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iOS 18 Includes Two New Background Sounds to Help You Focus or Rest

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The upcoming iOS 18 update for the iPhone includes two new Background Sounds: Night and Fire.

iOS 18 Control Center Background Sounds
Introduced on iOS 15, the Background Sounds feature allows you to play ambient background sounds on your iPhone to help you focus or rest. Other available sounds include Balanced Noise, Bright Noise, Dark Noise, Ocean, Rain, and Stream.

Background Sounds is a free feature built into the iPhone that offers similar functionality as apps such as Dark Noise. We have a step-by-step guide that outlines how to turn on the feature in the Settings app or in Control Center.

iOS 18 is currently in beta for developers, and a public beta will be available soon. The update should be widely released in September.

The new Backgrounds Sounds are also included in the iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia betas.

Tag: Background Sounds
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

MakeAppleAwesomeAgain Avatar
MakeAppleAwesomeAgain
22 months ago
Honestly, this is the first time I have read about this feature. Quite cool!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
sleven
22 months ago
Background sounds should not be buried so deep that it requires the usage of shortcuts to access/utilize.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
eshotime
22 months ago
This is great! I use this everyday while working. One of my favorite features. I'm glad that that it hasn't been forgotten.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
richpjr Avatar
richpjr
22 months ago
First time hearing about it as well. Kind of odd that a background noise app is buried in accessibility.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
G
gk_brown
22 months ago

Honestly, this is the first time I have read about this feature. Quite cool!
Same here. Why isn't this just a regular app?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
K
kc9hzn
22 months ago

Apple needs to focus on fixing bugs and getting the basics right before adding questionable new features like this. I doubt I’ll ever use it.
Looks like Apple considers it an accessibility feature. To most people, Apple’s accessibility features are “questionable”, but they’re game changing for the impacted users. I’ve seen blind people who can navigate both the physical and online world with ease thanks to Apple’s accessibility features and accessibility oriented apps, which gives them a degree of independence they wouldn’t be able to have any other way.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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