into four categories:

• Primary: Your personal mail or mail that needs to be acted on right away.





• Transactions: Receipts, order confirmations, shipping notices, etc.





• Updates: News and newsletters, social media notifications, and the like.





• Promotions: Coupons, marketing offers, and so on.

The four categories will exist as buttons at the top of the Mail app, and you can swipe left on them to show All Mail.

And no, Apple isn’t reading your emails. All of this happens on the device.

Volume limit and lock screen slider

In the Settings > Sound & Haptics menu, there’s a new Volume Limit feature for your iPhone’s built-in speaker (volume limits for headphones have been around for a long time). It only affects media playback, not calls/FaceTime, alerts, or system sounds.

There’s also a new option in Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual called “Always Show Volume Control.” This will put the volume control slider back on the bottom of the media playback controls on your Lock screen. That volume slider was removed back in iOS 16 (unless you were using AirPlay), and if you miss it, you can have it back now.

Default messaging and calling apps

In iOS 18.2’s Settings > Apps you’ll find a new selection at the top, before your list of installed apps, called Default Apps.

In this menu, you’ll choose default applications for things like email, browser, passwords & codes, and more. Most are options you had before (albeit scattered throughout Settings), but Messaging and Calling are new.

There are no applications that qualify to populate those areas right now, but that’s probably just a matter of existing apps needing new versions that use new frameworks.

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