iOS 12: What’s New

As usual, Apple has once again released a new version of its mobile operating system iOS 12, at their WWDC conference back in June. As we get closer to its fall release it is about time to start talking about what to expect.

iOS 12 is available to all devices that support iOS 11, from the iPhone 5s and up. That makes the iPhone 5s be supported for almost 5 years which is great.

Here are some highlights of iOS 12:

Performance

For a long time, Apple has been struggling with the performance of iOS devices. The scandal surrounding peak performance was a real struggle. Many Apple users blamed Apple for the rough performance on their older devices when in reality they were doing what they needed to do to improve the life and responsiveness of smaller and aging batteries. In addition to this, some phone users have had speed hits due to the general age of the phone and the limitations of the processor. Old technology with new a new version of iOS that may not fully be optimized also caused performance hits.

Since this problem has been troubling Apple so much lately iOS 12’s main focus is on performance including speed and responsiveness. Upon the release of iOS 12 Apple says that apps will open 40% faster, the camera will swipe 70% faster, the keyboard will display 50% faster and the share sheet will display 2x as fast. (These tests were conducted in May 2018 by Apple using an iPhone 6 Plus with peak performance).

A more in-depth graph is given in settings to show your battery life over the course of the last 24 hours (1 day) or the last 10 days.

Hopefully, users of all supported devices will find these statistics to be true.

FaceTime

With FaceTime in iOS 12, you can make group calls with up to 32 people at a time. Also is the added ability to add filters, stickers, text effects, animoji or memoji, and text effects to your call.

Animoji Updates and Memoji

When iOS 11 was released with animoji you could have an emoji mimic your facial actions by using the face detection of your iPhone 10. iOS 12 brings the addition of four new animojis including T. Rex, ghost, koala, tiger, and Memoji. Memoji is an avatar that you get to create in your image. Along with all animojis and memojis, there is tongue and wink detection allowing you to stick your young and wink out at anyone.

Messages

All of the new features with Messages come from the enhancement of apps starting off with the App Strip which is now smaller. Camera and Photos get their own individual apps, Photos can be found on the App Strip. When taking pictures or videos using the built-in camera app you can, like with FaceTime, add camera effects, text, filters, stickers, shapes, and animoji and memoji.

Screen Time

Cellphone addiction is becoming a bigger and bigger issue Apple has taken the next step in dealing with this problem. A chart tells you how long you have been on your phone, including how long you were in-app categories and individual apps. From there you can get a downtime, App limits, content and privacy restrictions, and let apps ignore all of these rules. If you are doing this for your kids you can set a password restriction to keep them from changing these settings.

Notifications

Including a complete redesign to notification settings, you are given new features including grouped notifications and delivering notifications quietly with the ability to change all of this from the Notification Center.

Do Not Disturb

Last year Do Not Disturb got Do Not Disturb While Driving this year it gets Do Not Disturb During Bedtime and new Do Not Disturb options.

Measure App

Using Apple’s latest investment into Augmented Reality, with AIKit comes the Measurement app. This new app can measure things using your camera with scary accuracy. This is also where they moved the level app.
Stay tuned for a more in-depth preview of the Measure App

Photos

Sharing photos just got a lot easier. All of the bottom tabs have been changed. The For You tab highlights photo events. Then all of your albums that you made on your iPhone, sync form a Mac or PC, iCloud shared albums, People and Places, media types, and other albums have moved to the Albums tab. As search gets smarter and smarter, AI (Artificial Intelligence) it makes it easier to find all of your images when you search for a certain event, a person, place, or the image subject. In addition to all of these Photographers can now edit RAW photos natively in the Photos app.

Siri

Siri also gets some well-needed updates. Shortcuts will allow you to add your own features and routines and program them with your own sayings, which can all be managed from the Shortcuts app. Siri can now translate into over 40 languages. She can answer more questions about racing, celebrity facts, and food, search for a photo memory, and find passwords.

*The Shortcuts app, a replacement to the Workflow app, is now available as a free download from the iOS App Store.

App Updates

Apple Stocks app
Voice Memos App

For the first time in many years, many apps got big upgrades. iBooks is now Apple Books and received a whole UI (user interface) upgrade so that it now looks more like the App Store. The Stock app now gives more information by integrating with the News app. Voice memos also got an upgrade, with a more modern iOS style. For the first time, both the Stocks and Voice memos will be brought to the iPad.
Stay tuned for a more in-depth preview of these and more apps updates

Apple News App

Helpful Links and Sources:

Apple Books App