Here are iOS 12’s best new
features
Apple’s
free operating-system update has a lot to offer—even if your iPhone or iPad is
a few years old.
Starting today, Apple’s new iOS 12 operating system for iPhones
and iPads is available for download. To grab it, just open up the Settings app
on your existing iOS device and go to Software Update in the General section.
Once the update is downloaded and your iPhone restarts, you’ll have access to
all the goodies iOS 12 offers. And there are a lot of them:
NEW MAPS
Apple’s Maps app isn’t getting a UI redesign, but the data that is
displayed will be radically different and more detailed. The company has spent
years behind the scenes improving its mapping data gathering capabilities, and
users can expect to see an insane amount of additional detail in their maps,
including improved foliage, pedestrian pathways, objects, and areas such as
pools, baseball diamonds, and parking lots. Also expect better traffic data,
construction information, and real-time road changes. The bummer is that these
new Maps changes will only cover Northern California to begin with, with Apple
rolling them out to the rest of the U.S. over the next year.
BETTER FACE ID
Face ID, which Apple unveiled with the iPhone X last year and
expanded to other devices this year, will also see software improvements in iOS
12. First, users can now add two Face ID profiles to their devices. This means
two different faces can unlock the same device. This is extremely handy for
couples that want easy access to each other’s devices, or for parents and their
children.
Another improvement is much more nuanced but welcome. In iOS 12 on
the lock screen, you can now simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to
tell Face ID to try again if it didn’t recognize your face on the first try.
This beats the old method of needing to press the side button to turn off the
display, and then turn it on again to get Face ID to try again.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS FOR OLDER DEVICES
Don’t have one of the newest iPhones? No worries. iOS 12 will run
on any iPhone or iPad that can run iOS 11. That includes all iPhones going back
to the iPhone 5s—a five-year-old device!—and the original iPad Air.
But far better than just supporting older devices, iOS 12 will
actually speed them up. Apple says that apps will launch up to twice as fast
with iOS 12 on older devices compared to iOS 11. Onscreen keyboards will appear
up to 50% faster, and the camera will be ready up to 70% faster when you swipe
to it. It’s not often that a major software update actually speeds up old
devices, but Apple has done it.
SCREEN TIME DIGITAL-HEALTH FEATURES
If you’re reading this article, you probably love your
iPhone–possibly a little too much. As the effects of “smartphone addiction”
become more well-known, users are increasingly trying to find ways they can
detach from their devices. That’s where Screen Time comes in.
It’s a new digital health tool built into iOS 12 that gives you a
better understanding of how you use your apps, and how much time you spend in
them. Screen Time will even show you what apps are sending you the most
notifications. All this taken together allows you to get a better picture of
how hooked you are by your iPhone–and the new App Limits feature lets you
restrict access to apps once you’ve spent a specified amount of time in them.
BETTER NOTIFICATIONS
Speaking of notifications, iOS 12 has a few features to help
wrangle them. The first is grouped notifications. Before iOS 12, every
notification got its own banner in the Notification Center. This was true
whether the notifications were from the same app or even from the same thread
in an app (like a conversation in Messages). This left you with a long list of
notifications that took forever to scroll through.
In iOS 12, by contrast, notifications are grouped by app and by
thread: For example, all notifications from Instagram appear stacked on top of
each other. You can tap on the stacked group to expand it to see the individual
notifications. Likewise, all notifications from individual message threads are
stacked in their own groups.
iOS 12 also offers better notification management right from the
lock screen. If you decide your fitness app is sending you too many
notifications, you can choose to disable all future notifications for that app,
or to have them delivered quietly, meaning the notifications will still appear
in Notification Center, but they will no longer show up on your lock screen.
IMPROVED (AND NEW) APPS
iOS 12’s redesigned Stocks app features news items for each
company gathered from the Apple News app. While Stocks has been available on
the iPhone since the phone was first introduced, it’s now on the iPad as well.
Another iPhone-only app finally making its way to the iPad is
Voice Memos. What’s even better is this app will now sync all its recordings
via iCloud, so a voice memo you record on your iPhone will instantly be
available on your iPad.
And then there’s the new Measure app, which uses augmented-reality
tech to enable you to instantly measure the distance between any two points simply
by using your device’s camera. Want to measure how wide that doorway is? No
prob. How tall is your kid now? It’s a cinch to find out, thanks to iOS 12.
MEMOJI YOURSELF
Okay, this one isn’t going to make you more productive, but it is
a lot of fun. iOS 12’s Memojis are animated emojis similar to
the AnimojisApple introduced in iOS 11 and the iPhone X. However, Memojis
are customizable avatars of yourself. That means you can create an animated
emoji that will react in real time to your movements in front of the Face ID
camera. These Memojis can then be used to create video messages or even
represent you during a FaceTime video call instead of using your real face.
SIRI SHORTCUTS
Apple’s Siri digital assistant is generally considered to be
inferior to Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. But iOS 12 hopes to give
Siri a leg up by introducing Siri Shortcuts. These are quick actions that you
can use to automate third-party apps via Siri.
For example, if you have a Tile Bluetooth tracker and
use its companion app, you could create a Siri shortcut that responds to the
phrase, “Hey Siri, where are my keys?” That phrase would trigger the Siri
Shortcut to the Tiles app, which would then show you the location of the Tile
attached to your keychain. Siri Shortcuts have the potential to make Apple’s AI
helper infinitely more useful–if third-party developers take the initiative to
support them, and users invest effort in learning how to create and use them.
MORE PRIVACY PROTECTIONS
iOS 12 is packed with privacy protections. iOS 12’s Safari browser prevents Share buttons and comment
widgets from tracking you around the web without your permission. Better yet,
it also foils “fingerprinting”–a technique that sites use to track you by
collecting unique characteristics about your device, like an odd font you might
have installed.
The new operating system also introduces the ability for Safari to
create complex, unique passwords for websites and apps, and automatically
stores them in your keychain so you never have to remember them–or worry about
losing them.
CONTACTLESS STUDENT ID CARDS
Even though I haven’t been a student for years, I’m excited about
this one. iOS 12 will let students store their ID cards in the iPhone’s Wallet
app, using the phone’s NFC technology to grant access to dormitories, student
gyms, and other facilities. Upon launch, this feature will be live at Duke
University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Oklahoma, with
support for Temple University, Johns Hopkins University, and Santa Clara
University by the end of the year.
First credit and debit cards, now student IDs. Can using your
iPhone as a government-issued ID be that far behind?
BY MICHAEL GROTHAUS
https://www.fastcompany.com/90234155/here-are-ios-12s-best-new-features?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Weekly&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=09212018
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