Complete guide to iOS 12
Apple promises faster performance for older phones, plus improvements in Siri, FaceTime and more, writes Susie Ochs
Apple both sets trends and chases them, and iOS 12, unveiled at the WWDC keynote, is no exception. With this release, the firm is focusing on performance improvements and enhancements, even for older devices. The company is also making important changes to augmented reality that will enable new experiences; improving Siri, FaceTime, and the Photos app to catch up to the competition; and adding new features such as personalized Memoji and weekly reports about how you’re using
your device. iOS 12 will be a free update for all users this autumn, and it’s supported by every device that runs iOS 11, all the way back to the iPhone 5s released in 2013. Here’s a rundown of the operating system’s biggest improvements.
Augmented reality and the Measure app
Apple has created a brand‑new file format with Pixar called USDZ that will enable easier sharing of the 3D graphics and animations used in augmented reality apps. Developers and users can share these USDZ files like any other files: store them in the Files app, and send them in Messages and Mail. When you receive a USDZ file, you can open it and place the 3D object in the real world. “It’s sort of like AR Quick Look,” explained Craig Federighi.
For example, if a publisher places a USDZ image into an article in the News app, readers can tap it to open it in a fully interactive AR view, right inside News. Another example shown was Fender using a USDZ object on its website, where potential buyers can tap it to view the product from all angles, shown in an augmented reality view in the room they’re in, in actual size.
Users can also try the all‑new Measure app to measure the dimensions of physical objects using AR. You just trace the sides of an object to find out how long they are. It can also detect rectangles automatically and tell you the dimensions.
For developers, ARKit 2.0 will enable improved face tracking, more realistic rendering, as well as shared experiences, which means AR games can now support multiplayer modes. Both players can see the
same objects on their own devices, and those objects can have persistence, so they reappear in the same place the next time you use the same app.
Improvements to the Photos app
Apple’s Photos app gets a refresh in iOS 12, matching the design language of Apple Music and the App Store. Search in Photos will be improved, letting you use multiple search terms and search your photo library quicker using Siri.
The Photos app has a new For You tab, which is a feed that shows featured photos, like images you took on the same day in previous years. It suggests loops and bounce effects for Live Photos that could use them, or portrait effects to add to Portrait Mode photos. It also highlights shared iCloud album activity. All these features are in the Google Photos app already, so they are welcome additions to iOS 12, but nothing that has us shocked.
Photos already recognizes other people in your images, and in iOS 12, it will suggest you share those photos with those people. Images you share arrive in full resolution. When your friend gets them, her phone will suggest sharing photos
taken at the same event right back to you, which will help you gather more photos from the same party without having to set up a shared album, or email or text images back and forth. The sharing is private with end-to-end encryption, and all the machine learning to determine who’s in your photos is done on your device, not in the cloud.
Siri improvements
When Apple bought Workflow in 2017, we were hoping iOS would eventually get the kind of robust automations it enabled. And now it’s time: iOS 12 features big improvements for Siri that can speed up tasks in a single app, as well as let you build routines that use multiple apps, launched with a single Siri command. Siri’s third‑party app support has been limited so far, so this should be huge for iOS users.
With Siri Shortcuts, any app can expose quick actions to Siri. Federighi gave the example of the Tile app, which you have to launch when you want to locate your Tile tracker. Now the Tile app can suggest a Siri Shortcut to locate your tracker, and you can set a custom Siri command, such as “I lost my keys”. Now when you tell Siri that phrase, a card launches with that screen in Tile, and you can see where the tracker is, and interact with the card, without even having to open the full app unless you want to. Other examples offered were an “order my groceries” command to place an order in an app like Instacart, or “help me relax” to launch your favourite meditation app.
Siri Suggestions are also improved in iOS 12 to anticipate your next actions based on your history.
The suggestions can appear on your lock screen and notifications screen, and you can tap one to take care of that action without having to launch an app. It can suggest you call relatives on their birthdays. If you’re late to a meeting, it can send a text to the organizer to let them know, or call into the meeting if a call‑in number was provided in the invite. If you order a coffee with the same app every morning, a Siri Suggestion will pop up that you can tap to jump right there.
The new Shortcuts app also lets you combine actions from multiple apps into one routine, which you then trigger with a Siri command. For example, if you say, “I’m going surfing”, the routine can check the surf report with the Surfline app, read you the current weather, grab an ETA for your drive to the beach, and then make a note in Reminders to tell you to put on sun cream when you get there.
The Shortcuts app has a gallery full of pre-made shortcuts, as well as a library you can search. Routines can combine services such as texting, mapping, HomeKit, music, you name it. You can search for items to add, or the app can suggest them to you based on machine learning. In the on-stage demonstration of
setting up a ‘heading home’ routine for an evening commute, the app suggested launching the KQED app to play some NPR, because that’s what the user usually did at that time of day.
Improvements to News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and Apple Books
A few Apple apps will be redesigned in iOS 12, some launching on the iPad for the first time.
In the News app, the Browse tab will make it easier to discover new channels and topics to follow. The For You tab makes it easier to jump to your favourite sources, especially on the iPad, which gets a handy new sidebar.
The Stocks app has a new design, with spark lines next to each of your picks, showing their performance throughout the day. Stocks also has a news module along the bottom, with curated business stories chosen by the Apple News team. When you expand the news module, your stocks run horizontally along the top of the screen like a ticker. You can also tap any stock to see an interactive chart, new afterhours pricing, and relevant headlines curated by the editors. Full articles open without leaving the Stocks app. iOS 12 also brings Stocks to the iPad for the first time.