iOS 12 is Inclusive

iOS 12 is Inclusive, efficient and will offer an experience that makes your iPhone and iPad feel more competent and reliable than ever before.

The main focus of iOS 12 is to offer a more efficient experience to all iPhone and iPad users with Apple using the tag line ‘more power to you’ to highlight this. Eye-catching statistics offer a glimpse of what to expect with 70% faster swiping to the camera, a 50% faster keyboard display and app launching speeds under heavy loads doubled. These are tasks you undertake many times every day and even if they are not noticeable when you first upgrade, the speed improvements will come together over time to make everything feel a little bit smoother than before. Add to this the fact that iOS 12 will work with all devices that iOS 11 runs on, back to the iPad Air and iPhone 5s, and it becomes clear that Apple is using iOS 12 to improve the user experience rather than bloating the system with a myriad of novelty features that you will rarely use. While it may not grab the headlines, if you use an iOS device you will understand that there are many advantages in the approach of stability and performance before features.

None of this is to say that iOS 12 lacks new features and it is likely that there is more to come in the next iPhone release. The additions we see in iOS 12 are sensible and restrained, and in some cases will be ones that you use often. Measure is a very clever app that can measure objects using the iPhone camera and AR and which has been designed to be obvious in use from the first time you use it. Updates to FaceTime, Animojis and notifications build on the improvements with subtle tweaks elsewhere that fix minor annoyances from the past only adding to an improved experience all round. You may be surprised at what else has been changed, but we will offer a preview of what to expect in what is the latest incarnation of the best mobile operating system available today. 

Super-smooth 

When you first use iOS 12 there is a sense that something has changed in terms of how quick it feels, but it is barely noticeable because iOS 11 was also extremely quick. Something about the animations and app opening times will feel different and it is only when you use a device running iOS 11 that you realise there is a definite bump in performance, and one which feels buttery smooth in almost every area. With the speed improvements more obvious in older devices, this release will feel hugely positive for most iPhone and iPad users for this change alone. It is not about raw power and hardware specifications, but rather the clever use of programming to align the software and hardware in the most efficient way possible and the end result is one that leads the way for future devices to feel more like tools and less like computers.   

Music reloaded 

Apple has chosen to leave the look of Apple Music as it was before which makes sense because millions are now so used to how it works that a major change could be jarring. Instead we now see the ability to search for songs using a portion of a song lyric, as short as three words, and it works so quickly that it is hard to believe it is possible. The ‘Now Playing’ widget on the lock screen is darker than before which makes it less glaring and there are also changes to the artists’ pages and featured radio stations. Like so much in iOS 12, you would be unlikely to know what has changed if you were not told, but the lyric searching in particular is very impressive and could come in handy time and time again. 

Little fixes 

Attention has been paid to the minor annoyances that we can tend to accept as normal over time and in iOS 12 a number of these pinch points have been removed. For example, when you open the app switcher you no longer need to hold the app panel and then tap the ‘X’ because you can simply swipe up instead. This little timesaver is much more convenient and will feel like a breath of fresh air every time you use it. The date has been added to the iPad status bar which has also received a minor redesign and the Control Centre has been removed from the app switcher. The way you capture screenshots on an iPhone X has also been tweaked to make it less likely that accidental snaps will be taken – this is something that any iPhone X owner will be aware of and the change is one that will be noticed more over time. Failed Face ID captures also rescan differently which should mean more recognition accuracy than previously and password reuse auditing means that the system will try to prevent you from using the same password in multiple locations. None of these little tweaks will grab headlines, but they highlight how Apple looks at iOS and the sheer number of employees looking to make changes in the smallest of areas to make the bigger picture run as it should.

FaceTime boost 

FaceTime has long been a feature that is very much focused on personal communication between individuals and families, but in iOS 12 it has the potential to be used for business and for many other kinds of group chats that would not have been considered before. A whopping 32 people can take part in a chat and when each one speaks their panel will automatically be brought to the front so that everyone else can pay attention. The ability to add new people during the call has been added, as has answering group FaceTime calls from an Apple Watch or HomePod. Add to this the ability to start group calls from a group message conversation and a host of other new tools such as filters, text effects and ringless notifications and you start to see that the feature has been transformed to be more inclusive and flexible than ever. FaceTime is one of those Apple features that has become embedded in popular culture and it’s great to see it finally get the development in deserves. 

A new reality 

Augmented Reality is seen as the future to many people, but Apple is doing all it can to make it the present and is offering more tools to developers to help them bring this exciting technology to the masses. The new USDZ file format is designed to act as a container to distribute AR experiences and without doubt the intention is to make it the default format in the future, just like ZIP is for compressing multiple files. Face tracking will, obviously, track your face and can now detect whether you are sticking out your tongue which has been used to good effect in the Animoji feature. Objects are now recognised instantly and more importantly the orientation of your device to them has been vastly improved to offer the best possible AR experience. With scene reflection added to allow virtual objects to reflect the scene in front of you and AR Quick Look offering augmented reality experiences in apps like News, Safari and Mail you start to get a glimpse of where this is going. AR is an unusual technology in that it is not front and centre for most people, but the tools that Apple is offering means that developers are able to create experiences, big and small, that will eventually form a large part of our fixed and mobile computing experiences.

sources: iCreate UK, August 2018

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