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Apple unveils iOS 18 with new home screen & Control Center

27 points by anujbans 2y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 2y ago
It's funny to observe the trends over the year. An Apple event is just meh. A single entry on the OpenAI blog cause excitement, hundreds of comments and speculations.
cube2222 2y ago
Surprisingly, they're adding RCS Messaging support! Didn't expect that.
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  They announced that last year, it's not really surprising anymore.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Not super surprising, they announced it months ago when the EU's antitrust pressure was maxed-out: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/apple-announces-rcs-support-for-imessage/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/apple-announces-rcs-...
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > EU's antitrust pressure Or regulations in China: * https://www.miit.gov.cn/gzcy/yjzj/art/2023/art_2d5a7969581b4b12a78cd2c455649a8c.html https://www.miit.gov.cn/gzcy/yjzj/art/2023/art_2d5a7969581b4... * https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversalProfile/comments/153rrwl/chinas_proposed_regulation_could_force_apple_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversalProfile/comments/153rrwl/c... * https://9to5google.com/2024/02/16/iphone-rcs-china/ https://9to5google.com/2024/02/16/iphone-rcs-china/ * https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compliance-china-law/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compl...
cjk2 2y ago
Nice but the thing they said that interested me was iMessage via satellite. Now that is impressive for a minor feature.
- Someone1234 2y ago
  They didn't talk at all about costs which is odd for such a feature.
  - cjk2 2y ago
    I think it's free (for now) like the emergency SOS. Well not free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.
    - notatoad 2y ago
      the emergency SOS was only promised to be free for two years, which is coming to an end soon for iPhone 14. i suspect adding iMessage to the service is an effort to make it valuable enough to start charging for it.
- 01100011 2y ago
  That sounds like a feature that will have major, lifesaving impacts for 0.01% of users but will not matter at all to most folks(cue the replies from the 10 HN users who need to tell me how important this is to them). Also, wasn't this already announced? It's a cool feature. I'm just not sure how impactful it will be. You could argue it's important in less connected areas of the world but are folks there using iPhones or are they using a cheap phone provided by Facebook or something?
  - cjk2 2y ago
    I hang around in the middle of nowhere in dangerous and stupid places a lot for days. It'd be nice to bounce the odd message to family to inform them that I'm not dead.
    - 2y ago
behnamoh 2y ago
Apple is like a bully who is not gonna stop unless a bigger bully (EU) forces him to. I'm glad about RCS addition, it was long over due.
loughnane 2y ago
I've dumbed down my phones main screen so much to turn it into less of a distraction machine that I just don't care.
- spike021 2y ago
  I've also simplified my home screen more than it used to be in the beginning. With the App Library page and the global search feature I never need much just right there as an app icon.
  - DANmode 2y ago
    > With the App Library page ...a very cheeky "Welcome to 2007", from Android-land! =D
- bitmasher9 2y ago
  The biggest single thing I found for reducing screen time is to set the screen to grayscale. It just makes everything so less engaging
  - polynomial 2y ago
    Did not even realize that was an option!
    - kcartlidge 2y ago
      On my iPhone SE 3: - Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Colour Filters -> Greyscale switches it on. It also sets the default colour filter which is helpful because ... - Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut -> Colour Filters means you can then triple-press the Home button (on an SE) to toggle that setting at any time As various studies have suggested in the past, I do find I use it less in greyscale.
mcslambley 2y ago
I moved from Android to iOS last year and am excited to see many of the features I had mourned losing now available in iOS.
Toutouxc 2y ago
> Game Mode is coming to iPhone, minimizing background activity to ensure the highest frame rates. This might just be me, but this thing doesn’t feel very Apple-like to me. I always liked how a MacBook would run exactly the same whether connected to the wall or on battery power. There were no modes, no management, no battery strategies to choose from like on Windows, the machine was just powerful when needed and efficient when idle. Now we have both High power and Low power modes on MacBooks and we’re getting “gaming mode” on iPhone? Like, can’t the latest flagship phone just tell? This thing can decide whether to show me my boarding pass, if I’m driving home or to work, but I need to put it in “gaming mode” manually?
- tomjakubowski 2y ago
  > I always liked how a MacBook would run exactly the same whether connected to the wall or on battery power. There were no modes, no management, no battery strategies to choose from like on Windows macOS has had power management settings for years and years - used to be branded "Energy Saver"
  - Toutouxc 2y ago
    I’m almost sure that the first actual energy saving (i.e. affecting the CPU) mode was introduced in 2021 with Monterey.
    - anamexis 2y ago
      Intel Macbooks throttled the CPU with SpeedStep since at least i5, maybe earlier.
      - Toutouxc 2y ago
        Yes, but SpeedStep isn’t an optional power-saving mode that you can enable or disable, or that is enabled automatically on battery power.
- egypturnash 2y ago
  Mac’s have had “game mode” for a while already. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105118 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105118 It turns on pretty much automatically but you can turn it off.
CoryAlexMartin 2y ago
I wish they would provide useful customization features, such as adjusting the drop shadow on the app names that appear under the icons. Look at those images in the article; the "News" text is way less legible because it's over the highlight of the dog's ear. This has been an issue for years.
egypturnash 2y ago
Finally. Icons don’t have to be stuck in the top left corner of the screen. Not that this will ever be available on the 6s I’m still using.
- ClassyJacket 2y ago
  How did it take them 17 years to figure out how to not shove icons into one corner??
obelos 2y ago
Many of these look like solid feature updates, but I'm waiting to hear about a native keyboard that doesn't pick the dumbest, most context-free possible word from the smear of letters I've fat-fingered into it.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Can it get “it’s” vs “its” predictively correct more than 50% of the time? That would be a huge improvement.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    I do wonder when we're finally going to get LLM-level accuracy applied to text input (both keyboard and dictation). Not to try to do anything predictive, but just to get words right when it would be clear to any human what the intended word would be in context, both gramatically as well as in subject matter. I have to assume you could do this pretty well with a vastly smaller model that would run on an iPhone. I mean, dictation on my iPhone is vastly better than it was 10 years ago -- it's usable for a lot of stuff that it simply wasn't usable for previously (dictating brainstorming ideas while lying on the couch, for example). But it still makes a lot of mistakes and just skips far too many words it can't seem to figure out.
    - Scoundreller 2y ago
      I just wish the systems exposed the confidence of their guesses to the user. Should be a big heat map and some drop-downs to focus your review once you’re done. Instead you just see the final results of its guesses (or gaps). Seems to be an issue across commercial dictation systems, not just iOS. Really impacts their usage in a hands-off and eyes-off manner.
- jpalawaga 2y ago
  This has been the bane of my existence since switching from android. Even using the google keyboard doesn't seem to help. I have no idea how the text input is so bad on iphone--maybe it's my own fault for not being familiar with the device (though i generally don't have his issue moving between pixel devices).
function_seven 2y ago
Still waiting on the ability to set a custom alert tone for group messages. I'm in a couple that occasionally will just go off. The alert is the standard one that also sounds for regular (direct to me) messages, so I either have to mute that group chat for an hour—and hope it settles down within that timeframe—or mute it entirely, and risk forgetting to unmute it later. If I could just set the alert to something different and minimal, I'd let it run. Bonus if the alert could be one thing for the first message sent, and a simpler thing for the ongoing chatter.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Congratulations to iPhone users on the ability to "place app icons anywhere", a true innovation.
- ClassyJacket 2y ago
  Took them seventeen years to figure out the technology
sirolimus 2y ago
Cydia had this 10 years ago xD

27 points by anujbans 2y ago

It's funny to observe the trends over the year. An Apple event is just meh. A single entry on the OpenAI blog cause excitement, hundreds of comments and speculations.

cube2222 2y ago

Surprisingly, they're adding RCS Messaging support! Didn't expect that.

Jtsummers 2y ago
They announced that last year, it's not really surprising anymore.
talldayo 2y ago
Not super surprising, they announced it months ago when the EU's antitrust pressure was maxed-out: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/apple-announces-rcs-support-for-imessage/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/apple-announces-rcs-...
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > EU's antitrust pressure Or regulations in China: * https://www.miit.gov.cn/gzcy/yjzj/art/2023/art_2d5a7969581b4b12a78cd2c455649a8c.html https://www.miit.gov.cn/gzcy/yjzj/art/2023/art_2d5a7969581b4... * https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversalProfile/comments/153rrwl/chinas_proposed_regulation_could_force_apple_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversalProfile/comments/153rrwl/c... * https://9to5google.com/2024/02/16/iphone-rcs-china/ https://9to5google.com/2024/02/16/iphone-rcs-china/ * https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compliance-china-law/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/20/apple-rcs-message-compl...

cjk2 2y ago

Nice but the thing they said that interested me was iMessage via satellite. Now that is impressive for a minor feature.

Someone1234 2y ago
They didn't talk at all about costs which is odd for such a feature.
- cjk2 2y ago
  I think it's free (for now) like the emergency SOS. Well not free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.
  - notatoad 2y ago
    the emergency SOS was only promised to be free for two years, which is coming to an end soon for iPhone 14. i suspect adding iMessage to the service is an effort to make it valuable enough to start charging for it.
01100011 2y ago
That sounds like a feature that will have major, lifesaving impacts for 0.01% of users but will not matter at all to most folks(cue the replies from the 10 HN users who need to tell me how important this is to them). Also, wasn't this already announced? It's a cool feature. I'm just not sure how impactful it will be. You could argue it's important in less connected areas of the world but are folks there using iPhones or are they using a cheap phone provided by Facebook or something?
- cjk2 2y ago
  I hang around in the middle of nowhere in dangerous and stupid places a lot for days. It'd be nice to bounce the odd message to family to inform them that I'm not dead.
  - 2y ago

behnamoh 2y ago

Apple is like a bully who is not gonna stop unless a bigger bully (EU) forces him to. I'm glad about RCS addition, it was long over due.

loughnane 2y ago

I've dumbed down my phones main screen so much to turn it into less of a distraction machine that I just don't care.

spike021 2y ago
I've also simplified my home screen more than it used to be in the beginning. With the App Library page and the global search feature I never need much just right there as an app icon.
- DANmode 2y ago
  > With the App Library page ...a very cheeky "Welcome to 2007", from Android-land! =D
bitmasher9 2y ago
The biggest single thing I found for reducing screen time is to set the screen to grayscale. It just makes everything so less engaging
- polynomial 2y ago
  Did not even realize that was an option!
  - kcartlidge 2y ago
    On my iPhone SE 3: - Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Colour Filters -> Greyscale switches it on. It also sets the default colour filter which is helpful because ... - Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut -> Colour Filters means you can then triple-press the Home button (on an SE) to toggle that setting at any time As various studies have suggested in the past, I do find I use it less in greyscale.

mcslambley 2y ago

I moved from Android to iOS last year and am excited to see many of the features I had mourned losing now available in iOS.

Toutouxc 2y ago

> Game Mode is coming to iPhone, minimizing background activity to ensure the highest frame rates. This might just be me, but this thing doesn’t feel very Apple-like to me. I always liked how a MacBook would run exactly the same whether connected to the wall or on battery power. There were no modes, no management, no battery strategies to choose from like on Windows, the machine was just powerful when needed and efficient when idle. Now we have both High power and Low power modes on MacBooks and we’re getting “gaming mode” on iPhone? Like, can’t the latest flagship phone just tell? This thing can decide whether to show me my boarding pass, if I’m driving home or to work, but I need to put it in “gaming mode” manually?

tomjakubowski 2y ago
> I always liked how a MacBook would run exactly the same whether connected to the wall or on battery power. There were no modes, no management, no battery strategies to choose from like on Windows macOS has had power management settings for years and years - used to be branded "Energy Saver"
- Toutouxc 2y ago
  I’m almost sure that the first actual energy saving (i.e. affecting the CPU) mode was introduced in 2021 with Monterey.
  - anamexis 2y ago
    Intel Macbooks throttled the CPU with SpeedStep since at least i5, maybe earlier.
    - Toutouxc 2y ago
      Yes, but SpeedStep isn’t an optional power-saving mode that you can enable or disable, or that is enabled automatically on battery power.
egypturnash 2y ago
Mac’s have had “game mode” for a while already. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105118 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105118 It turns on pretty much automatically but you can turn it off.

CoryAlexMartin 2y ago

I wish they would provide useful customization features, such as adjusting the drop shadow on the app names that appear under the icons. Look at those images in the article; the "News" text is way less legible because it's over the highlight of the dog's ear. This has been an issue for years.

egypturnash 2y ago

Finally. Icons don’t have to be stuck in the top left corner of the screen. Not that this will ever be available on the 6s I’m still using.

ClassyJacket 2y ago
How did it take them 17 years to figure out how to not shove icons into one corner??

obelos 2y ago

Many of these look like solid feature updates, but I'm waiting to hear about a native keyboard that doesn't pick the dumbest, most context-free possible word from the smear of letters I've fat-fingered into it.

Scoundreller 2y ago
Can it get “it’s” vs “its” predictively correct more than 50% of the time? That would be a huge improvement.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I do wonder when we're finally going to get LLM-level accuracy applied to text input (both keyboard and dictation). Not to try to do anything predictive, but just to get words right when it would be clear to any human what the intended word would be in context, both gramatically as well as in subject matter. I have to assume you could do this pretty well with a vastly smaller model that would run on an iPhone. I mean, dictation on my iPhone is vastly better than it was 10 years ago -- it's usable for a lot of stuff that it simply wasn't usable for previously (dictating brainstorming ideas while lying on the couch, for example). But it still makes a lot of mistakes and just skips far too many words it can't seem to figure out.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    I just wish the systems exposed the confidence of their guesses to the user. Should be a big heat map and some drop-downs to focus your review once you’re done. Instead you just see the final results of its guesses (or gaps). Seems to be an issue across commercial dictation systems, not just iOS. Really impacts their usage in a hands-off and eyes-off manner.
jpalawaga 2y ago
This has been the bane of my existence since switching from android. Even using the google keyboard doesn't seem to help. I have no idea how the text input is so bad on iphone--maybe it's my own fault for not being familiar with the device (though i generally don't have his issue moving between pixel devices).

function_seven 2y ago

Still waiting on the ability to set a custom alert tone for group messages. I'm in a couple that occasionally will just go off. The alert is the standard one that also sounds for regular (direct to me) messages, so I either have to mute that group chat for an hour—and hope it settles down within that timeframe—or mute it entirely, and risk forgetting to unmute it later. If I could just set the alert to something different and minimal, I'd let it run. Bonus if the alert could be one thing for the first message sent, and a simpler thing for the ongoing chatter.

mvdtnz 2y ago

Congratulations to iPhone users on the ability to "place app icons anywhere", a true innovation.

ClassyJacket 2y ago
Took them seventeen years to figure out the technology

sirolimus 2y ago

Cydia had this 10 years ago xD