What’s New in iOS 12

What is new in iOS 12

iOS 12, the next version of iOS. Let’s take a look what does it offer in terms of performance, interface changes and new features.

Performance

Apple increases twofold in performance, in order to make iPhones and iPads faster and more responsive.

With Apple’s performance improvements, apps launch 40% faster, the keyboard appears 50% faster, and a 7% faster shift to the camera. Apple has also optimized the system when it’s under load, making iOS devices faster when you need performance the most.

Under load, the same iPhone is launching apps up to twice as fast. Additionally, the CPU ramp-speed is increasing across not just older devices, but also the newer ones as well.

Augmented reality (ARKit 2)

ARKit 2.0 in iOS 12 adds new functionality that has the potential to make augmented reality far more useful within iOS apps. Face tracking and object rendering have been improved, and there’s new 3D object detection, but the key changes include shared experiences that let two people see the same AR environment on separate devices and persistence, which allows AR experiences to be built around an object or physical space.

Apple is introducing a new USDZ file format developed alongside Pixar, which will allow AR assets to be used across the system, in Safari, Messages, Mail, and more.

As part of the new ARKit 2.0 changes, Apple is introducing a new app called Measure, which uses augmented reality capabilities to take measurements of objects, lines, and rectangles, and developers can build richer augmented reality experiences using all of the new tools.

Maps

Apple has decided that the best way to improve Maps is to stop relying on third-parties and gather all the data itself. To do so it’s had its own vans out gathering images, it will also be gathering anonymous data from iPhones, and using a team of human editors, to make sure that its Maps are always completely up-to-date.

Maps will also look better – although this isn’t a visual overhaul, apparently. Users will see more detailed images as Apple will be using the data gathered from the vans in conjunction with satellite images.

Photos

iOS 12 thinks about photo searches before you do, offering search suggestions: places you’ve taken photos, events, categories such as hiking. Photos indexes millions of events, and you can use this to find photos you took at that event.

It also tries to predict what photos you’d like to share. It pre-ticks photos that it thinks you’ll want to share, and people to share them with. Ingeniously, their phone then searches for photos at the same event, and suggests sending them back.

There’s a new tab in Photos: For You. This shows featured photos, ‘On This Day’, Effects Suggestions, shared album activity and more.

Siri

Siri is a whole lot smarter in iOS 12. Siri can answer questions about famous people, food, and motorsports, and there’s a whole new Shortcuts feature that’s built on the Workflow app. With Shortcuts, you can build a huge range of automationsusing first- and third-party apps, which can then be activated with Siri voice commands.

Siri suggestions and Shortcuts show up on the Lock screen and when you pull down to search, with Siri able to do more than ever before with the third-party Shortcuts integration. You can create Shortcuts using a dedicated Shortcuts app coming this fall, and the app will offer dozens of pre-made options to make it easy to get started.

Notifications

Grouped Notifications have been added to make it easier to view and manage all notifications from an app at once, and there’s a new Instant Tuning feature for tweaking notifications as they come in. You can press on a notification to turn off notifications for a given app or set them to Deliver Quietly, which sends them to Notification Center but not the Lock screen.

Usage monitoring, limits and allowances

Apple built a comprehensive set of time management and focus tools into iOS 12, starting with a new Screen Time feature. Screen Time provides weekly activity reports detailing how you used your iOS device, including how much time you spend in each app, how often you pick up your phone, how long you spend on the iPhone or iPad, and which apps are sending the most notifications.

App Limits, a part of Screen Time, lets you set a time limit on apps to remind you to use them less, while new Parental Controls let parents see how much time children are spending on their devices and limit that time with richer, more granular control options.

Messages (Memoji)

Apple introduced new customizable Animoji called Memoji, which you can personalize to look like you.Memoji, Animoji, and other fun effects can be used both in Messages and with FaceTime through the new camera Effects.

FaceTime

Group FaceTime is supports now call with up to 32 participants.