iOS 18: Apple brings these new features to iPhones
Flexible home screen and AI functions: These are two of the key innovations of the next iPhone operating system. Also new is iMessaging via satellite.
(Image: Apple)
iOS 18 makes the home screen more customizable: apps can now be positioned more flexibly and freely in the central view of the operating system - for example at the bottom of the screen or on the right-hand edge, as Apple announced on Tuesday. Users will also be able to color app icons to create more uniform home screens.
At the same time, iOS 18 includes a revised control center that will offer several configurable views in the future. Apps from third-party developers can also finally offer their own control elements for the control center so that certain functions are directly available centrally. Even the two buttons on the iPhone lock screen that were previously reserved for Apple's camera app and the torch can now be customized by the user for the first time.
Images of iOS 18 from the WWDC (9 Bilder)
iMessages via satellite
iOS 18 also allows iMessages to be sent and received via satellite connection in mobile phone blackspots, as Apple announced. Up to now – from iPhone 14 – it has only been possible to send an emergency call as a text message and share your location manually. iMessage will then also receive other overdue functional innovations such as emoji tapbacks and RCS support, which was already announced at the end of 2023.
Users will have the new options of linking access to any apps to authorization with Face ID and hiding programs. It is also planned to only give apps specific access to certain people in the address book and no longer the complete list of contacts listed there – a long-overdue improvement.
Many smaller improvements
Another new feature is an independent app for password management (iCloud keychain) from iOS 18 and new AI functions in the Safari browser, including website summaries. The game mode already familiar from macOS should ensure more stable frame rates and connect Bluetooth controllers with less latency. Apple's Notes app also supports formulas and equations. The manufacturer had already previously announced new features for the operating aids in iOS 18.
AI integrated – including ChatGPT
Part of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will be ‘Apple Intelligence’: AI models can then be used to generate texts and images and edit photos, as Apple announced. This is just the beginning, it said. The functions will be available free of charge with iOS 18 and will be marked as ‘beta’ and gradually expanded.
The final version of iOS 18 is expected to be released in September, and developers will be able to test the first pre-release version from Monday evening. The public beta will follow in July. iOS 18 runs on all iPhones that support iOS 17 – this extends back to the models built in 2018 (iPhone XS / XR).
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