Apple Reveals iOS 18 With Customizable and Security Features

The iPhone’s upcoming big software update, iOS 18, was recently revealed by Apple at the 2024 edition of WWDC. Software Vice President Craig Federighi showcased numerous upcoming enhancements to both the operating system and Apple’s apps during the company’s WWDC presentation. Furthermore, iOS 18 as predicted places a strong emphasis on generative AI and artificial intelligence features. When the next software update launches this autumn, iPhones, like the iPad and Mac, will get Apple Intelligence. Apple is portraying this as a historic occasion, claiming that its extensive new AI features would facilitate email correspondence, help you save time, and allow you to express yourself through simple prompts.

However, the company began its presentation with more conventional adjustments. First, there was a more adaptable home screen with, at last, more adjustable icon positioning. App icons will seem darker in dark mode to make them easier on the eyes. For even more customization, you may apply a selected colour to your app grid uniformly with a new theme engine.

A lot of “Android did it first” stuff is seen these days, but Control Center is also growing more sophisticated. Users can swipe between numerous pages of buttons and toggles for your most critical features, with media and smart home settings receiving prominent prominence. For the first time, Control Center integration will be available in third-party apps. Additionally, iOS 18 allows you to swap out the built-in flashlight and camera icons on the lock screen with any Control Center toggles that you choose.

iOS 18 further improves privacy by letting users hide any app until their phone confirms it’s you, or it can demand authentication for any app you pick. Additionally, you can now precisely manage which contacts are accessible to third-party apps.

The Messages app is becoming more expressive with new formatting options for bolding, underlining, strikethrough, and italicizing, as well as the ability to use any emoji in a Tapback response. Additionally, Apple is extending the satellite communications capabilities of the iPhone to enable satellite texting. But the feature that excites me the most is the ability to schedule messages, which is already available with Google Messages. Indeed, Apple has officially announced that Messages on iOS 18 will support RCS. I’m eagerly anticipating the ability to share better-quality photos and videos with Android smartphones.

Better categorization, including Gmail-like automated sorting for transactions, updates, and promotions, is one of the improvements made to Apple’s built-in Mail client. iOS 18’s new Game Mode reduces background activity for optimal performance and lowest latency with connected gamepads or AirPods for those moments when gaming takes precedence over productivity.

With iOS 18, Apple promises to give the Photos app the most significant update ever as it takes on Google Photos on the Android platform. More significantly, the app is now geared to manage the ever-expanding libraries that a great number of us have amassed over time. Facial sorting and the option to pin collections to the top for easier access are features included in it. Additionally, photos will automatically combine people and pets more effectively into groupings that you can explore using the app’s new carousel view.

Regarding AI features, Apple claims that iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence will understand you and your specific context more thoroughly than other services. One of its numerous system-wide features is the ability to create graphics in messages with ease. iOS will now be able to intelligently prioritize notifications, letting you see what’s most important first before displaying the entire list of items you missed. Apple’s Siri assistant will be able to respond to a far greater variety of queries and facilitate more organic interactions.

Siri can also act on your behalf when using iPhone apps. You can ask it to open images, modify images, or transfer objects across other programs. According to Apple, for instance, Siri can instantly scan a picture of your driver’s license, copy the number, and put it into a form. Among the more whimsical use cases is the ability to virtually design any kind of emoji—a function that Apple refers to as “Genmoji.”

Call recordings and automatic transcriptions are now possible with the Phone app, and transcriptions will be included in the Voice Memos app. (The other party will be notified that the conversation is being recorded.) In the fall, Apple Intelligence will be available in beta for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. ChatGPT integration will follow “later this year.