This latest release brings a range of new customization features, an overhaul of the Photos app, robust enhancements for seamless connections, and the arrival of Apple Intelligence, your own personal intelligence companion. ( iOS 18 )
Cupertino, California, Apple unveiled iOS 18, a significant update packed with advanced customization options, a redesign of the Photos app, streamlined inbox management in Mail, Satellite-enabled messaging, and more. Users now have the freedom to organize apps and widgets anywhere on the home screen, personalize lock screen buttons, and quickly access additional controls through Control Center, combining photos with convenient collections for easy access to favorites. Intuitively organized, Mail intelligently categorizes emails. While iMessage introduces attractive new text effects with innovative satellite capabilities, Messages ensures connectivity even in the absence of cellular or Wi-Fi networks.
iOS 18 also introduces Apple Intelligence, a revolutionary personal intelligence system deeply integrated into iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This system combines generative models with personal context, providing incredibly relevant and useful information while prioritizing privacy. Powered by Apple Silicon, Apple Intelligence understands and builds on language and images, streamlining tasks and actions across apps.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, expressed excitement for iOS 18, highlighting its unique customization, redesigned Photos experience, and advanced messaging capabilities. “He emphasized the importance of Apple Intelligence, ushering in a new era of personalized, intuitive experiences with privacy as a foundational principle.”
Revolutionizing customization and functionality
iOS 18 gives iPhone users unprecedented control over their Home screen, Lock screen, and Control Center. Now, users can seamlessly arrange apps and widgets anywhere on the home screen, optimizing accessibility by placing them above the Dock or harmonizing with wallpaper aesthetics. With customizable app icons and widgets, users can experiment with dark, light or tinted effects, while also adjusting their size to suit personal preferences. The iPhone 15 Pro shows a home screen decorated with apps and widgets based around an attractive photo. iPhone 15 Pro features app icons and widgets equipped with a glow effect, which illuminates the home screen. iPhone 15 Pro displays hidden app icons and widgets in an attractive dark effect, changing the ambiance of the home screen. The iPhone 15 Pro unveiled app icons and widgets embellished with light-colored effects, adding a touch of personality to the Home screen. iPhone 15 Pro displays app icons that have a larger-than-life presence on the home screen, ensuring utmost visibility and convenience.
The all-new Control Center has been redesigned, enhancing access to daily essentials while offering unparalleled customization and versatility. Users now enjoy instant access to curated groups of frequently used controls spanning media playback, home functions and connectivity, all easily navigated through intuitive swiping gestures. Adding even more convenience, users can integrate controls from compatible third-party apps directly into Control Center, facilitating tasks like unlocking the vehicle or starting social media content creation seamlessly. The redesigned Control Gallery displays a wider range of options, allowing users to customize layout and size preferences, and even create entirely new control groups to suit their needs.
An unprecedented feature debuts when users gain the ability to customize the controls located at the bottom of the lock screen, a first in iPhone history. Users can choose from a plethora of options shown in the control gallery or opt for a minimalist approach by eliminating them. With innovative Action Buttons on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, users can faster access controls available in the Gallery, streamlining interactions and increasing efficiency.
Photos Gets a Unified View, New Collections, and Customization
Revolutionizing the way users navigate and capture their memories. A simplified grid layout provides an intuitive browsing experience, while dynamic collections provide theme-based exploration without unnecessary clutter. For manual organization into albums. Users can now pin favorite collections for quick access and join a daily carousel featuring glimpses of beloved people, pets, and places. The app comes alive with autoplaying content, allowing users to easily recognize moments from the past. Featuring the uniqueness of each user’s photo library, Photos offers extensive customization, allowing users to curate collections, prioritize favorites, and customize their carousel. enabling the visual to reflect what matters most to them.
Powerful Ways to Stay Connected in Messages
iMessage gets all-new text effects that bring conversations to life by enhancing any letter, word, phrase or emoji with a dynamic, animated appearance. Users can better convey tone by adding formatting such as bold, underline, italic, and strikethrough. TapBack expands to include any emoji or sticker, and users can now compose a message and schedule it to be sent later.
When communicating with contacts outside the Apple ecosystem, Messages now supports RCS, ensuring richer media and more reliable group messaging than traditional SMS and MMS.
iOS 18 pioneered messaging via satellite for situations devoid of cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity. Using the same cutting-edge technology as iPhone satellite capabilities, Messages via Satellite guides users to connect to nearby satellites directly from the Messages app. It enables exchange of texts, emojis and tapbacks via iMessage and SMS. With Dynamic Island, users stay informed about satellite connectivity status. Since privacy is paramount, iMessages sent via satellite are end-to-end encrypted.
Enhancements to Mail
Upcoming enhancements to Mail later this year will revolutionize inbox management and user engagement. On-device classification intelligently sorts incoming emails into different categories, primary for personal and urgent communications, receipts and confirmations for transactions, updates for news and social information, and more. For marketing materials and discount promotions, Mail features a new digest view to consolidate relevant emails from businesses, enabling users to faster identify priority content.
Big Updates to Safari
Safari, known as the fastest browser in the world, introduces advanced browsing capabilities with Highlights and a new reader experience. Leveraging machine learning, Safari efficiently extracts relevant information from webpages, providing users with convenient summaries for quick understanding. From glimpses of article highlights to locating locations or enjoying music seamlessly, users can easily access key content. The redesigned Reader ensures a comprehensive reading experience, presenting articles without distractions and also includes a summary and table of contents for longer reading.
Introducing the Passwords App
Extending the legacy of Keychain, a strong companion for more than a quarter century, the refreshed Passkeys app provides seamless access to passwords, passkeys, Wi-Fi credentials, and verification codes. Additionally, it has an alerting system that notifies users about prevalent vulnerabilities, such as easily guessed passwords, repeated usage, and those implicated in known data breaches.
New Privacy Features Designed to Empower Users
iOS 18 gives users even more control with tools to manage who can see their apps, how contacts are shared, and how their iPhone connects to accessories.
Locked and hidden apps provide users with peace of mind that information they want to keep private, like app notifications and content, won’t inadvertently be viewed by others. Users can now lock an app; And for added privacy, they can hide an app, moving it to a locked, hidden apps folder. When an app is locked or hidden, content inside the app, like messages or emails, remains hidden from search, notifications, and other places in the system.
iOS 18 puts users in control by letting them choose to share only specific contacts with an app. Additionally, developers now have the ability to seamlessly connect third-party accessories with the iPhone without allowing an app to see all other devices on the user’s network, keeping a user’s devices private and making pairing seamless. There is a way.
Apple Intelligence Transforms the iPhone Experience
Built within iOS 18 and carefully crafted with privacy at its core, Apple Insights paves the way for users to enhance their writing abilities and foster clear communication. Empowered by innovative systemwide writing tools seamlessly integrated into iOS 18, users gain the ability to refine, review, and summarize text across a variety of platforms, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party applications.
State-of-the-art image features take center stage, enhancing the joy of communication and self-expression. Introducing Image Playground, a dynamic tool that enables users to create whimsical images effortlessly. Offering a trio of styles—animation, illustration, or sketch—it gives users the freedom to unleash their creativity in mere seconds. Seamlessly integrated into familiar platforms like messaging and accessible through a standalone app, Image Playground promises a delightful experience at every turn.
Unleashing the power of memories in photos, users can now effortlessly craft personal narratives with just a few keystrokes. Powered by Apple Insights, this feature intelligently selects the most engaging photos and videos in response to a user’s description, weaving them into a compelling story with thematic chapters and a narrative arc.
Additionally, the newly introduced Clean Up tool efficiently identifies and eliminates background distractions, ensuring that the focus remains firmly on the subject without any unintentional changes.
Empowered by the power of Apple Insights, Siri is poised for a significant evolution, including naturalness, contextual awareness, and an enhanced sense of personalization. Introducing the flexibility of interacting via text, users can seamlessly alternate between typing and voice commands, customizing their interactions with Siri to suit the occasion and their preferences.
Apple has redefined the paradigm of privacy within AI with the introduction of Private Cloud Compute, offering an unprecedented approach to computational capacity management. This innovation enables seamless scaling between the use of dedicated Apple Silicon servers for on-device processing and larger, server-based models. Importantly, when requests are routed to a private cloud compute, user data remains inaccessible to Apple, being used only to fulfill requests, a privacy assurance that has been independently verified by experts. goes.
Additionally, ChatGPT’s expertise, along with its image and document understanding capabilities, integrates seamlessly into Siri and systemwide writing tools on Apple’s platforms. This integration eliminates the need for users to switch between tools, providing easy access to ChatGPT’s knowledge and capabilities.
Additional features in iOS 18 include:
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Within Apple Maps, users now have access to a wide range of thousands of hikes spanning the breathtaking landscapes of the United States’ national parks. With the added convenience of offline access, creating personalized walking routes is a lot easier. Additionally, Maps users can seamlessly store their favorite national park hikes, custom walking routes, and favorite destinations within the repurposed Places Library, with the option to write personal notes for each location.
- Introducing Game Mode, a feature designed to take the gaming experience to new heights. Enjoy smooth gameplay with enhanced frame rate stability, ensuring seamless immersion even during extended gaming sessions. Plus, experience lightning-fast response when using wireless accessories like AirPods and game controllers, further enhancing your gaming skills.
- Apple Pay introduces innovative new features that offer users greater flexibility in their payment methods. Now, users can easily redeem rewards directly from their eligible credit or debit cards and access installment options. With Tap to Cash, exchanging Apple Cash becomes easier – simply hold two iPhone devices together to send or receive funds. Additionally, Apple Wallet takes ticketing to the next level, providing fans with a richer experience by providing important event details like stadium information, recommended Apple Music playlists, and more – all easily accessible within the app.
- The introduction of SharePlay with Apple Music extends the joy of collaborative music listening to a broader audience. Now, users can seamlessly share control of music playing from the HomePod, Apple TV, or any Bluetooth-enabled speaker, creating a more enjoyable and interactive listening experience for everyone involved.
- The AirPods experience becomes even more personal, private, and convenient with Siri interactions, allowing AirPods Pro (2nd generation) users to simply nod or gently shake their heads to respond to Siri announcements Is. For even clearer call quality, the AirPods Pro come with voice isolation, which ensures that the caller’s voice is heard in loud or windy environments. The AirPods updates also deliver the best wireless audio latency Apple has ever delivered for mobile gaming, and add personalized spatial audio for even more immersive gameplay.
- Within the Notes app, typing formulas and equations triggers instant solutions with Math Notes, making mathematical tasks easily streamlined. Additionally, advanced summarization sections and highlighting features simplify the process of emphasizing important information, ensuring clarity and organization in your notes.
- Journal introduces a new Insights view, empowering users to intuitively monitor their journaling goals. With enhanced searching and sorting capabilities, it becomes easier to recall past memories. Additionally, time dedicated to journaling can now be logged as Mindful Minutes in the Health app, while users can also document their emotional state directly within the journal. A convenient Journal widget is now available to users, enabling quick entry creation directly from the home or lock screen. Additionally, audio recordings are automatically transcribed, and users gain the ability to export and print their journal entries for safekeeping.
- Calendar takes the lead in usability by seamlessly integrating both events and tasks with Reminders. Users now have the ability to create, edit, and mark tasks as completed directly within the calendar. Additionally, the fresh month view provides a comprehensive overview of both events and tasks, empowering users to stay organized and on top of their schedule at a single glance.
- The Health App is redesigning its Medical ID feature, which will increase accessibility for first responders in emergency situations. Additionally, during pregnancy, the Health app now provides tailored adjustments and recommendations to help users understand their health data more effectively, covering both physical and mental aspects.
- Emergency SOS Live Video revolutionizes the emergency response experience, enabling users to provide critical context through real-time streaming video and recorded media. During an emergency call, dispatchers can initiate a secure request for users to share live video or media from their camera roll, allowing for faster and more effective assistance.
- The Home App welcomes a new era of convenience with the introduction of Guest Access, offering users streamlined ways to delegate control of specific smart home accessories to guests. Additionally, users can now set schedules for when guests can access the home and enjoy other management functionalities. For seamless home entry, the Hands-Free Unlock feature, powered by Ultra Wideband technology, enables users to easily open supported entry locks when they come within six feet of their door. Additionally, in the energy category, the Home app undergoes convenience updates, empowering eligible users to access, understand and make decisions about their household electricity consumption.
- Accessibility enhancements in this update include a series of innovative features tailored to different user needs: Introducing Eye Tracking, a groundbreaking built-in option that enables users to navigate their iPhone using only their eyes, revolutionizing accessibility for individuals with limited mobility. Music Haptics introduces a new opportunity to experience music for users who are deaf or hard of hearing, taking advantage of the Taptic Engine within iPhone to convey musical nuances through tactile feedback .
Vocal Shortcuts empower users to perform tasks intuitively by creating custom sounds, providing an intuitive and personalized way of interaction for individuals with diverse accessibility needs.
Availability
The iOS 18 developer beta is now available immediately through the Apple Developer Program at developer.apple.com. Additionally, a public beta is scheduled to be released next month through the Apple Beta Software Program, available at beta.apple.com. iOS 18 is scheduled to launch this autumn as a complimentary software update for the iPhone Xs and later models. Apple Intelligence will begin rolling out in beta on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and compatible iPad and Mac devices equipped with M1 chips or later. The feature will be integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, with American English set as the default language for Siri and device operations. For comprehensive details, visit apple.com/ios/ios-18-preview and apple.com/apple-intelligence. Please note that features are subject to possible modifications, and some functionality may not be available in all regions, languages, or on every device. For more information on availability, consult apple.com.
About Apple
Since the groundbreaking introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, Apple has continually redefined personal technology. Today, Apple is at the forefront of innovation with a diverse range of products including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro. Seamlessly integrated across Apple’s six software platforms—iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, VisionOS, and tvOS—these devices deliver unparalleled user experiences. In addition to hardware excellence, Apple’s ecosystem is rich with critical services like the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+, enhancing the lives of users around the world. With a team of more than 150,000 dedicated employees, Apple remains steadfast in its commitment to creating great products and making a positive impact on the world.
- In iOS 18, the U.S. Users with iPhone 14 or newer models can enjoy the added feature of Messages via Satellite, which complements Apple’s existing Satellite features. Eligible users with Siri and the device language being English (U.S.) can enroll this fall to access the beta version of Apple Intelligence, available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.
- SMS availability and possible carrier charges are dependent on individual carrier policies; Users are advised to consult their respective carriers for further details. These features were tested by Apple in May 2023, more information is available at apple.com/safari.
- The latest Apple Pay enhancements are accessible through select banks and card providers in specified markets, subject to eligibility and approval criteria. Apple Cash services offered by Green Dot Bank are available exclusively in the U.S. Available on eligible devices in the U.S. Specific terms and conditions apply, and users must meet certain criteria to use Apple Cash services.
- The ticketing enhancements within Apple Wallet are tailored for events hosted by participating ticket issuers. For further enquiries, please see Press Contact section. ( iOS 18 )
Taylani Perch-nielsen