Come September; the internet starts overflowing with Apple-related news, leaks and images all around. With the “Gather Round” event held in Steve Jobs Theatre yesterday, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone line-up along with the Apple Watch Series 4. The new iPhones come with the iOS 12 pre-installed, which is Apple’s most recent iteration of its mobile operating system. The software which was announced back in WWDC 2018, is finally here with the launch of the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR. If you have missed on our earlier reports about the iOS 12, here is a detailed take on all the top features of the latest mobile operating system by Apple. Apple will start rolling the iOS 12 to 11 iPhones starting from September 17, and the phones in questions are: iPhone X, iPhone 8 & 8 Plus, iPhone 7 & 7 Plus, iPhone 6s & 6s Plus, iPhone 6 & 6 Plus, iPhone SE and iPhone 5s.
New and Improved Facetime
The availability of applications like iMessages and Facetime across all Apple platforms whether it be iOS or the Mac comes as one of the biggest perks of the Apple devices. Now with the launch of iOS 12, Apple users’ favourite video chat application, Facetime will go through significant improvements. Now Facetime will allow users to video call up to 32 users at one time in a group. A new update will also shrink or enlarge the video chat screen of a particular user by detecting whether or not they are speaking. Additionally, users will be able to start a video call right up from a group thread, or they can also join an ongoing call. However, Apple confirmed that Group Facetime would not be available for users at launch. Instead, it will be added via a software update at a later date.
Screen Time for Controlling Your Phone Usage
This new feature by Apple makes it way to the iOS 12 as a perfect contender to the new Google Digital Wellbeing feature which we get to see on Android 9 Pie. The new Screen Time will allow users to monitor how much time they are spending on a particular application or a set of applications, and will further present data about their phone usage. This way users will be able to monitor their kids’ or their phone usage statistics, and then they can also decide to limit a particular application time.
Improved Animoji, Memoji and Camera Effects
Apple introduced the Animoji feature last year in the iPhone X. The Animoji allows the users to create animated avatars of themselves using the FaceID feature on the phone. The improved Animoji comes with the capability to detect tongue movement, and there are also four new Animoji characters like Koala, Tiger, T.rex and the favourite Ghost emoji. The new Memoji addition to the feature will allow iPhone users to create new avatars with varying face shapes, accessories, skin tones and more. These Animojis and Memojis will be shareable on iMessage, through small video clips and the Animojis can also represent you on Facetime.
Grouped Notification for Apps
Finally, after many iterations, Apple will be shipping grouped notifications in the iOS 12. Before this, every notification on iOS used to be displayed individually which meant tonnes of notifications for a single app. This won’t be the case anymore since Apple will now group all the notifications for a single application in one place. Not only that, users will now be able to select which notifications show up on the panel and which don’t. Further, Siri will learn based on your notification interactions and will suggest which notifications to show and which ones to not.
Improved Do Not Disturb Mode
To avoid missing important calls or notifications when your phone is put in Do Not Disturb mode, iOS 12 will provide many customisation options to the users. They will be able to schedule the Do Not Disturb mode according to a particular time, according to their calendar events, day or nights and much more. Additionally, they can also set the Do Not Disturb to turn on or off based on a particular location.
Improved Photos App
The Photos app on the upcoming iPhones will be much smarter as compared to the previous versions. Now the application will smartly group photos together based on date, place, people and many more criterions. Further, even before users start typing a search query, the app will display the related photos grouped across several parameters. There is also an easier sharing option for Photos on iOS 12 when you send your photos using this option the feature will prompt your friends to send back the pictures from same event/trip.
Siri Learns from Your Routine
Apple’s digital assistant Siri also becomes smarter with the new iOS upgrade. Now Siri will be able to learn from your routine, and it will be able to suggest you particular apps or shortcuts based on your usage pattern. Noting the time and trends of your phone usage, the assistant will recommend specific apps or orders at a particular time. Now users will also be able to string multiple commands into a single action with the shortcuts feature in Siri.
