Affiliate Disclosure
If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Read our ethics policy.

First look: iOS 9 brings tons of tweaks to search, music, mail, and more

Alongside a few headline features, Apple has —  as it does in every iOS revision —  made a number of tweaks to existing apps and options in its flagship mobile operating system, including the newfound ability to set the function of the iPhone's side switch to orientation lock, making podcast playback easier, and adding built-in document search.

Mail

• The dialog that lets users add automatically-discovered contacts and calendar events has been redesigned to be smaller.

• Users can now add attachments to messages, the same way they insert photos.

Siri & Search

• Search can now...search...through documents and "Found in Mail" data, like new contacts.

• Users can now set a default Notes account for Siri in SettingsNotes.

Podcasts

• Podcasts can now send notifications.

• Unplayed podcasts now have their own section in the Podcasts app.

• More advanced and clearer options for downloading and refreshing podcast subscriptions within the Settings app.

Music

• Shake to Shuffle has been removed.

• There are far fewer settings for the Music app; users can change their album sort settings, adjust the EQ, set a volume limit, and initiate Sound Check.

• iTunes Match is now under the "iCloud Music Library" umbrella.

Miscellaneous

• Users can now choose whether the iPhone side switch acts as a mute switch or locks device rotation in SettingsGeneral

• Users can now search through Settings using a bar at the top.

• Users can now configure the number of seconds to skip when skipping through audiobooks.

• Shake to Undo can be disabled in SettingsGeneralAccessibility.