iOS 10 comes with many new exciting features, but it also comes with some annoyances that might put you off, ranging from the new ‘Press home to unlock’ method to losing your beloved iOS 9 features.
It’s still possible to downgrade your iPhone back to iOS 9.3.5 if you don’t find iOS 10 fitting, but luckily there is a way to fix some of these annoyances. Read on to find out how.
1. Press Home to Unlock
By now, all your friends must be complaining about the new ‘Press home to unlock’ method in iOS 10, which has replaced the old and more convenient ‘Slide to Unlock’. When you slide the Lock screen in iOS 10, you’ll go to the widgets page rather than the passcode screen.
Unfortunately, there’s no way that you can get back the Slide to Unlock method, but you can still enable Touch ID so that your device will be unlocked by resting your finger on the Home button.
2. You’re Forced to Turn off Reduce Motion for iMessage Effects to Work
Reduce Motion has been a useful option since its inception in iOS 7 when Apple introduced the Parallax Effect, which moves the background of the Home screen and Lock screen as you tilt your device, bringing a three-dimensional feel. Reduce Motion disables this parallax effect if you don’t like it.
Unfortunately, it seems that Reduce Motion conflicts with the new iMessage effects that was added in iOS 10. If it is enabled, it means that you won’t be able to send iMessage effects or even view the ones received from your friends. Therefore, the only way to fix this is to turn off Reduce Motion.
3. Raise to Wake
Raise to Wake is a new feature of iOS 10 that automatically wakes your iPhone when you pick it up and its facing towards you. This feature is limited to certain iPhone models such as the iPhone SE, iPhone 6s & the latest iPhone 7.
Just as cool as it sounds, it is also annoying because it sometimes causes the screen to turn on when you move your hand over it. If you’re not fond of this new feature then you can disable it from Settings -> Display & Brightness -> Raise to Wake.
4. Useless Stock Apple Apps
Many people complain about the stock Apple apps in iOS that are mostly useless. Previously, there was no way that you could remove these stock apps from your device, but with iOS 10, you can now hide any of them.
To remove a stock iOS app, tap and hold on its app icon on the Home screen until all the apps start wiggling. Then press the ‘X’ button to remove it from the Home screen. Keep in mind that removing a stock app will hide it only, it won’t be deleted completely from your device.
5. Say Goodbye to Rating Songs
Remember how you could give a star rating to your songs in the Music app? This was a very useful feature to quickly determine which songs are worth listening to, but it has been removed completely in iOS 10 and replaced with the love/heart icon that Apple seems to be obsessed with.
6. You Can Reply to Messages from the Lock Screen
The new notifications system in iOS 10 is quite cool. When it comes to messages, you can reply them from anywhere in iOS, even from the Lock screen. All you have to do is to 3D Touch a message notification and then type and send your reply right away.
Sounds useful, right? But what if your iPhone falls into the wrong hands? People can easily read your messages and reply to them without even asking you to unlock the device. Luckily, you can disable this functionality on the Lock screen to prevent friends and strangers from abusing it.
- Open the Settings app and go to Touch ID & Passcode
- Enter your passcode, if enabled.
- Scroll down and you’ll find a toggle labelled “Reply with Message”. Turn it off to disable replying to messages from Lock screen.
7. You Can’t Clear All Notifications on Older Devices
Notification Center sometimes piles up with lots of pending notifications and Apple is solving this problem in iOS 10 by allowing users to clear all notifications at once with 3D Touch. Unfortunately, only users who have a 3D Touch-enabled device can enjoy this feature, while those on older models are left out.
8. Not Everyone Can Use “Optimize Music Storage”
“Optimize Storage” is a new feature in iOS 10 that automatically removes the songs you haven’t listened to in awhile to saved some storage on your device.
Up until the beta version, this feature was available to everyone, but now only those who have subscribed to iTunes Match or Apple Music can use it to clear up some space on their devices.
9. Some Apps Automatically Add Their Extensions to Messages
Messages app now comes with an iMessage App Store, where you can add cool stickers and iMessage apps. If an app has an extension available for Messages, it will be added automatically without your permission. Luckily, it’s very easy to disable this:
- Open a specific conversation in Messages.
- Tap on the arrow icon to the left of the text field.
- Tap on the Messages App Store icon.
- Press the four circles icon in the bottom left corner and then open Store.
- Go to the Manage tab and turn off ‘Automatically Add Apps’.
10. Handwriting Mode Opens Every Time Your iPhone is in Landscape Orientation
There’s a new feature in Messages called Handwriting which allows you to send handwritten messages to your friends. Handwriting mode is automatically opened when your device is in landscape orientation, which can become very annoying.
To turn this off:
- Rotate your device into landscape orientation so that Handwriting mode opens.
- Press the keyboard icon in the bottom right corner and this should switch to keyboard mode.
These are some of the annoying things about iOS 10, but luckily, most of them can be easily fixed by changing their settings. If you find any other thing about iOS 10 that is annoying, share it with us in the comments below.
