iOS 18 Includes Two New Background Sounds to Help You Focus or Rest - MacRumors
Skip to Content

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

by

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

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Month With These 12 New Features

Thursday August 6, 2026 7:03 am PDT by
It is now August, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are just a month away. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and a...
Read Full Article • 48 comments
AirPods Ultra Mock

'AirPods Ultra' to Launch as Soon as Next Month

Friday August 7, 2026 10:58 am PDT by
Apple has been planning to release AirPods with cameras as early as this year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. If so, they could be unveiled as soon as September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models and the long-rumored foldable iPhone. The earbuds are expected to have a design similar to the AirPods Pro 3, but with tiny cameras. Given the AirPods with cameras will likely be more...
Read Full Article
dopamine

iOS 26 Gets First Jailbreak Thanks to Dopamine

Friday August 7, 2026 1:56 pm PDT by
After 326 days, iOS 26 has received its first jailbreak, thanks to the developers behind the popular Dopamine jailbreak. Lars Fröder, better known as opa334, today released Dopamine 3.0, which adds support for a number of newer firmware versions, including iOS 26.0 and iOS 26.0.1 on devices with A12 or A13 chips. Another major addition in today's release is support for all devices running...
Read Full Article • 64 comments

Top Rated Comments

S
sleven
27 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)
MakeAppleAwesomeAgain Avatar
MakeAppleAwesomeAgain
27 months ago
Honestly, this is the first time I have read about this feature. Quite cool!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
eshotime
27 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)
D
derdante
27 months ago
Are they finally going to fix the issue that makes background noises cut out randomly sometimes? It's been broken for a long time now.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
K
kc9hzn
27 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)
G
gk_brown
27 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)
Read All Comments