iOS 18 is now available for iPhone users around the globe, introducing exciting new ways to personalize your device. You can now customize the Home Screen and Control Center with greater depth than ever before.
The Photos app has undergone its most significant redesign to date, making it easier to find and cherish your special moments. Additionally, there are substantial enhancements to both Messages and Mail.
Next month, iOS 18 will unveil Apple Intelligence, a system that integrates generative models with personal context. This innovative feature delivers useful and relevant information while ensuring your privacy and security remain protected.
Enhanced Customization
In iOS 18, users can personalize their Home Screen by arranging app icons and widgets around their wallpaper, choosing from light, dark, or colored tints, and enlarging icons for a fresh appearance. The redesigned Control Center offers more flexibility, allowing users to organize controls for favorites, media, Home, and connectivity, with a new gallery for third-party options. Additionally, users can access their preferred controls from the Action button and modify or remove controls on the Lock Screen.
Photos Redesign
The latest Photos update enhances the experience of finding and reliving memories with a simplified layout that unifies the library. New collections like Recent Days, People & Pets, and Trips organize content intelligently, while users can customize their layout and pin favorite collections for easy access.
Ways to Stay Connected in Messages and Calls
Messages introduce significant updates for user expression and connectivity. New formatting options like bold, italic, and strikethrough enhance tone, while text effects and emoji Tapbacks offer creative reactions. Users can schedule iMessages for later. In areas without cellular or Wi-Fi, Messages via satellite allow text communication through a satellite. Additionally, the app now supports RCS for improved media sharing and group messaging with non-Apple contacts.
The Phone app is designed to assist users in staying organized and efficient by offering the powerful feature of recording and transcribing live calls. This functionality makes it significantly easier for users to recall important details and conversations at a later time, ensuring that no crucial information is lost. Before a recording starts, all call participants are notified, promoting transparency and respect for privacy.
Additionally, the transcripts generated from these calls are conveniently saved to the Notes app, which allows users to quickly search through and review what was discussed. This seamless integration enhances productivity and helps users manage their communications more effectively.
Smart Email Categorization
Launching later this year, Mail’s categorization feature organizes messages to help users manage their inboxes. The Primary category highlights important messages, while Transactions, Updates, and Promotions are grouped by sender for easy scanning of relevant emails.
Focused Safari Browsing
Safari, the fastest browser, enhances its features with iOS 18. Highlights now display key information like addresses and summaries after loading a page. The redesigned Reader offers a streamlined view, summaries, and a table of contents for longer articles. Distraction Control allows users to hide disruptive elements on web pages.
New Passwords App
Passwords is a new app based on Keychain, simplifying access to all credentials—passwords, passcodes, and verification codes—in one location. It features strong end-to-end encryption, device syncing, and alerts for weak or reused passwords and known data leaks.
Empowering User Privacy Features
iOS 18 provides users with enhanced privacy tools, allowing them to control app visibility, contact sharing, and accessory connections. Users can lock and hide apps, ensuring that notifications and content remain private. Locked or hidden apps conceal messages and emails from search and notifications. Additionally, iOS 18 enables users to share only selected contacts with apps, while developers can create a more seamless and private experience for connecting third-party accessories to the iPhone.
Apple’s Intelligence Features Launch Next Month
Apple Intelligence is embedded in iOS 18, utilizing Apple silicon to comprehend and generate language and images, streamline tasks across apps, and leverage personal context—all while ensuring user privacy. The initial features will launch next month, enhancing user experiences.
With Writing Tools, users can enhance their writing by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text across various apps like Mail and Notes. The Photos app now allows users to create movies by typing descriptions and searching for specific photos and moments in videos. The Clean Up tool removes distracting background objects without altering the subject. Additionally, in the Notes and Phone apps, users can record, transcribe, and summarize audio, with automatic notifications for call participants and generated summaries post-call.
Siri is now more natural, flexible, and integrated into the system experience, featuring a new design with a glowing light on the iPhone screen. Users can type or speak to Siri seamlessly, and it understands language better, maintaining context between requests. Additionally, Siri can answer thousands of questions about Apple device features and settings.
Apple Intelligence models operate on-device, and with Private Cloud Compute enhancing privacy and security in the cloud, this marks a significant advancement for privacy in artificial intelligence.
Enhanced Features
- Apple Maps allows users to explore thousands of hikes in U.S. national parks, create custom walking routes for offline access, and save favorites in a new Places Library with personal notes.
- Game Mode improves gaming with stable frame rates and enhances the responsiveness of AirPods and controllers.
- Users can now pay online and in apps using Apple Pay on iPhones and iPads.Â
- In the Notes app, math formulas are solved instantly, with new collapsible sections and highlighting for emphasis.
- Calendar enhances usability by displaying events and tasks from Reminders. Users can manage reminders directly within Calendar, offering a clear monthly overview.
- The new Journal feature includes an insights view for tracking journaling goals, search, and sort options for past entries, and a widget for quick access. Users can log mindful minutes and their state of mind directly in the Journal.
- The Home app now offers guest access, allowing users to manage guest control of locks, garage doors, and security systems, as well as set access schedules. It also enhances the Energy category for better electricity use management.
- Emergency SOS Live Video enables users to share live video or recorded media during an emergency call. Dispatchers can request this media securely, facilitating quicker assistance.
- Upcoming updates for AirPods, including AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and AirPods Pro 2, will enhance call quality with Voice Isolation, enable Siri responses through head gestures, and offer the lowest wireless audio latency for mobile gaming, along with Personalized Spatial Audio for immersive experiences.
- This fall, AirPods Pro 2 will introduce a clinical-grade, over-the-counter Hearing Aid feature for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. Utilizing a clinically validated Hearing Test that can be taken at home, this feature customizes AirPods Pro to provide personalized hearing assistance at an accessible price
- The Health app’s Medical ID has been revamped for easier access by first responders in emergencies. It also provides tailored insights and recommendations for users during pregnancy, addressing their physical and mental health changes.
- The Fitness app on iPhone now allows customization of the Summary tab, while Apple Fitness+ features personalized workout recommendations, improved search, and enhanced awards.
- New accessibility features include Eye Tracking for eye-based navigation, Music Haptics for a tactile music experience, Vocal Shortcuts for custom sound tasks, and Vehicle Motion Cues to ease motion sickness. CarPlay now also offers Voice Control, Sound Recognition, Color Filters, and Bold Text.
