At WWDC 2024, Apple"s annual developer conference, the company unveiled its next-generation mobile operating system. iOS 18 is now available for developers to try ahead of public beta testing in July and the full release later this fall. The main additions include new home screen personalization, Control Center improvements, Apple Intelligence, new features for iMessage, and more.
With iOS 18, the home screen on the iPhone become much more customizable than before. Apple is finally allowing users to place app icons anywhere on the screen for better reachability and personal expression. You can finally have some blank space on top of the screen with the app icons located closer to the dock (yes, copied straight from Android).
In addition, you can personalize the app icons with colors and make them shift from light mode to dark for a more unified experience across the screen. Also, you can hide app labels and keep just icons for better accessibility or a more minimalistic look.
Control Center now features dedicated spaces for music, Home controls, and more. You can customize its appearance by resizing buttons and different parts, group items, and more. Also, Apple finally lets you personalize the lock screen shortcuts, which, until now, were locked to just the flashlight and camera.
Apple improved the Photos app with new tools and conveniences, including collections and improved filtering that lets you browse people, recent days, pinned galleries, trips, and more, all without having to arrange photos in albums. There is also a new carousel with highlights, auto-playing videos, favorite photos, and more.
iMessage in iOS 18 now supports text formatting, new effects, emoji reactions, long-awaited RCS support, messages over satellite, and more. Other changes include improvements to the Mail app, big updates for Safari with its reworked reading experience, a new Passwords app (coming to Windows as well), the ability to lock apps behind FaceID, Apple Intelligence, and a native ChatGPT integration.
The latter opens new experiences for iPhone users, such as system-wide writing tools, image generation, new photo editing capabilities (you can finally erase those people in the background without using third-party apps), and significantly improved Siri, which now better understands natural language, context, and more. Besides, ChatGPT is now integrated into Siri for even more AI-powered assistance.
iOS 18 is now available as a preview for app developers. A public beta is coming in July, and the full release is scheduled this fall alongside the iPhone 16 Series launch. As for compatibility, you need the iPhone Xs/Xr or the iPhone SE (2nd generation) and newer to run the latest iOS release. You can learn more about iOS 18 here.