iOS 18: A Leap Forward in Apple's Mobile Operating System

7 Must-Try Features Coming to Your iPhone With iOS 18

If you can't afford to buy a new iPhone every year, the next best thing is an iOS refresh. And come Sept. 16, iOS 18 brings a few tricks focusing on productivity, fun, and -- eventually -- AI. It should run on every iPhone back to the iPhone XR and 2022 iPhone SE. Here's what to expect in Apple's newest mobile operating system. 1. Schedule Your Messages Text messages are a primary form of communication for many, but on iPhones, it's a real-time chat. There's no option to save for later, like on email, until iOS 18. So whether you have a middle-of-the-night deep thought for your early riser BFF or don't want to forget someone's birthday, type it out and select a time and date for it to fire off. Here's how it works. 2. More Tapback Options On Instagram, there's a wealth of emoji at your fingertips for reacting to memes and Reels. Over on Messages, you're restricted to a slim selection of reactions, known as Tapbacks: the heart, thumbs up or down, exclamation points, question mark, or laughter. You can drop emoji into a Messages chat itself versus affixing them to a specific message, but that can clutter things up. With iOS 18, you can react with a much wider range of emoji and stickers. You can also add emphasis to certain messages with formatting like bold and italics, but also special effects like Shake or Ripple. (Think of the balloons that appear in iMessage when someone says happy birthday or the fireworks for "Happy New Year.") 3. Satellite Messaging on iPhone Apple introduced Emergency SOS with the iPhone 14, which connects people with emergency services using satellites when they're in remote areas without a cellular connection. As its name suggests, however, Emergency SOS is reserved for times when you need immediate assistance and is limited in functionality. With iOS 18, Apple extends its satellite phone service to the Messages app for when you're in a cellular dead zone. It's being pitched as helping you "stay connected when you're without Wi-Fi or cellular." For those with an iPhone 14 and up, Messages will prompt you to connect to a nearby satellite and your connection status will be displayed in the Dynamic Island. It will support texts, emoji, and Tapbacks. One question is whether Apple will ever charge for this. Initially, it said Emergency SOS would be free for a year, but that was later extended for another year; Apple didn't mention any sort of fee for iMessage satellite connections at WWDC. Speaking of, if you do find yourself in a sticky situation, Apple says Emergency SOS in iOS 18 will support live video, so you can share streaming video and audio or recorded clips during emergency calls. "Emergency dispatchers will send you a request to share live video or photos over a secure connection, making it easier and faster to get the help you need," Apple says. 4. Custom Control Centers and App Organization Control Center offers quick access to frequently used functions on the iPhone with a swipe: Airplane mode, flashlight, Wi-Fi, and even Shazam song recognition. But it's just a single menu with limited customization options. On iOS 18, you can create multiple Control Centers that you can swipe through. Create one for just your smart home devices, for example. For Android users, this type of stuff is old hat, but Apple has held a tight grip on its tech for a long time. Part of that journey is allowing people to put their app icons wherever they want on the home screen in iOS 18. Put a row at the top and bottom or along the edge. And top it off with color tints, so the whole thing looks yellow or red. 5. Hide Your Embarrassing Apps Want to keep an app away from prying eyes? You could bury it in an unrelated or boring folder, but iOS 18 will do you one better and let you hide it in a private Hidden folder that's only accessible via Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode. You can already do this with Photos, but now you can do the same with Tinder or even Google Docs if you have a particularly salacious diary entry you don't want falling into the wrong hands. When an app is locked, it also won't show up in search, notifications, and other places across the system, Apple says. 6. Passwords App Apple is moving in on the password manager business with the Passwords app, which will sync codes across Apple devices, as well as on Windows, in iCloud, and even the Vision Pro. All the info will be stored in a standalone Passwords app, which Apple says is end-to-end encrypted. Apple already has a password-storage service with iCloud Keychain, but it's a little hard to parse and mostly hums along in the background for those who want to use it. Notably, Apple mentioned in its WWDC press materials that Keychain "was first introduced over 25 years ago," so it's clearly trying to get you to focus on the newer, more modern Passwords app. Here's a rundown on how to store your logins in the Passwords app. 7. Tap to Cash Apple Cash is Apple's version of mobile payment apps like Venmo and Zelle and allows for cash transfers between those with an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. With iOS 18, the company is simplifying these transfers; just hold two compatible iPhones together to send money. If you're worried about someone standing close to you and draining your account, Apple says each phone owner will need to authenticate using Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode and then hold their phones together to get paid. Here's how it works. Apple introduced a similar contact-sharing feature with iOS 17 called NameDrop, and despite some initial concerns about security, there don't appear to have been any major issues. Your phone number is much different than your cash, of course, so we'll have to see how it goes. Apple Intelligence? Not Yet The company's AI solution includes a ChatGPT integration and productivity-focused features like editing help and generative AI art suggestions. But we don't expect to see the first Apple Intelligence features until iOS 18.1 in October. You'll also need a higher-end iPhone 15 or one of Apple's new iPhone 16 smartphones. There's a lot we don't know, like when exactly Apple will offload your data to its servers versus processing it on your device. But we'll be sure to put it through its paces when it arrives.

The Biggest Features Coming to iPhones With iOS 18

That's a wrap on Apple's big "It's Glowtime" event. Of course, the headlines will talk about the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 10, and upgrades to AirPods. But don't let iOS news slide under the radar: Apple finally confirmed when iOS 18 will drop, which means we have an ETA for all those new features to hit our iPhones. This is no minor update, to say the least. iOS 18 ships with better customization options than ever before, including personalized Home Screen layouts, tinted app icons, and a fully customizable Control Center layout. It also brings a revamped Photos app, the ability to schedule messages for later, and a more powerful take on Apple Notes. Not to mention, it will add powerful new AI features for compatible iPhones, at least later this year. Here are the most important iOS 18 features you need to know about. Apple will officially release iOS 18 on Monday, Sept. 16. As long as your iPhone can run iOS 17, you can update to iOS 18, too. iOS 18 will be available for all eligible devices in all regions at the same time (usually 1 p.m. ET). That said, it won't ship with Apple Intelligence: Apple's AI features will be available for compatible iPhones in October with iOS 18.1. They also won't roll out all at once, so you shouldn't expect all of the announced features to be available at launch. Apple Intelligence is the flagship feature of the iOS 18 era, (even if it is coming with iOS 18.1) and it's available in many different ways across the operating system. Here's a quick round-up of all the Apple Intelligence features highlighted at the iPhone 16 launch event: Apple says that with iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence, Siri will be able to follow your queries even if you make a mistake while speaking. You can quickly correct yourself, and Siri will answer queries accordingly. In addition, Apple Intelligence will let you take a photo of animals to identify their species or breeds, and take a picture of an item to identify it using Google Search. Apple's big promise with Apple Intelligence is privacy: The company says your data is only used to process your requests and that it's never stored. Quite a bit of Apple Intelligence runs on-device, but Apple can draw on server-based models for certain features. There is ChatGPT integration with some features, such as Writing Tools, but you'll have to explicitly ask for ChatGPT's inputs to use it. If you're wary about utilizing OpenAI's models, you can avoid them entirely. While all of this might sound exciting, Apple Intelligence's biggest hurdle is that it's not available for most iPhones in the world at the time of writing. It works with the iPhone 16 series and the iPhone 15 Pro models: iPhone 15 and older devices are out of luck. Other than that, it works only on iPads and MacBooks with Apple's M-series chips. Many of Apple Intelligence's features are restricted to U.S. English and support for some other languages will be coming later. Similarly, some of its features will not be available in many regions, so it's best to check Apple's website to see which features will be coming to your iPhone. One of the biggest additions to iOS 18 is the new Passwords app. It upgrades Apple's existing password manager tools into dedicated app that works across your Apple devices and on Windows (via the iCloud for Windows app). You can use this to securely store your login credentials, passkeys, and even to generate QR codes to share wifi passwords. You can now easily reorder all the tiles in your iPhone's Control Center. I've used it to move most-used features to the bottom-right corner, which my thumb can easily reach. You can also delete features that you don't use, which is a big step forward: Previous versions of iOS didn't let you remove certain features, such as the Now Playing widget. It's available on all iPhones running iOS 18. Building on customization options in past versions of iOS, Apple has added proper Home Screen customization to iOS 18. You can move apps to any part of the screen now: For example, you can leave the top half of the screen empty and place icons only in the lower half, or in whichever part of the screen you like. This opens up room for more customized Home Screen layouts, à la Android, and you can also move icons around to highlight your wallpapers more. You're also free to tint your app icons: Depending on your style, you can either match their color scheme to your wallpaper, or pick a contrasting look. Apple gave Messages a lot of attention in iOS 18. Perhaps the most important change, however, is RCS support: You and your Android friends can now send each other higher-quality images and videos, join functioning group chats, and benefit from end-to-end encryption. All-in-all, the experience should feel similar to iMessage. (Although Apple still makes these bubbles green.) iOS 18 also lets you schedule messages to avoid bothering people at odd hours. Other improvements include the addition of new text formatting options such as underline and strikethrough, more text effects, and the ability to react with any emoji you want -- not just the six preset options. With iOS 18, Apple Notes is getting a big upgrade. You can now solve basic arithmetic problems in the app, great for logging expenses or splitting costs with others. The app also lets you record voice notes, and if you have an Apple Intelligence-compatible phone, even transcribes your audio notes. For improved organization, Notes lets you collapse section headers, so you won't have to scroll as much in longer notes. Just tap a section header to collapse it and move to the next section. iOS 18 enhances privacy options on iPhone with a redesigned Privacy & Security settings page, where you can quickly check how many apps are accessing certain types of data. When apps ask for access to your address book, you'll be able to choose specific contacts to give access to, and deny access to the rest. This prevents apps from scraping all your contacts when they only need access to a couple.

Does Your iPhone Support iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence? Here's What You Need to Know

Don't miss: Apple Event Live Blog: Apple Watch Series 10 Official, iPhone 16, AirPods Expected With iOS 18, your iPhone will get a host of new features, including the ability to fully customize your home screen and control center, lock and hide apps, access the overhauled Photos app and take advantage of Apple Intelligence -- Apple's new AI system for the iPhone and other devices. But does your iPhone support iOS 18? And even if it does, will it support the Apple Intelligence features? Here's everything you need to know. And if you want to test out iOS 18 before it officially releases, you can download the iOS 18 developer beta, as well as the iOS 18 public beta, right now. For iOS 18, you'll be happy to know that every iPhone model that currently supports iOS 17 will also support iOS 18. If you're currently running iOS 17, you'll definitely be able to upgrade to iOS 18. Here's the full list of the iPhone models that will support iOS 18: Apple Intelligence, Apple's generative AI system for your iPhone, is one important aspect of iOS 18. Apple Intelligence will be released next month with iOS 18.1, as a beta, for the general public. It's currently available on the iOS 18.1 developer beta. You can use Apple Intelligence to quickly summarize text in Safari, create personalized images in Messages and ask Siri to perform more complex tasks than ever before -- but Apple Intelligence isn't coming to every iPhone. Only a few select iPhone models will support Apple Intelligence: Apple Intelligence will also be available on iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1. It will only work on iPad and Mac models with M1 and later. The two iPhone 15 Pro models are the only older models that support Apple Intelligence, because they both have the A17 Pro processor.