With every iteration of Apple’s products, they get ever closer to dominating your everyday tech life.
Apparently Apple now also takes care of your background sound needs with iOS 15.
Previously when you wanted the sound of the ocean to help you sleep at night or the sound of rain to help you focus at work, you’ll need to find something on YouTube or Spotify. There are also apps designed specifically to keep your stream of white noise going – a paid one if it’s any good.
In iOS 15, users can now have their iPhone play background noises without the need for any third-party apps. Apple offers a few different sounds, including balanced noise, bright noise, dark noise, ocean, rain, and stream.
How to Access Background Sounds in iOS 15
To turn Background Sounds on, go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Audio/Visual, and finally tap on Background Sounds.
You can also access Background Sounds with the Hearing control in the Control Center. Just swipe up from the bottom if you have an iPhone with Touch ID. If you have a Face ID iPhone, just swipe down from the top right corner of the screen. From there, tap the Hearing control and you’ll have full control of the background sound, including Pause and Play, track selection, and volume control. If you are having trouble pausing the sound, it’s the button at the very bottom.
If you don’t have the Hearing control in the Control Center, add it by following these steps: Settings —> Control Center —> tap the plus sign before Hearing.
Pro tip, Apple’s Background Sounds feature works really well with AirPods Pro with noise cancellation turned on. I imagine they work better with AirPods Max.
Background Sounds is one of the more underrated and hidden iOS features that I really like. What are some of your favorite iOS features?