Settings Every Phone Has and Nobody Mentions

Phones ship configured for a twenty-five-year-old with perfect eyesight in a well-lit room. Everything below is already on your device, costs nothing, and is buried where nobody finds it by accident.

None of this is about difficulty using a phone. It is about a device that was set up for someone else.

Text size

The single most useful change and the one most people never make, usually because they assume it means the ugly "large print" mode.

It does not. Modern phones scale text properly across most apps.

iPhone: Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size. Then, separately, Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Larger Text, which goes considerably further than the first slider allows.

Android: Settings → Display → Font size and style. Also Display size, which scales everything rather than just text — worth trying both.

Do it in daylight and again at night. People choose a size that works in good light and struggle every evening.

Bold text and contrast

Often more effective than size alone. Thin grey text on white is the actual problem in most apps.

iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Bold Text, and Increase Contrast.

Android: Settings → Accessibility → Text and display → High contrast text and Bold text.

The screen at night, and outdoors

Automatic brightness is on by default and frequently gets it wrong. If your screen is dim outdoors, turn it off and set it yourself: Settings → Accessibility → Display → Auto-Brightness on iPhone; Settings → Display → Adaptive brightness on Android.

Night mode reduces blue light in the evening. Settings → Display & Brightness → Night Shift on iPhone; Settings → Display → Night Light on Android.

Dark mode helps some people considerably and others not at all. Worth an evening's trial.

Magnification, without a magnifying glass

Zoom on the screen itself. iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Zoom, then triple-tap with three fingers to magnify anything, anywhere. Android: Settings → Accessibility → Magnification.

The camera as a magnifier for real objects. Medicine labels, restaurant menus, the small print on a form. iPhone has a built-in Magnifier app — Settings → Accessibility → Magnifier turns it on. On Android, opening the camera and pinching to zoom does the same thing.

This one is genuinely useful daily and almost nobody knows the app exists.

Have it read to you

Not a screen reader for blindness — a way to have a long article or email read aloud while you do something else.

iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Speak Screen. Then swipe down with two fingers from the top of any screen.

Android: Settings → Accessibility → Select to Speak.

Also useful for checking a letter you have written. Errors are much more obvious heard than read.

Talk instead of typing

Dictation is now genuinely accurate, and typing on glass is unpleasant for most people.

The microphone icon on the keyboard is all it takes. Speak normally, and say "period", "comma" and "new paragraph" for punctuation.

Faster than typing for anything longer than a few words, and it does not require any setup.

Stopping interruptions

Silence unknown callers. This alone removes most nuisance calls. iPhone: Settings → Phone → Silence Unknown Callers. Android: Phone app → three dots → Settings → Blocked numbers, and turn on unknown caller blocking.

Calls from numbers not in your contacts go to voicemail. Genuine callers leave a message; the automated ones do not. See the call from your bank for why fewer of these calls reaching you matters.

Do Not Disturb, with exceptions. Both systems let you silence everything overnight while allowing calls from specific people, and allowing anyone who calls twice within three minutes — which handles a real emergency.

Turn off most notifications. Go through the list and allow only the ones that matter: calls, messages, calendar. Everything else can wait until you open it. iPhone: Settings → Notifications. Android: Settings → Notifications → App notifications.

Touch and handling

Touch accommodations if taps register in the wrong place or you touch the screen accidentally. iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Touch Accommodations. It can require a slightly longer press before a tap registers, which fixes tremor-related mis-taps entirely.

Back Tap on iPhone — Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap — lets a double tap on the back of the phone do something useful, such as opening the Magnifier.

Turn off haptics if the vibration bothers you, or turn it up if you miss notifications.

For an emergency

Ten minutes, and worth doing today.

Medical ID. Conditions, medications, allergies and an emergency contact, visible from the lock screen without a passcode. iPhone: Health app → your picture → Medical ID. Android: Settings → Safety & emergency → Medical information.

Emergency SOS. Both phones can call emergency services and notify chosen contacts with your location when you press the side button repeatedly. Set it up and read how it works, so you do not discover it accidentally.

Fall detection, if your phone or watch supports it.

Two you should not skip

Automatic updates. Most security fixes arrive this way, and a phone two years behind is the easiest thing on any network to compromise. Settings → General → Software Update → Automatic Updates on iPhone; Settings → System → Software update on Android.

A screen lock. A code, a fingerprint or a face. A phone without one is a phone with your bank in it, unlocked, in a coat pocket.

Where to start

Text size, and silence unknown callers.

Two minutes each, and between them they solve the two things people most often complain about — a screen that is hard to read and a phone that rings constantly with nothing worth answering.

For additional public information on everyday cybersecurity, see Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.