Apple is hosting its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, where the company has unveiled its latest iteration of iOS called the iOS 18, which comes with several new advancements like a dedicated Game Mode, a new App lock feature, and finally, some customisation options to the home screen. There’s also a whole new layer for ‘Apple Intelligence’, aka Artificial Intelligence, to iOS, macOS, and iPadOS. Here’s everything you need to know about:
Apple iOS 18 New Features
Here’s everything new that’s coming to iPhones with the latest iOS 18 update:
Home Screen Updates
- Apps can now be moved freely within the grid and are no longer restricted to the top.
- A new dark look for app icons is introduced.
- The new customisation sheet allows users to tint logos to complement their wallpaper or select any colour.
Control Centre Enhancements
- Control Centre now features new colours and grouped controls for media playback and Home controls, which are accessible by swiping.
- The company also introduced a new Controls API, which enables controls to be placed on the lock screen, replacing the flashlight, camera, and Action Button on iPhone 15 Pro models.
- Users can continuously swipe down from the top right to access more Control Centre screens.
- A new controls gallery allows the customisation of visible controls.
- Developers can integrate app controls, providing quick access to functions like remotely starting a car.
App Locking and Privacy
- Apple also introduced a new App-Locking feature, which, as the name suggests, locks the app, requiring authentication to open, and hiding it from Search, Siri, and other areas.
- This feature can hide entire apps in a locked folder.
- The tech giant also enhanced privacy settings, including restricted access to contacts, allowing access to only specific contacts.
Messages Updates
- Tapbacks have been enhanced with the ability to use any emoji or sticker, which are now in colour.
- Scheduled texts can be sent later, with text formatting options including bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough.
- New text effects include Big, Shake, Bloom, and Nod, as well as automatic suggestions for some words and phrases.
- Satellite messaging allows sending and receiving messages, emojis, and Tapbacks over satellite, including SMS support.
Mail Improvements
- Emails are now automatically categorised into Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions, aiding in prioritisation.
Tap to Cash
- A new feature which allows users to send cash by holding their phones together.
Game Mode
- The new Game Mode minimises background activity to maintain high frame rates and provides more responsive connections to AirPods and wireless game controllers.
Photos App Redesign
- The Photos app also has a completely new design. The Recent Days section now shows photos from the past few days, automatically filtering out items like receipts.
- Below the photo grid, Collections are organised by topics such as Time, People, Memories, and Trips.
- A unified view with a photo grid at the top and a themed library below.
- The photo grid now displays the entire library, with the ability to view by Months and Years and filter options to hide screenshots and more.
- Swiping right from the grid reveals a new carousel with Featured Photos and favourite collections, which refreshes automatically to highlight new images.
- Collections can be reordered or pinned, and the People and Pets feature now gathers photos of groups of people.
Apple Intelligence
Of course, Apple has finally joined the AI bandwagon, which was expected. Interestingly, instead of ‘Artificial intelligence,’ the tech giant likes to call it ‘Apple Intelligence’. This includes cool stuff like creating emojis on the go and a new tool called Image Wand that can transform a rough sketch into a polished image. There’s system-wide integration for features like Rewriting text and summarising texts and emails. Siri is also more intelligent and smarter with these new AI features. This, thankfully, is not limited to iPhones, as the latest AI capabilities will be available across Apple’s ecosystem.
However, Apple limits these capabilities to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. So yeah, don’t expect iOS 18 to get all of these features on your older iPhone 14 or iPhone 13 or even the base iPhone 15.
The post WWDC 2024: iOS 18 Gets ‘Apple Intelligence’ with Customisable Home Screen, Game Mode, and More appeared first on MySmartPrice.