iOS 18: 8 Exciting New Features

Apple has once again made some exciting new innovations with the soon-to-be released iOS 18 updates. The new iOS 18 will have a host of new features including the ability to lock and hide apps with Face ID, dark mode for app icons, schedule texts, and a new design for the photos app among other features.

Here are some of the new iOS 18 features:

1. Apple Intelligence

The iOS 18 update will integrate Apple with generative intelligence (GenAI), resulting in what is “Apple Intelligence.” This integration will create a new “personal intelligence system” for Apple, providing a more personalised user experience for all iOS 18 users.

On top of that, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, is undergoing a revamp and an upgrade. With the new development, Siri will have the ability to handle more complex tasks with ease and have an improved natural language processing.

Alongside Siri’s upgrades, Apple Intelligence will enhance several other features of the iOS 18 experience. The Messages app will now have AI-driven suggestions. This will assist users in creating more contextually accurate responses and even auto-completing sentences based on the user’s conversation.

Additionally, AI will have the ability to summarise notifications, emails, webpages, allowing users to understand the important information without having to read through lengthy content.

2. More customisation

iOS 18 now provides users with new ways to customise the Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Control Center. Compared to the old versions of iOS, users can now freely place app icons and widgets anywhere on the screen, departing from the rigid grid layout of the previous iPhone softwares.

In addition, app icons and widgets can now have a dark or tinted effect, bringing a new level of visual customisation. This feature would be loved by iPhone users who enjoy applying themes to their devices to suit their aesthetic preferences.

Furthermore, iPhone users can now control other apps directly from the Control Center. This means you can quickly unlock your vehicle, capture content for social media, or access other functions without having to navigate through multiple screens.

3. Redesigned photos app

The Photos app has now been redesigned to make it easier for users to find and enjoy special moments. The app can now display photos in a simple grid format, group photos by themes (like vacations, birthdays etc), and pin your favourite collections.

In addition, a new carousel feature shows a rotating selection of the user’s highlights, favourite people, pets, places that are updated every day.

4. Mail enhancements

With the new iOS 18, the Mail app would have new features to help users manage their inbox. Users can automatically sort emails into primary (personal and important emails), transactions (confirmations and receipts), updates (news and social notifications), and a digest view which gathers all relevant emails into one view for quick scanning.

5. iMessage upgrade

With the new iOS 18 features, users can now add animations to their letters, words, phrases, and emojis. This aims to make conversations more lively. In addition to this, texts can now be bold, underlined, italicised, or even crossed out. Users can also now react to messages with emojis and even schedule messages for a later time.

6. Lock and hide apps with Face ID

iOS 18 has new tools that will help users manage their privacy. Users can now lock apps using their Face ID to prevent unauthorised access. For added privacy, apps can be hidden in a special folder and they won’t appear in search results, notifications or any other part of the system. This ensures that their content remains completely private.

7. Finally, RCS

Rich Communication Services (RCS), would be available with the new iOS 18. This feature allows richer media and more reliable group messaging when texting people who don’t have Apple devices. This upgrade is long overdue and is welcomed by many iPhone users.

8. Satellite messages

In a scenario where an iPhone user doesn’t have cell service or Wi-Fi, they can still send and receive texts, emojis, reactions via satellite from the Messages app. As for knowing whether you have a “connection” to satellite, your iPhone will notify you when you are connected to a satellite.

Most importantly, messages sent over satellite are private and secure with end-to-end encryption.