The iPhone iOS 18 Features You Should Be Most Excited About

iOS 18 is the forthcoming latest iteration of Apple’s operating system for iPhones, announced at the tech giant’s annual WWDC 2024 conference in June.

The new OS is currently available in beta for iPhone users to download, with an expected full release date in September as has become customary since iOS 6 back in 2012. iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, and visionOS 2 were also announced in Cupertino during WWDC.

While it’s sometimes difficult to think of the yearly iOS updates as more than merely iterative, Tim Cook and co did reveal an array of reasons to be excited about iOS 18’s release. Here we’re throwing a spotlight on the upgrades that make the update worthwhile.

iOS 18 Features: Additional Customization

Your iPhone’s home screen, lock screen and Control Center are all getting a facelift, with aesthetic and UX tweaks on their way with iOS 18.

You’ll immediately notice a change to the way that app icons and widgets appear, with a so-called “Dark look”. You can tint them with any color you choose, or let the OS do the work with color suggestions to work best with your wallpaper.

But outside of pure cosmetics, other tweaks to the screens you use most include:

• Rearrange apps and widgets: Greater user control to allow you easier access to the apps and tools you use most.
• Locked and hidden apps: For any apps that are sensitive or you don’t want others to access, you can set Face ID, Touch ID or passcode access to ensure that they can’t be seen by others.
• Redesigned Control Center: To include grouped controls and single swipe access.
• Controls gallery: Additional controls added, with all accessible from a single location and able to be grouped. You can also rearrange where they are placed, and enlarge the ones you use most.
• Controls on lock screen: Personalize your lock screen to add easy-to-access controls. The examples Apple gives are “taking a note when an idea strikes or quickly capturing the moment for your social media”.

iOS 18 Features: Messages

Competing against the likes of WhatsApp, Telegram and other messaging apps, Apple is improving its own iMessage app. And there are some notable changes.

One of the most surprising is the decision to support RCS and move away from SMS technology. This brings iPhones into line with Android devices, allowing better compatibility between the operating systems in terms of sending and receiving image/video files, getting delivered and read receipts, and seeing typing indicators when the other person is penning a response.

Outside of minor tweaks that let you “apply playful animated effects to any letter, word, phrase or emoji”, the newly granted ability to schedule messages is a genuinely welcome addition to iMessage’s functionality.

iOS 18 Features: Photos

Apple claims that the changes made to its Photos app for iOS 18 constitute its biggest redesign ever.

“The new Photos app keeps your library organized and makes it super‑easy to find photos fast. Its gorgeous yet familiar look puts everything you want at your fingertips, so you can spend less time searching and more time enjoying your memories.” – Apple

The official preview is a little light on the details, but says that the app will automatically organize your photos into ‘Collections’. Examples given are Recent Days, Trips, and People & Pets.

Not a game-changing improvement, but users of the iOS 18 Beta have also noted the introduction of a ‘Recovered’ folder in the Photos app. This new addition recovers photos and videos that have otherwise been lost due to software errors or database corruption.

iOS 18 Features: Passwords App

With the average person having around 100 passwords to remember, iOS 18 will introduce Apple’s own password manager app.

Named – you guessed it – Passwords, it seeks to store all of your passwords, verifications and security alerts in one go-to app, and prove more accessible than iCloud Keychain which has previously carried out a similar function.

Passwords will also be made available on iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia and visionOS 2, meaning you can sync your passwords across devices. If you also have Windows devices, this will extend to those thanks to the iCloud app for Windows.

To ensure all of this sensitive information is kept safe, all syncing is secured with end-to-end encryption.

iOS 18 Features: Best of the Rest

Other improvements coming with iOS 18 include changes to the following apps:

• Mail: More effective auto-categorization and grouping on your device will help keep your inbox more orderly.
• Safari: Reader has been improved to summarize more astutely at the top, and new Highlights feature “will automatically detect relevant information on a page and highlight it as you browse”.
• Maps: Budding hikers will benefit from topographic maps of popular trail networks, with thousands of routes accessible even when offline.
• Notes: Live audio transcriptions can be turned on when you record sound, while sums you type in will be solved in real time without the need to open Calculator.
• Wallet: Tap to Cash feature makes transferring money to other Apple users in person quick and easy.

To see Apple’s full explanation of what it has in store, head to its official iOS 18 Preview.

What About Apple Intelligence?

One of the biggest announcements at WWDC 2024 was the unveiling of Apple Intelligence.

This isn’t strictly a feature of iOS 18 (hence not being included above), but Apple has said that its new ‘personal intelligence system’ will be “deeply integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia”.

In short, it is Apple’s inevitable use of generative intelligence and large language models to improve the functionality of apps on iPhones, iPads and Macs.

The company has long been developing its own proprietary AI chatbot called Ajax. But Apple also announced during the WWDC 2024 keynote that ChatGPT will be coming to a host of its apps, including the integration of the technology from competitor OpenAI within Siri.

How to Get iOS 18

While the vast majority of iPhone users will be content to wait for the fully tested and polished iOS 18 operating system to be launched (almost certainly) sometime in September, it is possible to download the – potentially glitchy – beta version immediately.

So if you have an iPhone XR or newer (i.e. any model released from 2018 onwards), you can do so by first signing up to Apple’s beta program.

Then go to Settings > General > Software Update and, if you can’t already see the OS 18 Beta listed, look for it in Beta Updates. Then you simply have to decide whether to update your iPhone immediately or overnight. Easy!