Earlier this morning, Apple announced Apple Intelligence, which is their generative artificial intelligence language model that is integrated into the entire operating system including iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and macOS. Interestingly, this model takes privacy into account and at the same time provides context according to a user. You've read what's cool with iPadOS 18 and tvOS 18, but what about iOS 18?
1. Apple Intelligence – AI
Apple's generative artificial intelligence language model is integrated directly into Apple's operating systems. It also supports the device's built-in processing and can be used on almost all applications supported by the Apple platform. Apple also does not charge any fees but its use is limited to devices with Apple A17 Pro and Apple M chips only at this point.
2. Personalized Home Screen
Yes, Android devices have supported home screen customization for years. With iOS 18 you can resize app icons, arrange icons anywhere, and icons can also be darkened according to the device theme in addition to widgets that support resizing.
3. New Control Center
Control Center on iOS at this point looks a bit cluttered because there are too many icons and settings. This iOS 18 update will have quick shortcuts to control Home Kit devices, device connections, media control and favorite settings. These four small icons for quick shortcuts are arranged here on the right when the Control Center curtain is pulled down. Apple also introduced Control Gallery for widget support and quick access icons of third-party applications.
4. Applications Can Be Locked With Face ID
Some Android devices have long supported the feature of locking apps using a biometric scan. Apple doesn't want to be left behind and is now introducing a similar feature that also requires a Face ID scan. With this feature, there is no more issue of pictures in Photos being spied on, messages on WhatsApp being intercepted and game applications being played by children to the point of making unauthorized purchases.
5. Game Mode – iPhone is now a gaming phone
The new Game Mode can reduce tasks running in the background to optimize performance when playing on an iPhone. Low performance issues can be avoided especially when running games like Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and later Assassin's Creed Shadows.
6. Photos – Now With the Touch of AI
The Photos application on the iPhone will soon be smarter with the ability to search for photos or videos using contexts such as "Dad's birthday in Seremban". Then if before iOS displays all screenshots, later they can be hidden. Images with faces can also be grouped by individual, photos are now easier and more comfortable to look at and the Clean Up generative AI feature is introduced to remove objects or distracting things in the image.
7. Safari – Summarize Articles
With millions of content and articles on the internet, we won't have time to read them all. Sometimes a busy schedule allows one to miss reading some news. With the Safari update, the Readers feature can summarize long web page content and provide a list of content to make it easier for readers to access.
8. Passwords – Manage Local Passwords
There are some password management services such as Last Pass but require a monthly subscription if you want to use it across platforms and operating systems. On iOS 18, this subscription can be buried through the Passwords application developed by Apple itself. It can be used on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro and even Windows.
9. Series + ChatGPT 4o
Siri becomes intelligent with the injection of Apple Intelligence with the processor performed directly on the iPhone. It also uses a new interface with the surrounding screen will light up instead of the circle icon that has been used for a long time. Users can use Siri to do almost anything like Google Assistant. Access to ChatGPT-4o is also integrated with users not needing a subscription to use it. For ChatGPT+ customers, you can access this service directly through Siri.
10. Mail is getting smarter
The Mail application can now automatically sort emails by category and emails that contain important things such as expiry dates and so on will be labeled as the most important emails. Emails with the same topic will also be categorized such as purchase receipt emails and emails containing flight e-tickets.
11. iMessage Gets More Interesting
If you are a heavy user of iMessage, you can later schedule when a message can be sent. In addition, the text also supports various formats such as Bold, Italic, Underline, colored and more. You can also react with the Tapback feature. The new iMessage also supports messaging without WiFi and networks using satellite communications but is limited to iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users only. Images can also be generated using Image Playground and unique emojis are generated using Genmoji which is supported by Apple Intelligence.
12. RCS support
I love using RCS on Android devices, but because of WhatsApp and Telegram this usage is less common in Malaysia. With iOS 18 starting to support RCS for iOS users to interact with Android users using iMessage, will come easier because no longer using credit but the Internet for each message. Only, the blue bubble and green bubble war is still going on because RCS on iOS 18 is still green because it is labeled as SMS.
13. Siri – Controlled By Head Gesture + AirPods Pro
Siri Interactions allows AirPods Pro owners to nod or shake their head left or right to interact with SIri. This head control can be used when in the cloud area and the owner does not want to give loud voice commands. In addition, rejecting phone calls and managing notifications can also now be done without voice commands.
14. Spatial 3D Audio At First
Personalized Spatial Audio allows spatial audio in video games to be enjoyed through AirPods (Gen 3), AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max. Previously, spatial audio content could only be enjoyed through Apple Music and Apple TV.
15. Genmoji
If in the past Apple has popularized Animoji, now they are trying to popularize Genmoji as well. The same concept only now emojis are generated with generative artificial intelligence. It is supported in iMessage and several other applications. Users can generate Genmoji according to context, other people's faces, modes and previously generated Memoji.
16. Notes – Summary, Smart Script And Audio Transcript
All notes written on the Notes application can now be summarized. Then if you use Apple Pencil to take notes, Smart Script can change the handwriting to look like it was printed with wrong spelling can also be corrected with one click.
If you have attached a voice recording to Notes, it can now generate a text transcription for easy reading later or as a reference source. Notes also supports Image Playground, which is an Apple Intelligence image generation feature to either change the sketch to be more beautiful and neat or fill the empty space of the note with an appropriate image according to the context of the note.
17. Unlocking Home Doors On Purpose?
Controlling something with intent or pretending to be a Star Wars Jedi knight is a dream of many people. With the new Home app in iOS 18, not only can you tell Siri to control the robot vacuum cleaner or check the home's electricity usage, but you can also close the door of the house automatically when close to the door.
18. Smarter Notifications
The notification system on iOS has always been criticized by the public but in recent times with the summary notification feature that alerts the user at a specific time is very helpful. Even a lot of what I missed can be seen again after finishing work. This new iteration is smarter because it uses AI to identify which notification content is more important and will be given more attention.
I have listed a total of 18 interesting features in this article in preparation for you to update your iPhone later. The question is, can you use all these features on your iPhone and which iPhone supports them?
iOS 18 is supported on 24 iPhones as listed below, but for the Apple Intelligence feature processed from within the device it is limited to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max only. Other Apple devices that support this AI feature are the iPad and macOS devices with the Apple M chip.
Phone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13
iPhone 13 mini
iPhone 13 Pro
iPhone 13 Pro Max
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone XS
iPhone XS Max
iPhone XR
iPhone SE(2nd Gen)
iPhone SE (Gen 3)