By Stanley Ssempijja
The 2024 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) arguably the most fascinating Apple event, not because of the dramatic intro but also because of the groundbreaking ‘androidy features “ announced took place last week and we saw the unleashing of the iOS 18 that left very many people in both shock and awe.
Unveiled at WWDC 2024 in June, iOS 18 is the next-generation version of iOS, set to be released to the public in September. iOS 18 is built around Apple Intelligence, which is what Apple is calling its AI feature set that’s deeply integrated into iOS. Apple Intelligence combines generative AI with personal context, and Apple calls it “AI for the rest of us.”
Apple Intelligence improves writing across the operating system, makes Siri much smarter, and allows for multiple forms of content generation. A set of Writing Tools will be available across all apps for rewriting, polishing, proofreading, and summarizing text. You can change your tone, make your writing more concise, and ensure there are no spelling or grammar errors.
Today, we break down a few things that you should know about iOS 18;
Home Screen Customization
Apple, Apple, Apple! The billion dollar company that never ceases to amuse us. From having a strong identity of uniqueness and difference from all the other operating systems, finally they released an iOS update that will allow people to make their iPhones appear like any other phone (android ).
For years one could be able to tell an iPhone just by looking at the organization of the Home Screen icons but now that will be a story of the past, iPhone users can now toggle their apps on the Home Screen as much as they like and customize the wallpaper to look just like the android counter parts, from arrangement of icons, to colors and wallpapers, everything will be customisable to the users taste.
Personally, the most beneficial new feature is the ability to change the Lock Screen icons to that of any app, this will allow quicker access to my go to apps, without the need to unlock the device.
The second best useful feature is the ability to customize the control center to allow any other App be accessible from the control center, this will also further enhance access to more apps without unlocking the phone which was previously limited to few inbuilt Apple Apps.
Lastly on Home Screen customisation is the ability to hide or lock some apps.
Messages
iOS 18 now offers you multiple ways to play with text – In addition to bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough, you can apply playful, animated effects to any letter, word, phrase, or emoji in iMessage — many of which are automatically suggested as you type.
Whether it’s too late at night or too important to forget, you can now schedule a message to send at a specified time. Furthermore, iOS 18 also supports RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages that bring richer media and delivery and read receipts for those who don’t use iMessage.
Honestly speaking, just use Gmail here since it can seamlessly sync into iCloud.
Most of the new features here were introduced to Gmail years back and will need some time to stabilize.
However, for those that won’t use Gmail, on-device categorization organizes your messages and helps you stay up to date across all your accounts. The Primary category includes your most essential emails — like those from people you know and time-sensitive messages. And the rest of your email will be organized into new categories like Transactions for receipts and order confirmations, Promotions for marketing and sales messages, and Updates for newsletters and everything else.
Tap to cash
Now all you need to exchange cash is just tapping our phones together, this will work well for those that don’t know the correct way to pass ‘kameeza’ money to their people when leaving home.
Whether you’re at a garage sale or paying someone back for dinner, Tap to Cash makes in-person payments quick and easy without having to share phone numbers or email addresses. Securely authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode, then bring your devices together to send Apple Cash.
Now You will just be like “Babe”(taps her phone), “have a good day.”
Photos
For any lazy person this might be the most exciting feature of all since your entire Library will be customized for you. The new Photos app keeps your library organized and makes it supereasy to find photos fast. It’s gorgeous yet familiar look puts everything you want right at your fingertips, so you can spend less time searching and more time enjoying your memories.
iOS 18 will be compatible with these devices;
