As a writer at Macworld, I like to think I know everything about the iPhone. But this week I learned something I never knew: The iPhone 14 has a startup chime.
The Mac had various startup chimes before the iconic F-sharp major chord strum arrived on the iMac G3 in 1993. It became the default chime for all Macs in 1998 and was briefly removed in 2016 before returning a couple of years later in macOS Big Sur.
Granted, you probably restart your iPhone far less than your Mac, but some auditory feedback is nice rather than staring at the screen and waiting for the Apple logo to appear. The startup chime for the iPhone 14 sounds something like Mario collecting a coin and it’s not available on any previous iPhone, even those running iOS 16. There’s also a shutdown chime that has a slightly different pitch.
You can turn it on and hear it for yourself by going to the Accessibility tab in the Settings app, then Audio/Visual, and flip the Power On & Off Sounds toggle to play a sound when the iPhone turns on or off. If your phone is on silent when powering off, it will vibrate without making the sound but the startup chime will play either way.
We doubt Apple plans to ever make it a default feature on the iPhone like it is with the Mac, but if you have an iPhone 14 or plan on buying an iPhone 15, now you know how to turn it on.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.