Now that the iOS 18 developer beta is out in the wild, we've learned about some new and interesting features that Apple failed to mention in its WWDC keynote announcements. One of these is expanded charging limit options, and though it might sound counterintuitive, these can really help your iPhone in the long run.

New charging limits for iPhone 15 models

Apple is expanding the charging limit options on all iPhone 15 models. Sadly, the new options aren't available on older devices.

Users can now choose to stop their iPhone from charging when it reaches either 80%, 85%, 90%, and 95% charge. Previously, options were limited to 80% or "Optimized Battery Charging," which charges based on your habits. Of course, you can also keep charging limits off.

If you're wondering why you'd want to use this, it's because limiting a device's maximum charge is a common way to increase its battery's longevity. It's something that Mac users have done for years, using third-party tools like Battery Toolkit. Limiting the charging to 80% can really help increase your battery's health, but it also decreases how much battery life you'll have in a single go. Perhaps a 90% charging limit strikes a better balance.

According to a Reddit post, users who do limit charging will also be able to enable 100% charging temporarily, which will help when you're out traveling or when you have a full, busy day ahead of you.

According to MacRumors, Apple will also send notifications to users, urging them to enable the charging limits feature, which should help with its adoption.

iPhone 15 users will find this feature in Settings > Battery > Charging.

Is your fast charger actually fast?

The Battery page's charging graph is also getting more useful. Apple will now differentiate low charging with an orange color, while regular/fast charging is shown in green.

This feature can be a good way to find out if a Qi wireless charger is performing well, or if an older MagSafe charger is actually charging your iPhone at 15W, as promised. Sometimes, third-party adapters and wireless chargers aren't everything they've been cracked up to be.

After all these years, Apple will finally let you hide, or just lock, almost any app on your iPhone. Now, you can keep your hookup apps separate from your everyday life, or stop someone from peering into your shopping history when you hand them your phone.

The change comes alongside a new hidden apps folder that Apple announced in the AI-focused WWDC 2024 keynote. It's part of iOS 18, currently available as a developer beta. It will ship to users in the fall, and will be available as a public beta to general audience in July.

Hidden apps won't show up in search, and are relegated to a Hidden folder in your App Library. If someone does try to open a hidden app, it will require Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode authentication first.

To hide an app, first make sure you have iOS 18 installed. Then long press the app's icon and choose Hide and Require Face ID. The app will also instantly disappear from your Home Screen and your App Library. At the bottom of your App Library, you will now find a new Hidden folder, which will be locked behind Face ID or Touch ID by default.

Credit: Apple

If that's a bit much, you can just lock your app instead, which will keep it on your Home Screen and in search, but stop others from opening it. With iOS 18 installed, long press an app icon and choose Require Face ID. From the new popup, choose Require Face ID again, and the app will be locked.

If you don't want apps like Tinder to show up on your iPhone Home Screen, search, or even notifications, this is a great way to go about it. A similar feature is also coming in Android 15.

To stop locking or hiding an app, press and hold on the app icon and choose Don't Require Face ID.

You can lock almost every Apple app (yes, even the Photos app), plus all third-party apps. But there are some utilities that Apple won't let you lock, like Maps, Clock, Calculator, and Stocks.

(Follow Lifehacker's ongoing coverage of WWDC 2024 here.)

During Apple's WWDC 2024 keynote, the company has finally revealed more about what's coming in iOS 18. Messages is one of the apps that seems to be getting the most updates, with many new features on the way that aim to make iMessage more fun and useful. The new features in Messages app will ship with a public update in Fall 2024, but users on the Public Beta will be able to try them out as early as July 2024. Here's a quick summary of all the new stuff you can expect to see in Messages later this year.

Tapback

Credit: Apple

In iOS 18, Tapbacks, the feature that allows you to react to an iMessage with a question mark or a "ha ha," for example, is getting a nice overhaul. In iOS 18, you'll be able to reply to messages using any emoji, something that has been popularized by WhatsApp and Instagram. Tapback icons are also getting a redesign, and will be more colorful.

Schedule messages

Credit: Apple

In iOS, you'll finally be able to schedule messages to send later, something that's missing from other popular messaging apps, like WhatsApp. With the feature, you'll be able to write a message and schedule it to send it out later in the day, or the next day, for example.

Text formatting

iMessage is getting old-school text formatting. With iOS 18, you can bold, underline, and italicize text in Messages.

New text effects

Credit: Apple

You'll also be able to add effects to just some text in a message, rather than the entire message. This includes effects like jitter, shake, bounce, and more.

Message from satellite

Apple is building on top of Emergency SOS calling feature that lets you place emergency calls using Satellite access, and is bringing it to Messages as well. You will be able to send iMessages, emojis, an Tapbacks using Satellites. It will work for SMS as well.

RCS on iPhone is really happening

We knew RCS was coming to the iPhone this year, but we didn't know when, exactly. We still don't know all details, but we know for sure that it's shipping with iOS 18.

Balancing which apps automatically start up when you open Windows is more of an art than science. You'll want to disable heavy apps that will slow down your PC's boot up time, but you might also want to enable useful utilities like LocalSend, your default browser, or a screenshot tool like ShareX, to make sure that they're ready to go from the moment you turn your PC on.

There's also hidden services and apps that Windows 11 forces on new users, so check out our guide on using the Autoruns app to get a more complete picture of your options.

How to enable or disable startup apps using Task Manager

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The easiest way to handle which apps open on startup is Task Manager. Here, you'll also be able to check if an app is significantly slowing down how quickly your computer boots up.

Right-click an empty part of the taskbar and choose Task Manager. In Windows 11, choose the Startup apps option from the sidebar (in Windows 10, go to the Startup tab). You will see a list of all the apps that automatically open when you turn on your PC and an estimation of how much processing power they take. You'll also see Windows processes—only disable these if you really know what you're doing. To disable or enable an app from automatically opening when you turn on your computer, right-click and choose the Enable or Disable option. That's all there is to it.

How to enable or disable startup apps using the Windows Settings app

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

You can do the same thing from the Windows Settings app. For both Windows 10 and Windows 11, go to Settings > Apps > Startup to see a list of all supported apps. From the top, you can sort the apps by status or startup impact. Each app has a switch next to it, so you can simply toggle the app On or Off to change its startup status.

Your changes will take place the next time you boot up.

Heading to the great outdoors? Perhaps a different country or an area where the internet connection might be spotty? Be sure to download your Google Maps for offline use before you step out. Once you have offline maps, you can use them to find your way, complete with turn-by-turn navigation, even when your GPS can't connect to mobile data networks.

How to download offline maps before your trip

Google lets you preemptively download maps for any area from around the world, so no need to stick to places that are nearby. You can download multiple maps, too, and keep them on your device for a year.

Open the Google Maps app and search for the city, area, or country that you’ll be visiting. Then, select your choice to get to the details screen.

On Android, swipe up on the menu; on iOS, swipe to the end of the options. Here, tap the Download button. If you’re viewing the details screen in full-screen mode, tap the three-dot Menu button in the top-right corner and choose the Download offline map option.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

You’ll see a preview of what you're about to download. You can pinch in or out to expand the area. Once you’re happy, tap the “Download” button. If you’re on mobile data, you might be asked to confirm the download based on your phone and app settings.

How to download offline maps for current locations or areas

While you can download directions for anywhere from anywhere else, Google Maps has a separate feature for downloading offline maps for your current area. This is helpful if you’re already out in the area, you're having trouble finding connection, and you’ve just found a place with Wi-Fi.

Open the Google Maps app and tap your Profile icon in the top-right. Go to the Offline Maps section and choose the Select your own map option.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Select your area, then tap the Download button. In a few moments, the map will be downloaded for offline use.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

To manage your offline maps, go to Profile > Offline Maps and tap the three-dot menu button next to the map you want to manage. From here, you can update, rename, or delete the map.

Tweak these Google Maps offline settings before you go

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Now that you've downloaded a couple of custom maps, you should tweak a couple of settings to make the experience even better. From your Profile picture menu, go to Offline maps. Here, you'll see a list of all maps. Tap the three-dot Menu button on any map to get options to Update or Rename it. I recommend renaming your downloaded maps so they are easily recognizable.

While you're here, take some time to also enable the auto-update feature for Maps, as it'll keep your downloaded maps up to date in the background. Tap the Gear icon in the top-right corner of the Offline Maps page, then switch on the Auto-update offline maps feature. You can also enable the Auto-download recommended maps option to let Google automatically download new maps for you.

Before leaving this page, use the Download preferences menu to switch downloads to Over Wi-Fi only, which will help you save on data charges (especially when you're traveling).

So far, Meta's Threads website has been stuck playing catch up to both Threads' own app and X's more mature feature loadout. All that is about to change, with the addition of a new column view that lets you create multiple columns of different timelines. This can include your mentions, likes, or even updates from a specific page or a topic. Oh, and to make things sweeter, there's an auto-update feature so you can follow live news as well.

This is similar to TweetDeck, the pioneering product for news junkies, which is now part of X Pro paid plan. With this change, the Threads website is actually now the best way to interact with the product, and after a couple of days of use, I found myself wanting the same column view on the iPhone app as well. Here's how it works.

How to use the new Pin menu in Threads sidebar to add columns

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

First, you'll notice a new Pin icon at the bottom of the sidebar. Use this menu to quickly pin timelines like For You, Following, Saved, Activity, and more. Once pinned, timelines will show up as columns to the right-hand side of the existing feed. You can keep adding new columns and the horizontal scroll will keep on expanding.

From this Pin to home menu, you can also search for keywords or profiles that to add as columns. Simply clicking a profile or keyword here will do the trick.

How to pin columns from anywhere, and enable auto-update

But that's not the only way to use the pin feature. When you open a profile, or when you search for a topic and open the search results, you'll see a new Menu icon at the top-right. Click on it and choose the Pin to home button to add it as a column.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

By default, the new column will be static and won't have auto-update turned on. Once your columns are added, click the three-dotted Menu button above any columns you want updates on and turn on the Auto-update feature. Then, make sure that you switch to the Recent tab in these columns up to view all the latest posts.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Once you're done following the news, or an event, you can click the Menu button and choose the Unpin option to easily remove the column from the Threads website.

ThreadsDeck is still too young

Sadly, this is where the comparison to TweetDeck ends. While you can add columns to Threads' website, they are not customizable. You can't resize or reorder columns to suit your needs. Another glaring omission is the fact that you can't turn on auto-update for the For You section.

We hope Threads adds these features in the future (native apps for Mac and iPad would go a long way). For now, the fact that there's a column view will itself make many old-school Twitter users feel more at home. It's already gaining a following, with fans calling the new interface ThreadsDeck, and of course, there's a topic on Threads dedicated to it, where you can see how users are adapting to the new feature.

If you've recently updated your Windows 11 PC, you might be surprised to see three new widget boxes at the bottom of your lock screen, where there used to be nothing. You haven't been hacked: These are part of Microsoft's continued efforts to stuff annoying ads and widgets where they do not belong.

To be fair, I actually like the weather widget. But Microsoft is also bundling it with things like stock market news, NBA updates, and other news bulletins right to the lock screen. And the worst part is, you can't customize it. In other words, there's no way to keep the weather widget and ditch the rest. If you're not interested in one of these widgets, too bad. The only thing you can do to clear your lock screen is disable the whole feature altogether.

Disabling Windows 11 lock screen widgets

Microsoft started deploying this new feature in March, with the Windows 11 KB5035942 update and the Windows 10 KB5035941 update. But it wasn't turned on for everyone. Only in May did Microsoft start to gradually enable it for all users.

In typical Microsoft fashion, the new feature isn't labelled clearly, so you'll end up spending a lot of time in Settings just to find the right menu for it.

If you're using Windows 11, Open the Settings app using the Start menu, the Search feature, or the Windows + I keyboard shortcut. Choose Personalization from the left sidebar and go to the Lock screen menu. Here, choose the drop-down next to the Lock screen Status option. By default, it will show Weather and more. This is the lofty description that pools in the weather widget with finance, sports updates, and more.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak.

In this menu, switch to the None option.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

While you're here, I also recommend you uncheck the Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on your lock screen option, for a clean and focused lock screen.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The next time you visit your Windows lock screen, you'll find it free from the new widget boxes.

How to remove lock screen widgets in Windows 10

Just because you're still using Windows 10 doesn't mean you're safe from the new lock screen widgets. Open the Settings app on Windows 10 and go to Personalization. Choose Lock screen from the left sidebar and find the text that says "Choose one app to show detailed status on the lock screen." This will show the Weather icon below it. Click on the icon (you'll see text that says Weather and more), and switch to the None option.