7+ Frustrating Things in iOS 8 and What To Do About Them

iOS 8 is a really great improvement for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with a lot of changes, some big and some small, but let’s face it, there are a few things that are a little annoying too. Whether you just got a brand spanking new iPhone 6 and moved your stuff over, or simply updated to iOS 8 on an existing device, there’s a few settings you may want to toggle or adjust to your liking. For those who updated, some of these settings you may have turned off yourself a long while ago, but after the iOS 8 update they automagically may have turned themselves on again.

0: iOS What? It’s So Huge I Can’t Even Install iOS 8!

OK for those who are trying to update… this will go first. For so many users, they aren’t even able to update to iOS 8 due to the significant free storage requirements of 5GB or more. The good news is that you can get around those storage error messages by using iTunes to install iOS 8 anyway. Yes that requires a computer, and yes you should still back up your device before you update that way.

1: What Happened to Camera Roll? Are My Old Pictures Gone?!?

We touched on this briefly already, but it’s still confusing a lot of users out there. While Camera Roll is missing, your older photos aren’t. Here’s how to access your older pictures within iOS 8:

1. Open Photos app and tap on the Photos tab instead of Albums
2. Tap on the upper left corner where it says “Years” – this zooms out to a spanning view of all your photos taken over time that are on the iPhone or iPad
3. Tap into the very first tiny thumbnails to flip to your earliest pictures

This is just my opinion, but the lack of Camera Roll is really not intuitive and has caused a lot of grief for users who are accustomed to it’s existence, Camera Roll has been with iOS since the first iPhone to ever be released after all. We’re hoping it makes a return with an iOS 8 update, perhaps iOS 8.1.

2: Ditch the Keyboard Clicky Sounds

Clicky click, clicky clicky clicky! Oh the sound of typing on a touch screen. While those sounds help some users to type on the iOS keyboard, but they also annoy many others. Turning them off is easy.

1. From the Settings app, head to ‘Sounds’
2. Scroll all the way down to the bottom to “Keyboard Clicks” and toggle that switch to the OFF position

If you decide you want to hear those clicks again, just flip that switch back on and you’ll be clicking away immediately.

3: Hide Peoples Faces from the Multitasking Screen

If you’ve visited the multitasking screen in iOS 8 you’ve probably noticed a handful of your friends and families faces lining the top of the screen. Maybe I’m weird but I find this feature unnecessary and not at all related to quitting apps, so here’s how to turn that off:

1. Open Settings and head to “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” – yes really
2. Tap on “Show in App Switcher”
3. Flip both of these switches to OFF to hide the faces from the multitasking screen

The change is immediate and if you double-tap the home button you’ll find the faces are gone. Or if you like them, keep them there, but it looks a bit cramped on everything except for the larger screened devices.

4: Stop Repeating Message Alert Sounds

Ever noticed how iPhone text messages alert you once, then a few minutes later alert you yet again? This makes it sound like you have more than one message, but it’s actually just one that is repeating itself – so no, you’re not going crazy. This feature comes turned on by default with every new iOS device, and some users discovered it re-enabled itself with the iOS 8 update, so here’s how to stop that:

1. Go to “Settings” and then to “Notifications” and choose “Messages”
2. Scroll all the way down to “Repeat Alerts” and flip that to “Never”

Done, no more alert sounds to repeat themselves.

5: Turn Off Read Receipts

Read Receipts are much more aggressive in iOS 8, notifying users of not only when a text message was read from another iMessage user, but also when an audio message was heard or a video played… that may be a little too much info for some users, so you may want to turn that receipts feature off for all iMessages.

1. Go to “Settings” and head to “Messages”
2. Flip “Send Read Receipts” to the OFF position

You can always turn these on again if you feel like letting people know that you read (or rather, just glanced at) their message.

6: Lots of Pre-installed Apps

Many users have been peeved to discover the greater number of preinstalled apps on their idevices. iOS 8 comes with a handful of newly default apps, including Health, Tips, iBooks, Podcasts, as well as the usual suspects of Game Center, NewsStand, Stocks, and the rest. The default apps can’t be deleted, so you’re beset off putting those into a secondary home screen or a folder if you don’t use them. But there’s other apps that come preinstalled with iOS 8 for those who buy new iPhones, including iMovie, Garageband, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers – and these apps can be uninstalled by deleting them as usual with a tap-and-hold trick.

7: Hiding the QuickType Predictive Text and Autocorrection Keys

Many users like the QuickType feature, which shows a list of predicted and/or autocorrect words across the top of the iOS keyboard, while some find it less useful. But you can quickly hide the little Quick Type drawer with a swipe gesture:

• Tap and hold on any word in the QuickType suggestion box, then drag down to close the QuickType drawer

That’s it, if you want to see QuickType again, just swipe back up from that drawer on the iOS keyboard to reveal the suggestions again.

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Anything else that you have found to be a nuisance in iOS 8 or on your new iPhone that we missed? Let us know what’s bugging you, or how you fixed something that annoyed you!