16 ms·

iOS 12, reviewed

240 points by tomduncalf 8y ago

saagarjha 8y ago
> There are three configurations for this feature in the notifications section of the iOS 12 Settings app: automatic, by app, and off. It defaults to automatic. In this case, notifications from one app will generally be grouped together, but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might intelligently decide not to in some cases. This is transparent; it's decided the "thread identifier" for the notification so that threads are split out separately: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unmutablenotificationcontent/1649872-threadidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
- untog 8y ago
  Transparent to developers, yes. But not to end users.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Well, the goal is that developers implement this in a way so that it makes sense why notifications are split up.
- GeekyBear 8y ago
  >but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might intelligently decide not to in some cases. This would perhaps be better worded as "for reasons the article's author didn't understand, but people who familiarized themselves with information released months ago at WWDC did…". I'm going to reiterate the advice to read the MacStories review instead of the one at Ars. It has much more depth and insight.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I’ve read both. Just wanted to explain how notifications work.
oplav 8y ago
Did the new emojis make it into this release? I can't seem to find them on my updated phone. It's pretty minor compared to all the other things, but I was looking forward to some of them... https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-ios-12-new-emoji-super-hero-cupcake-and-redheads https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-ios-12-new...
- jbigelow76 8y ago
  New emojis usually go into the .1 releases to nudge people into updating to get the last major release's bug fixes.
baxtr 8y ago
When Apple first presented iOS 12 to the public and to developers, it promised a feature called Group FaceTime that would basically work like Google Hangouts; you'd be able to video chat with up to 32 participants at the same time. That feature has now been pushed back to a later software update in the iOS 12 cycle—meaning it's not available for us to test yet. Bummer... :/ that’s probably the one feature that I’ve been most waiting for
- mrkstu 8y ago
  First developer beta[0] is out if you want to try it out... [0] - https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-beta-of-ios-12-1-to-developers/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-beta-...
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    We'll see if they keep it in. iCloud messages was reintroduced in the beta and removed in public version.
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  that feature was in some promotional material i just recently watched, either within their recent presentation or an ad. that is really disingenuous of apple to have not removed it from their ad campaign while knowing it was delayed. that feature alone was a major consideration of mine when recently deciding whether i should get an iPhone (i chose not to) since my family has iPhones.
adolph 8y ago
Another review worth reading is MacStories. It covers the new Shortcuts automation app in more depth. https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-review/ https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-rev...
- rblatz 8y ago
  I was interested until I saw the article is broken up into 17 pages, and the first page was entirely fluff.
  - ihuman 8y ago
    It's 42250 words long. Each page has a different subject, and breaking up saves your bandwidth since you don't have to load the entire thing at once.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - thecosas 8y ago
    A little inside baseball, but MacStories also doesn't get paid for "pageviews", it's just an easier way to navigate a MASSIVE review. While they do have some inline advertising, it's all worked out ahead of publishing. For reference: https://www.macstories.net/advertise/ https://www.macstories.net/advertise/
- Chiminh 8y ago
  Thanks for the link. This is a pretty insightfull and detailed review. Definitely worth the read.
  - GeekyBear 8y ago
    Seconded. The depth and insight of the coverage reminded me of the Siracusa MacOS reviews that Ars posted years ago.
- 8y ago
klodolph 8y ago
I missed my flight. フライトが恋しいです Hilarious. That’s “I missed my flight” in the same sense that “I missed my wife (but she’s back from her trip now).” As in, “I long to be with my flight, but alas, we are apart.” See: https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84 https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84 飛行機に乗り遅れました This would probably be the translation I would use. I’m surprised that it’s not directly in the corpus as a canned phrase. In this phrase, 乗り遅れました literally means something like “[I] was too late to board [the plane]” and doesn’t express some kind of bizarre longing or affection for the plane.
- TillE 8y ago
  Machine translation from/to Japanese is astoundingly awful. This has been my barometer for whether the hype around "AI" is real, and I'm always disappointed. It's a hard problem that's nowhere near to being cracked.
  - klodolph 8y ago
    That is… absolutely true, and yet “I missed my flight” probably should be in the list of canned phrases that can just be looked up in a dictionary, along with “Where is the bathroom” and ”Check, please”.
  - lqdc13 8y ago
    Same with Russian (Yandex does an OK job). But https://www.deepl.com https://www.deepl.com is pretty amazing in my experience for the languages it's available for.
  - titanix2 8y ago
    This become even more awful when the target language is not English because English is used as a pivot language: there is now two rounds of errors. I’ve heard from a researcher specialized in the AT field that a rule based Japanese to French system exists and is quite good but I’ve never seen the system itself.
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago
nxc18 8y ago
Just updated on my iPhone 6s that I dumped due to slowness. It’s just as fast now as the android I replaced it with and LastPass works with all my Apps now. Only thing missing now is good keyboard support (disclaimer: haven’t tried since update) I’m really impressed and happy with this direction Apple’s taking. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson with the battery slowdowns.
- overcast 8y ago
  Been using 12 on my 6s since the early betas, and it was like getting a brand phone. If it wasn't for wanting the new cameras and OLED screen, there isn't much reason for me to upgrade!
  - qdigital 8y ago
    Same boat with a 6s+ but the camera is really feeling its age, especially in low light.
    - overcast 8y ago
      Agreed, my occupation has been shifting to a professional food photographer/influencer/promoter/marketer/whatever you want to call it. For off the cuff shots, when the DSLR isn't around, or live video, I need better high ISO performance. Really didn't want to spend the $1000, but the camera is MUUUUCH better than the 6s.
      - vosper 8y ago
        Maybe you'd be interested in a smaller camera like the Sony RX 100ii? Seems like it might be perfect for high-quality off-the-cuff photos, and with a big sensor and an f1.8 lens it ought to do very well in low light.
        overcast 8y ago
        I have the Mark IV, it's a great little camera that I use for mountain hikes. But it's not discreet or small enough to just pocket daily. Also doesn't do Instagram live videos, or allow me to upload stories at that moment. iPhone pretty much required. Also! It's confirmed the new sensor in the XS is 32% larger than the X, which is SIGNIFICANT.
bognition 8y ago
Honestly it may sound stupid but the native integration with password managers is a killer feature. I've trained my family to use 1Password and the biggest pain point was filling in passwords on the iPhone. iOS 12 completely fixes this issue.
- jdcarter 8y ago
  Based on the review, it looks like the iOS 12 password manager has matured quite a bit, but it doesn't say anything about integration with an external password manager. How have things changed for 1Password users?
  - aeontech 8y ago
    You can now autofill passwords from a 3rd party password manager via a native api integrating with the OS keyboard. Source: https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=20 https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=2...
    - kilroy123 8y ago
      Wow, thank you so much!! I totally missed this. This was so badly needed.
    - babypuncher 8y ago
      No mention of KeePass, which is a shame
      - joshe 8y ago
        It's an api (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...) so KeePass just needs to do the work.
        greensoap 8y ago
        KyPass 4 works. Costs $7, but I was fine with that.
ProfessorLayton 8y ago
I'm super happy with the update so far on my 6s. I did a comparison with a family member running iOS 11 and the difference is huge, particularly for camera apps. My only sore spot with iOS now is the Music app's horrible UX. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year.
- invalidusernam3 8y ago
  "I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year" That's great to hear. I used to be one of those people who got every new iPhone release (or at most every 2nd release), but I've been keeping my trusty old iPhone 6 going for a couple of years now and I have very little interest in getting a new phone any time soon. My 6 is getting a bit slow, so if performance is better on iOS 12 that's great news
  - frio 8y ago
    I'm on a 6+, and the performance is a significant step up (more so than going from a degraded battery to a new battery sometime after the iOS 11 thing). It wedges me somewhat between a rock and a hard place; I'm getting the grey bar of death (https://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touch-death/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touc...), so really want to replace the phone... but the performance is back to where I wouldn't otherwise bother. Bugger.
  - read_if_gay_ 8y ago
    Literally same situation here except with a 6 Plus. Upgraded this morning and the speedup and faster animations are pretty damn noticeable. Camera used to sometimes take 6-7 seconds to open which is now cut to about 1-2s. Definitely recommend the update, the new features are also pretty convenient, I especially like the new Do Not Disturb and Screentime provides some interesting stats. Now it's just battery life getting awful, but I've been putting off getting the battery replaced because spending a week+ without a smartphone is borderline impossible and I have no backup device.
    - 8y ago
BadassFractal 8y ago
I'm going to be one of those people who wait until 12.1 or 12.2 this time. I upgraded right away with iOS 11 and had my phone constantly lock up on me or randomly restart, that was not a great experience. Especially when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app and your phone is dead for 30+ minutes.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app Off-topic, but this is an incredibly horrible idea. Can you name and shame the company so I make sure I never rent from them? I tend to be a forgetful and generally clumsy person, which means I neglect to charge my phone a lot. So I would be stranded in this case?
  - BadassFractal 8y ago
    https://www.maven.com/us/en/ https://www.maven.com/us/en/ - unlike Zipcar, they don't have a physical card they send you to unlock your car, you can only use your phone.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    The only one I know of is Silvercar. They only rent Audi A4s and Q5s.
  - JOFFC 8y ago
    Maven by GM is like this. It's a little bit clumsy at times[1], but it does the job for hourly rentals (the primary purpose of the app). The cars have Android/iOS chargers in them. As far as I can tell, you would be in quite a bit of trouble if you ran out of battery. [1] If the internet connection is weak, it will attempt to update trip information before letting you unlock the car. You're better off turning on airplane mode.
  - jeffh 8y ago
    Most of the car share companies operate this way near me. It's not "exclusively via app", but most people rely on the app and NFC to unlock/start and lock/end their trips for convenience. That said ... you are in a car that can charge your phone too.
andrewla 8y ago
A minor feature/bug fix that I noticed was that the "back to camera" feature of the in-app photo viewer in camera is harder to activate. That's a mouthful -- the way that I usually view photos is by bringing up the camera (since that's so easy from many entry points) and clicking on the lower left to get to the photos. The main downside of this is that if you didn't slide exactly left to right (even the slightest diagonal) then it would exit the photo viewer and go back to the camera. This was very annoying because if you flip back a few photos and then mis-swipe, you completely lose context. But now that has been made significantly harder to accidentally invoke. Still possible, but harder, and it has so far made a nice difference for my usage.
- karmelapple 8y ago
  I've been using iOS since the iPhone first came out and never knew about this feature. Thanks for the hint!
drcongo 8y ago
Has anyone worked out how to stop mobile Safari asking to save passwords every time you log in to something?
- spost 8y ago
  Settings > Passwords & Accounts > AutoFill Passwords > Flip the switch to off
huangc10 8y ago
Just talking instinctively (from using iOS 12 since GM last week), iOS 12 has been one of the best and smoothest releases I've ever experienced. If you haven't updated, do it now. Barring any security issues or HW bugs, outlook for Apple looking very strong going into 2019.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
throwaway427 8y ago
Between this and my battery replacement I opted into, my 6S Plus feels brand new. If your battery health is < 85% I really suggest you take advantage of the cheap battery replacement by year end. https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power
- MonkeyDan 8y ago
  And use something like coconutBattery to check. iOS reports 82% while coconut reports 62% (!) on my 2 year old 6s. Definitely getting that replacement ASAP.
- ben174 8y ago
  My iPhone X is at 90%. You don't think it's worth the $29 + trip to Apple Store?
  - achompas 8y ago
    If your battery health isn’t low enough, Apple will not replace the battery. This happened to my mom and her iPhone 6.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      This was the rule early on, but I heard that they will now replace the battery no matter what. The current guidelines don’t mention any threshold: https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power
  - throwaway427 8y ago
    He tried to tell me that I didn't need to but I told him the battery drains precipitously in the cold and that'd I prefer we switch it and he just said ok and started the process. [edit] To answer your question, I guess it couldn't hurt? The thing is that I definitely did not trust the 81% that the battery health check was telling me. My battery would drain in minutes from 30% and the phone was practically useless in the cold.
hardtke 8y ago
Article misses best new feature: You can close apps on the iPhone X by swiping up from the app switcher, rather than holding down in a very small area to bring the red x forward.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Closing apps on iOS unless they are using location services in the background (which you can disable) doesn’t save anything in terms of battery life or processor usage most of the time.
  - trts 8y ago
    Sometimes I find I do need to close an app to “reboot” it. But yes. It’s actually amusing to me to watch people compulsively close their background apps. I used to try to explain why it wasn’t important but I don’t think anyone ever accepted the advice.
    - Cyberdog 8y ago
      My wife is one of these people. I tried to talk her out of it and tell her it actually makes her phone run slower, not faster, but, as typical, she'll listen patiently to what I tell her and then go on doing her own thing anyway, so I eventually gave up.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - curioussavage 8y ago
    I’ve seen this brought up in several threads online. I really don’t care about that. The app switcher is not a task manager as you say. The reason I compulsively close apps is the same reason I keep my chrome tabs small. It’s a pain to find the one I want if I don’t
jvagner 8y ago
Does anyone have any idea of when I'll be able to do a full-wipe re-install of iOS 12 via iTunes? I have a super-annoying bug in Youtube and I'm hoping this step will resolve things, but as of last night, my iPhone 7 wouldn't re-install via iTunes because the version wasn't available from the software center. I deleted my Beta profile, but still no go.
- timemct 8y ago
  You could probably use the full nuclear option by using recovery mode[1] to restore it. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263
  - jvagner 8y ago
    See my other response.. Can't use iTunes: https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 The above is what I get when I plug my iPhone into my Mac and it pops up iTunes. EDIT: After some trial and error, recovery mode may have been activated, not sure it's working yet. Hopefully I don't brick my phone. EDIT-2: Nope, same result..
- xeroaura 8y ago
  Download the IPSW from here: https://ipsw.me/ https://ipsw.me/ Manually install through restore. Example: http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-files/ http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-files/ (Click restore instead of update button for a full wipe)
  - jvagner 8y ago
    Wish that I could but I'm stuck in an endless cycle shown here: https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 ...and iTunes is unusable during this cycle.
bbcbasic 8y ago
Apple apple apple. Geez.
Invictus0 8y ago
> iOS uses machine learning to study how you manage your notifications and recommends how to deliver notifications in the future based on that. This seems silly to me. I never have so many notifications on the lockscreen that I need help organizing them. Different notifications require different actions; ML can't possibly know the difference. For example, I never click Google calendar notifications but I usually want them on top. It will be confusing when everything is out of chronological order.
chris_wot 8y ago
A “small” release that is 1.2GB? Hate to see what a large release will be...
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Just because it's a small visual update doesn't mean that there haven't been changes in system frameworks which now need to be updated.
abraham_lincoln 8y ago
Anybody try on a 5s?
- irickt 8y ago
  Yes, installed smoothly, seems faster. For example, time until the camera is up by swiping right on the lock screen is 2-3 seconds instead of roughly 6-8 seconds.
  - badpun 8y ago
    Same here. Installed it on 5s, seems faster (not 100% sure though, maybe that's a placebo efect) than iOS 11. Definitely does not feel slower, so it's safe to install IMO.
- kahlonel 8y ago
  I went from 10.3.3 to 12 directly. There doesn't seem to be any performance degradation.
jwr 8y ago
If the rumor that programmers and even executives had to carry and use iPhone 6 Plus devices for a while so that everyone felt the pain of slowness, then I'm in awe. This is exactly what needed to be done. This is a great release and I hope Apple continues in that vein. We don't always need "NEW FEATURES", but we do always need fast, responsive and stable systems.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  the value of dogfooding
- kevincrane 8y ago
  At a previous company we periodically flipped a feature switch on our dogfood builds that would throttle all network requests to simulate speeds in developing countries with slower cell networks, and it was really cool to see what stuff worked and what was awful when, for example, pictures could barely load or assets wouldn't show up.
  - dingdongding 8y ago
    You mean Facebook? I know Facebook used to do this for a while
    - what_ever 8y ago
      Pretty much every big enough company does it.
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  I wish they would carry iPhone 4S. iPhone 6 is pretty modern phone. Did they manage to slow it too?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    iPhone 4S doesn't support iOS 12–it stopped at iOS 9. iPhone 6 Plus is slow because it had to drive large display after downsampling, and it just wasn't all that much more powerful than iPhone 5S.
DrNuke 8y ago
My no-frills, hardcore iPad mini 2 is alive and rocking again, thank you Apple for having allowed that on a 5 years old machine.
xxxxxxxx 8y ago
I just used Google Maps to get to work this morning using Apple Car Play - it's awesome. There were a few annoying errors in Apple maps on my daily route that I won't have to deal with ever again.
- randie63 8y ago
  why do you need maps for your daily route ? public transportation ?
  - xuki 8y ago
    Some people drive to work.
    - teirce 8y ago
      Some people don't need a navigation system for a route they drive every day.
      - zifnab06 8y ago
        I tend to use Google maps anytime I drive in Seattle - they've added information about accidents and closures that I'd otherwise miss. When I did drive to work it'd routinely save me time when there was a wreck on i-5 by telling me that and giving me another route.
      - sumedh 8y ago
        It can recommend an alternate route if there is traffic on your regular route.
  - mdeeks 8y ago
    It is nice to know when there are traffic incidents ahead and sometimes it'll route around it for you. I like knowing my ETA also
clon 8y ago
I will buy an iPhone the day I can choose a different rendering engine for my browser. Or, at minimum, Safari stops being a turd. Just yesterday I watched hilariously how a friend tried to do an online job interview on her iPad. But no MediaRecorder API support. Had to lend her my 200 euro Android burner to get it done. Pathetic. Edit: To be fair, Edge would also have dropped the ball, but then again you probably have FF or Chrome also installed. In iOS you are SOL.
- garmaine 8y ago
  You know that you can install Firefox on iOS?
  - clon 8y ago
    From wikipedia [1]: Firefox for iOS is a browser from Mozilla, for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch mobile devices.[5] It is the first Firefox branded browser not to use the Gecko layout engine as is used in Firefox for desktop and mobile. Due to iOS security restrictions chosen by Apple (specifically the inability to set writable pages executable, which is essential for just-in-time compilation), Firefox has to use the built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering framework instead of Gecko. In short - no Gecko. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Firefox didn’t use the Gecko engine on Android until a week ago and it’s still in beta. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/
      - detaro 8y ago
        For Firefox Focus, which is a fairly young (released last year for Android) offshot. The main Firefox for Android has been using its own engine all along.
    - 8y ago
EugeneOZ 8y ago
Apple Maps (at least in Barcelona) are outdated too much. Wrong buildings, wrong roads, wrong parcs - maps are 15 years old. Unusable.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  While Apple (naturally) never really publicized this, the map data they've been using, including the terrible data where you are, has been cobbled together from a variety of third parties. According to reports earlier this year, a new Apple Maps data set is rolling out with iOS 12 -- but it's going to take a long time to be everywhere worldwide, because they're essentially building it from scratch the way Google did. The good news is that they had their new data available where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area during the iOS 12 beta period, and it's a noticeable improvement. I haven't been using Google Maps too much recently, but I find Apple Maps' routing here to be pretty comparable to Waze's, without doing the "here's a crazy shortcut!" thing that Waze occasionally does. (Sometimes the crazy shortcuts are good, but more often than not I've found they...aren't good.) The bad news is that it's probably gonna be years before they get Europe done.
teemo91 8y ago
I updated to iOS 12(on an iPhone SE) yesterday and my WiFi calling feature went to hell. Needed two/three reboots and toggling WiFi calling for it to work again. Still seems flaky and I'm heavily dependent on it to work as my apt gets 0 reception. Apart from this frustrating issue, I love the integration for password managers they have now. It's made my life so much easier.
- garyrob 8y ago
  My AT&T WiFi didn't work immediately after the update, but I didn't reboot and within a few hours it was working again. I did turn WiFi Calling off and on again, once, in Settings---not sure if that was necessary as it didn't immediately fix it.
  - teemo91 8y ago
    I use AT&T too. It was spotty but much better yesterday. I suppose it just needed some combination of reboot/toggle to work again.
- cjmoran 8y ago
  They definitely changed something about how WiFi calling works, because with this update my carrier was finally able to support WiFi calling on iOS for the first time. For some reason, up until iOS 12 they couldn't do that or visual voicemail. My carrier is a reseller (MVNO) on top of T-Mobile. Curious to know why they couldn't offer these features before.
dirtylowprofile 8y ago
I wonder is dark mode is coming to iOS 12 in later updates because it is awkward to go back and forth with Mojave and iOS.
ksec 8y ago
The only feature I wish Apple would implement, is Phone Call no longer takes full focus on my screen. We don't call as much any more, at least compare to 5 - 7 years ago. And we get lots more Spam calls than we used to. It really is annoying when I am in the middle of something and a whole screen splash telling me I have a call.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kup0 8y ago
Actually quite surprised, their claims of increased performance ring true. My iPad Mini 4 and iPhones 5S and SE all seem significantly faster after upgrading. On older devices it is more noticeable. No more animation lag, hitches/delays, etc. Would like to see a continued focus on these kinds of improvements.

240 points by tomduncalf 8y ago

> There are three configurations for this feature in the notifications section of the iOS 12 Settings app: automatic, by app, and off. It defaults to automatic. In this case, notifications from one app will generally be grouped together, but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might intelligently decide not to in some cases. This is transparent; it's decided the "thread identifier" for the notification so that threads are split out separately: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unmutablenotificationcontent/1649872-threadidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

untog 8y ago
Transparent to developers, yes. But not to end users.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Well, the goal is that developers implement this in a way so that it makes sense why notifications are split up.
GeekyBear 8y ago
>but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might intelligently decide not to in some cases. This would perhaps be better worded as "for reasons the article's author didn't understand, but people who familiarized themselves with information released months ago at WWDC did…". I'm going to reiterate the advice to read the MacStories review instead of the one at Ars. It has much more depth and insight.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I’ve read both. Just wanted to explain how notifications work.

oplav 8y ago

Did the new emojis make it into this release? I can't seem to find them on my updated phone. It's pretty minor compared to all the other things, but I was looking forward to some of them... https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-ios-12-new-emoji-super-hero-cupcake-and-redheads https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-ios-12-new...

jbigelow76 8y ago
New emojis usually go into the .1 releases to nudge people into updating to get the last major release's bug fixes.

baxtr 8y ago

When Apple first presented iOS 12 to the public and to developers, it promised a feature called Group FaceTime that would basically work like Google Hangouts; you'd be able to video chat with up to 32 participants at the same time. That feature has now been pushed back to a later software update in the iOS 12 cycle—meaning it's not available for us to test yet. Bummer... :/ that’s probably the one feature that I’ve been most waiting for

mrkstu 8y ago
First developer beta[0] is out if you want to try it out... [0] - https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-beta-of-ios-12-1-to-developers/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-beta-...
- saagarjha 8y ago
  We'll see if they keep it in. iCloud messages was reintroduced in the beta and removed in public version.
nikofeyn 8y ago
that feature was in some promotional material i just recently watched, either within their recent presentation or an ad. that is really disingenuous of apple to have not removed it from their ad campaign while knowing it was delayed. that feature alone was a major consideration of mine when recently deciding whether i should get an iPhone (i chose not to) since my family has iPhones.

adolph 8y ago

Another review worth reading is MacStories. It covers the new Shortcuts automation app in more depth. https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-review/ https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-rev...

rblatz 8y ago
I was interested until I saw the article is broken up into 17 pages, and the first page was entirely fluff.
- ihuman 8y ago
  It's 42250 words long. Each page has a different subject, and breaking up saves your bandwidth since you don't have to load the entire thing at once.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- thecosas 8y ago
  A little inside baseball, but MacStories also doesn't get paid for "pageviews", it's just an easier way to navigate a MASSIVE review. While they do have some inline advertising, it's all worked out ahead of publishing. For reference: https://www.macstories.net/advertise/ https://www.macstories.net/advertise/
Chiminh 8y ago
Thanks for the link. This is a pretty insightfull and detailed review. Definitely worth the read.
- GeekyBear 8y ago
  Seconded. The depth and insight of the coverage reminded me of the Siracusa MacOS reviews that Ars posted years ago.
8y ago

klodolph 8y ago

I missed my flight. フライトが恋しいです Hilarious. That’s “I missed my flight” in the same sense that “I missed my wife (but she’s back from her trip now).” As in, “I long to be with my flight, but alas, we are apart.” See: https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84 https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84 飛行機に乗り遅れました This would probably be the translation I would use. I’m surprised that it’s not directly in the corpus as a canned phrase. In this phrase, 乗り遅れました literally means something like “[I] was too late to board [the plane]” and doesn’t express some kind of bizarre longing or affection for the plane.

TillE 8y ago
Machine translation from/to Japanese is astoundingly awful. This has been my barometer for whether the hype around "AI" is real, and I'm always disappointed. It's a hard problem that's nowhere near to being cracked.
- klodolph 8y ago
  That is… absolutely true, and yet “I missed my flight” probably should be in the list of canned phrases that can just be looked up in a dictionary, along with “Where is the bathroom” and ”Check, please”.
- lqdc13 8y ago
  Same with Russian (Yandex does an OK job). But https://www.deepl.com https://www.deepl.com is pretty amazing in my experience for the languages it's available for.
- titanix2 8y ago
  This become even more awful when the target language is not English because English is used as a pivot language: there is now two rounds of errors. I’ve heard from a researcher specialized in the AT field that a rule based Japanese to French system exists and is quite good but I’ve never seen the system itself.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago

nxc18 8y ago

Just updated on my iPhone 6s that I dumped due to slowness. It’s just as fast now as the android I replaced it with and LastPass works with all my Apps now. Only thing missing now is good keyboard support (disclaimer: haven’t tried since update) I’m really impressed and happy with this direction Apple’s taking. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson with the battery slowdowns.

overcast 8y ago
Been using 12 on my 6s since the early betas, and it was like getting a brand phone. If it wasn't for wanting the new cameras and OLED screen, there isn't much reason for me to upgrade!
- qdigital 8y ago
  Same boat with a 6s+ but the camera is really feeling its age, especially in low light.
  - overcast 8y ago
    Agreed, my occupation has been shifting to a professional food photographer/influencer/promoter/marketer/whatever you want to call it. For off the cuff shots, when the DSLR isn't around, or live video, I need better high ISO performance. Really didn't want to spend the $1000, but the camera is MUUUUCH better than the 6s.
    - vosper 8y ago
      Maybe you'd be interested in a smaller camera like the Sony RX 100ii? Seems like it might be perfect for high-quality off-the-cuff photos, and with a big sensor and an f1.8 lens it ought to do very well in low light.
      - overcast 8y ago
        I have the Mark IV, it's a great little camera that I use for mountain hikes. But it's not discreet or small enough to just pocket daily. Also doesn't do Instagram live videos, or allow me to upload stories at that moment. iPhone pretty much required. Also! It's confirmed the new sensor in the XS is 32% larger than the X, which is SIGNIFICANT.

bognition 8y ago

Honestly it may sound stupid but the native integration with password managers is a killer feature. I've trained my family to use 1Password and the biggest pain point was filling in passwords on the iPhone. iOS 12 completely fixes this issue.

jdcarter 8y ago
Based on the review, it looks like the iOS 12 password manager has matured quite a bit, but it doesn't say anything about integration with an external password manager. How have things changed for 1Password users?
- aeontech 8y ago
  You can now autofill passwords from a 3rd party password manager via a native api integrating with the OS keyboard. Source: https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=20 https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=2...
  - kilroy123 8y ago
    Wow, thank you so much!! I totally missed this. This was so badly needed.
  - babypuncher 8y ago
    No mention of KeePass, which is a shame
    - joshe 8y ago
      It's an api (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...) so KeePass just needs to do the work.
      - greensoap 8y ago
        KyPass 4 works. Costs $7, but I was fine with that.

ProfessorLayton 8y ago

I'm super happy with the update so far on my 6s. I did a comparison with a family member running iOS 11 and the difference is huge, particularly for camera apps. My only sore spot with iOS now is the Music app's horrible UX. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year.

invalidusernam3 8y ago
"I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year" That's great to hear. I used to be one of those people who got every new iPhone release (or at most every 2nd release), but I've been keeping my trusty old iPhone 6 going for a couple of years now and I have very little interest in getting a new phone any time soon. My 6 is getting a bit slow, so if performance is better on iOS 12 that's great news
- frio 8y ago
  I'm on a 6+, and the performance is a significant step up (more so than going from a degraded battery to a new battery sometime after the iOS 11 thing). It wedges me somewhat between a rock and a hard place; I'm getting the grey bar of death (https://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touch-death/ https://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touc...), so really want to replace the phone... but the performance is back to where I wouldn't otherwise bother. Bugger.
- read_if_gay_ 8y ago
  Literally same situation here except with a 6 Plus. Upgraded this morning and the speedup and faster animations are pretty damn noticeable. Camera used to sometimes take 6-7 seconds to open which is now cut to about 1-2s. Definitely recommend the update, the new features are also pretty convenient, I especially like the new Do Not Disturb and Screentime provides some interesting stats. Now it's just battery life getting awful, but I've been putting off getting the battery replaced because spending a week+ without a smartphone is borderline impossible and I have no backup device.
  - 8y ago

BadassFractal 8y ago

I'm going to be one of those people who wait until 12.1 or 12.2 this time. I upgraded right away with iOS 11 and had my phone constantly lock up on me or randomly restart, that was not a great experience. Especially when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app and your phone is dead for 30+ minutes.

umanwizard 8y ago
> when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app Off-topic, but this is an incredibly horrible idea. Can you name and shame the company so I make sure I never rent from them? I tend to be a forgetful and generally clumsy person, which means I neglect to charge my phone a lot. So I would be stranded in this case?
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  https://www.maven.com/us/en/ https://www.maven.com/us/en/ - unlike Zipcar, they don't have a physical card they send you to unlock your car, you can only use your phone.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  The only one I know of is Silvercar. They only rent Audi A4s and Q5s.
- JOFFC 8y ago
  Maven by GM is like this. It's a little bit clumsy at times[1], but it does the job for hourly rentals (the primary purpose of the app). The cars have Android/iOS chargers in them. As far as I can tell, you would be in quite a bit of trouble if you ran out of battery. [1] If the internet connection is weak, it will attempt to update trip information before letting you unlock the car. You're better off turning on airplane mode.
- jeffh 8y ago
  Most of the car share companies operate this way near me. It's not "exclusively via app", but most people rely on the app and NFC to unlock/start and lock/end their trips for convenience. That said ... you are in a car that can charge your phone too.

andrewla 8y ago

A minor feature/bug fix that I noticed was that the "back to camera" feature of the in-app photo viewer in camera is harder to activate. That's a mouthful -- the way that I usually view photos is by bringing up the camera (since that's so easy from many entry points) and clicking on the lower left to get to the photos. The main downside of this is that if you didn't slide exactly left to right (even the slightest diagonal) then it would exit the photo viewer and go back to the camera. This was very annoying because if you flip back a few photos and then mis-swipe, you completely lose context. But now that has been made significantly harder to accidentally invoke. Still possible, but harder, and it has so far made a nice difference for my usage.

karmelapple 8y ago
I've been using iOS since the iPhone first came out and never knew about this feature. Thanks for the hint!

drcongo 8y ago

Has anyone worked out how to stop mobile Safari asking to save passwords every time you log in to something?

spost 8y ago
Settings > Passwords & Accounts > AutoFill Passwords > Flip the switch to off

huangc10 8y ago

Just talking instinctively (from using iOS 12 since GM last week), iOS 12 has been one of the best and smoothest releases I've ever experienced. If you haven't updated, do it now. Barring any security issues or HW bugs, outlook for Apple looking very strong going into 2019.

deleted 8y ago

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throwaway427 8y ago

Between this and my battery replacement I opted into, my 6S Plus feels brand new. If your battery health is < 85% I really suggest you take advantage of the cheap battery replacement by year end. https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power

MonkeyDan 8y ago
And use something like coconutBattery to check. iOS reports 82% while coconut reports 62% (!) on my 2 year old 6s. Definitely getting that replacement ASAP.
ben174 8y ago
My iPhone X is at 90%. You don't think it's worth the $29 + trip to Apple Store?
- achompas 8y ago
  If your battery health isn’t low enough, Apple will not replace the battery. This happened to my mom and her iPhone 6.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    This was the rule early on, but I heard that they will now replace the battery no matter what. The current guidelines don’t mention any threshold: https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power
- throwaway427 8y ago
  He tried to tell me that I didn't need to but I told him the battery drains precipitously in the cold and that'd I prefer we switch it and he just said ok and started the process. [edit] To answer your question, I guess it couldn't hurt? The thing is that I definitely did not trust the 81% that the battery health check was telling me. My battery would drain in minutes from 30% and the phone was practically useless in the cold.

hardtke 8y ago

Article misses best new feature: You can close apps on the iPhone X by swiping up from the app switcher, rather than holding down in a very small area to bring the red x forward.

scarface74 8y ago
Closing apps on iOS unless they are using location services in the background (which you can disable) doesn’t save anything in terms of battery life or processor usage most of the time.
- trts 8y ago
  Sometimes I find I do need to close an app to “reboot” it. But yes. It’s actually amusing to me to watch people compulsively close their background apps. I used to try to explain why it wasn’t important but I don’t think anyone ever accepted the advice.
  - Cyberdog 8y ago
    My wife is one of these people. I tried to talk her out of it and tell her it actually makes her phone run slower, not faster, but, as typical, she'll listen patiently to what I tell her and then go on doing her own thing anyway, so I eventually gave up.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- curioussavage 8y ago
  I’ve seen this brought up in several threads online. I really don’t care about that. The app switcher is not a task manager as you say. The reason I compulsively close apps is the same reason I keep my chrome tabs small. It’s a pain to find the one I want if I don’t

jvagner 8y ago

Does anyone have any idea of when I'll be able to do a full-wipe re-install of iOS 12 via iTunes? I have a super-annoying bug in Youtube and I'm hoping this step will resolve things, but as of last night, my iPhone 7 wouldn't re-install via iTunes because the version wasn't available from the software center. I deleted my Beta profile, but still no go.

timemct 8y ago
You could probably use the full nuclear option by using recovery mode[1] to restore it. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263
- jvagner 8y ago
  See my other response.. Can't use iTunes: https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 The above is what I get when I plug my iPhone into my Mac and it pops up iTunes. EDIT: After some trial and error, recovery mode may have been activated, not sure it's working yet. Hopefully I don't brick my phone. EDIT-2: Nope, same result..
xeroaura 8y ago
Download the IPSW from here: https://ipsw.me/ https://ipsw.me/ Manually install through restore. Example: http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-files/ http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-files/ (Click restore instead of update button for a full wipe)
- jvagner 8y ago
  Wish that I could but I'm stuck in an endless cycle shown here: https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75 ...and iTunes is unusable during this cycle.

bbcbasic 8y ago

Apple apple apple. Geez.

Invictus0 8y ago

> iOS uses machine learning to study how you manage your notifications and recommends how to deliver notifications in the future based on that. This seems silly to me. I never have so many notifications on the lockscreen that I need help organizing them. Different notifications require different actions; ML can't possibly know the difference. For example, I never click Google calendar notifications but I usually want them on top. It will be confusing when everything is out of chronological order.

chris_wot 8y ago

A “small” release that is 1.2GB? Hate to see what a large release will be...

saagarjha 8y ago
Just because it's a small visual update doesn't mean that there haven't been changes in system frameworks which now need to be updated.

abraham_lincoln 8y ago

Anybody try on a 5s?

irickt 8y ago
Yes, installed smoothly, seems faster. For example, time until the camera is up by swiping right on the lock screen is 2-3 seconds instead of roughly 6-8 seconds.
- badpun 8y ago
  Same here. Installed it on 5s, seems faster (not 100% sure though, maybe that's a placebo efect) than iOS 11. Definitely does not feel slower, so it's safe to install IMO.
kahlonel 8y ago
I went from 10.3.3 to 12 directly. There doesn't seem to be any performance degradation.

jwr 8y ago

If the rumor that programmers and even executives had to carry and use iPhone 6 Plus devices for a while so that everyone felt the pain of slowness, then I'm in awe. This is exactly what needed to be done. This is a great release and I hope Apple continues in that vein. We don't always need "NEW FEATURES", but we do always need fast, responsive and stable systems.

agumonkey 8y ago
the value of dogfooding
kevincrane 8y ago
At a previous company we periodically flipped a feature switch on our dogfood builds that would throttle all network requests to simulate speeds in developing countries with slower cell networks, and it was really cool to see what stuff worked and what was awful when, for example, pictures could barely load or assets wouldn't show up.
- dingdongding 8y ago
  You mean Facebook? I know Facebook used to do this for a while
  - what_ever 8y ago
    Pretty much every big enough company does it.
vbezhenar 8y ago
I wish they would carry iPhone 4S. iPhone 6 is pretty modern phone. Did they manage to slow it too?
- saagarjha 8y ago
  iPhone 4S doesn't support iOS 12–it stopped at iOS 9. iPhone 6 Plus is slow because it had to drive large display after downsampling, and it just wasn't all that much more powerful than iPhone 5S.

DrNuke 8y ago

My no-frills, hardcore iPad mini 2 is alive and rocking again, thank you Apple for having allowed that on a 5 years old machine.

xxxxxxxx 8y ago

I just used Google Maps to get to work this morning using Apple Car Play - it's awesome. There were a few annoying errors in Apple maps on my daily route that I won't have to deal with ever again.

randie63 8y ago
why do you need maps for your daily route ? public transportation ?
- xuki 8y ago
  Some people drive to work.
  - teirce 8y ago
    Some people don't need a navigation system for a route they drive every day.
    - zifnab06 8y ago
      I tend to use Google maps anytime I drive in Seattle - they've added information about accidents and closures that I'd otherwise miss. When I did drive to work it'd routinely save me time when there was a wreck on i-5 by telling me that and giving me another route.
    - sumedh 8y ago
      It can recommend an alternate route if there is traffic on your regular route.
- mdeeks 8y ago
  It is nice to know when there are traffic incidents ahead and sometimes it'll route around it for you. I like knowing my ETA also

clon 8y ago

I will buy an iPhone the day I can choose a different rendering engine for my browser. Or, at minimum, Safari stops being a turd. Just yesterday I watched hilariously how a friend tried to do an online job interview on her iPad. But no MediaRecorder API support. Had to lend her my 200 euro Android burner to get it done. Pathetic. Edit: To be fair, Edge would also have dropped the ball, but then again you probably have FF or Chrome also installed. In iOS you are SOL.

garmaine 8y ago
You know that you can install Firefox on iOS?
- clon 8y ago
  From wikipedia [1]: Firefox for iOS is a browser from Mozilla, for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch mobile devices.[5] It is the first Firefox branded browser not to use the Gecko layout engine as is used in Firefox for desktop and mobile. Due to iOS security restrictions chosen by Apple (specifically the inability to set writable pages executable, which is essential for just-in-time compilation), Firefox has to use the built-in iOS WebKit-based rendering framework instead of Gecko. In short - no Gecko. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Firefox didn’t use the Gecko engine on Android until a week ago and it’s still in beta. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/09/focus-with-geckoview/
    - detaro 8y ago
      For Firefox Focus, which is a fairly young (released last year for Android) offshot. The main Firefox for Android has been using its own engine all along.
  - 8y ago

EugeneOZ 8y ago

Apple Maps (at least in Barcelona) are outdated too much. Wrong buildings, wrong roads, wrong parcs - maps are 15 years old. Unusable.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
While Apple (naturally) never really publicized this, the map data they've been using, including the terrible data where you are, has been cobbled together from a variety of third parties. According to reports earlier this year, a new Apple Maps data set is rolling out with iOS 12 -- but it's going to take a long time to be everywhere worldwide, because they're essentially building it from scratch the way Google did. The good news is that they had their new data available where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area during the iOS 12 beta period, and it's a noticeable improvement. I haven't been using Google Maps too much recently, but I find Apple Maps' routing here to be pretty comparable to Waze's, without doing the "here's a crazy shortcut!" thing that Waze occasionally does. (Sometimes the crazy shortcuts are good, but more often than not I've found they...aren't good.) The bad news is that it's probably gonna be years before they get Europe done.

teemo91 8y ago

I updated to iOS 12(on an iPhone SE) yesterday and my WiFi calling feature went to hell. Needed two/three reboots and toggling WiFi calling for it to work again. Still seems flaky and I'm heavily dependent on it to work as my apt gets 0 reception. Apart from this frustrating issue, I love the integration for password managers they have now. It's made my life so much easier.

garyrob 8y ago
My AT&T WiFi didn't work immediately after the update, but I didn't reboot and within a few hours it was working again. I did turn WiFi Calling off and on again, once, in Settings---not sure if that was necessary as it didn't immediately fix it.
- teemo91 8y ago
  I use AT&T too. It was spotty but much better yesterday. I suppose it just needed some combination of reboot/toggle to work again.
cjmoran 8y ago
They definitely changed something about how WiFi calling works, because with this update my carrier was finally able to support WiFi calling on iOS for the first time. For some reason, up until iOS 12 they couldn't do that or visual voicemail. My carrier is a reseller (MVNO) on top of T-Mobile. Curious to know why they couldn't offer these features before.

dirtylowprofile 8y ago

I wonder is dark mode is coming to iOS 12 in later updates because it is awkward to go back and forth with Mojave and iOS.

ksec 8y ago

The only feature I wish Apple would implement, is Phone Call no longer takes full focus on my screen. We don't call as much any more, at least compare to 5 - 7 years ago. And we get lots more Spam calls than we used to. It really is annoying when I am in the middle of something and a whole screen splash telling me I have a call.

deleted 8y ago
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kup0 8y ago

Actually quite surprised, their claims of increased performance ring true. My iPad Mini 4 and iPhones 5S and SE all seem significantly faster after upgrading. On older devices it is more noticeable. No more animation lag, hitches/delays, etc. Would like to see a continued focus on these kinds of improvements.