Apple’s iOS 12 improvements will include faster performance for older phones, plus improvements in augmented reality, Siri, FaceTime and more.
Apple both sets trends and chases them, and iOS 12, unveiled Monday at the WWDC keynote, is no exception. With this release, Apple is focusing on performance improvements and enhancements, even for older devices. The company is also making important changes to augmented reality that will enable new experiences; improving Siri, FaceTime, and the Photos app to catch up to the competition; and adding new features like personalized Memoji and weekly reports about how you’re using your device.
iOS 12 will be a free update for all users this fall, and it’s supported by every device that runs iOS 11, all the way back to the iPhone 5s released in 2013. Here’s a rundown of the biggest improvements in iOS 12.
Apple has released iOS 12 beta 11 to developers and public beta testers. For the public testers, it is called Public Beta 9, but it is the same software build as the developer beta 11.
We’re nearing the end of the iOS 12 development cycle, so beta release timings are coming more erratic and unpredictable, with fewer changes. We don’t expect any more significant user-facing changes at this point, only bug fixes.
Registered developers can get earlier developer betas by logging in to the Developer download site .
Should you run the iOS 12 beta? We try to answer that question here .
Though not announced at WWDC with the rest of the iOS 12 features, Apple’s new mobile OS will bring big improvements to Apple Maps. Apple has spent years working on a massive project to replace all its third-party map data with its own super high-resolution data, together with tools to make map changes much more quickly, and features to incorporate completely anonymous data from millions of iPhone users.
The new maps in Apple Maps will be far more detailed than the current version.
These Maps changes will roll out first to the San Francisco Bay area with iOS 12 beta 3, and expanding to Northern California this fall and then other regions over the following year. So many of you won’t see these dramatic improvements right when iOS 12 is released, but if you upgrade your device, you’ll eventually see a sudden and massive improvement to your local Maps experience.
A new file format called USDZ will allow easier sharing of AR objects.
Apple created a brand-new file format with Pixar called USDZ that will enable easier sharing of the 3D graphics and animations used in augmented reality apps. Developers and users can share these USDZ files like any other files: Store them in the Files app, send them in Messages and Mail. When you receive a USDZ file, you can open it and place the 3D object in the real world. “It’s sort of like AR Quick Look,” explained Craig Federighi on stage.
For example, if a publisher places a USDZ image into an article in the News app, readers can tap it to open it in a fully interactive AR view, right inside News. Another example shown was Fender using a USDZ object on its website, where potential buyers can tap it to view the product from all angles, shown in an augmented reality view in the room they’re in, in actual size.
Measure objects with Measure.
Users can also try the all-new Measure app to measure the dimensions of physical objects using AR. You just trace the sides of an object to find out how long they are. It can also detect rectangles automatically and tell you the dimensions.
For developers, ARKit 2.0 will enable improved face tracking, more realistic rendering, as well as shared experiences, which means AR games can now support multiplayer modes. Both players can see the same objects on their own devices, and those objects can have persistence so they reappear in the same place the next time you use the same app.
The Photos app looks a lot more like Apple Music, with proactive suggestions in the For You tab.
Apple’s Photos app gets a refresh in iOS 12, matching the design language of Apple Music and the App Store. Search in Photos will be improved, letting you use multiple search terms and search your photo library quicker using Siri.
The Photos app has a new For You tab, which is a feed that shows featured photos, like images you took on the same day in previous years. It suggests loops and bounce effects for Live Photos that could use them, or portrait effects to add to Portrait Mode photos. It also highlights shared iCloud album activity. All these features are in the Google Photos app already, so they’re welcome additions to iOS 12, but nothing that has us shocked.
Photos already recognized other people in your images, and in iOS 12, it will suggest you share those photos with those people. Images you share arrive in full resolution. When your friend gets them, her phone will suggest sharing photos taken at the same event right back to you, which will help you gather more photos from the same party without having to set up a shared album, or email or text images back and forth. The sharing is private with end-to-end encryption, and all the machine learning to determine who’s in your photos is done on your device, not in the cloud.
Siri can suggest tasks based on your normal patterns, like reordering the same Philz coffee you get every morning.
When Apple bought Workflow in 2017, we were hoping iOS would eventually get the kind of robust automations it enabled. And now it’s time: iOS 12 features big improvements for Siri that can speed up tasks in a single app, as well as let you build routines that use multiple apps, launched with a single Siri command. Siri’s third-party app support has been limited so far, so this should be huge for iOS users.
With Siri Shortcuts, any app can expose quick actions to Siri. Federighi gave the example of the Tile app, which you have to launch when you want to locate your Tile tracker. Now the Tile app can suggest a Siri Shortcut to locate your tracker, and you can set a custom Siri command, like “I lost my keys.” Now when you tell Siri that phrase, a card launches with that screen in Tile, and you can see where the tracker is, and interact with the card, without even having to open the full app unless you want to. Other examples offered were an “order my groceries” command to place an order in an app like Instacart, or “help me relax” to launch your favorite meditation app.
One Siri Shortcut can execute actions from a number of apps and iOS services.
Siri Suggestions are also improved in iOS 12 to anticipate your next actions based on your history. The suggestions can appear on your lock screen and notifications screen, and you can tap one to take care of that action without having to launch an app. It can suggest you call relatives on their birthdays. If you’re late to a meeting, it can prewrite a text to the organizer to let them know, or call into the meeting if a call-in number was provided in the invite. If you order a coffee with the same app every morning, a Siri Suggestion will pop up that you can tap to jump right there.
The Shortcuts app lets you create your own multi-app workflows that you can run with a custom Siri command.
The new Shortcuts app also lets you combine actions from multiple apps into one routine, which you then trigger with a Siri command. For example, if you say, “I’m going surfing,” the routine can check the surf report with the Surfline app, read you the current weather, grab an ETA for your drive to the beach, and then make a note in Reminders to tell you to put on sunscreen when you get there.
The Shortcuts app has a gallery full of premade shortcuts, as well as a library you can search. Routines can combine services like texting, mapping, HomeKit, music, you name it. You can search for items to add, or the app can suggest them to you based on machine learning. In the on-stage demo of setting up a “heading home” routine for an evening commute, the app suggested launching the KQED app to play some NPR, because that’s what the user usually did at that time of day.
News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and Apple Books all get redesigns in iOS 12.
