Apple took to the WWDC stage today to officially unveil the company’s newest mobile operating system. Apple claims that iOS 12 doubles down on performance and most importantly will be supported on all current iOS 11 devices.
The segment began with compatibility for all current iOS 11 devices and eased into how the next generation will increase performance. Tim Cook used an iPhone 6 Plus for example stating that apps launch 40% faster, the keyboard can appear 50% faster, and sliding over to take photos can be up to 70% faster.
ARKit was shown off with a new app called Measure. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, displayed how Measure could be used similar to a tape measure and could also automatically give dimensions for rectangles.
Most notably, changes are coming to Siri. Many new shortcuts are coming for the digital assistant. This lest compatible apps expose quick actions to Siri. During the demo the shortcut “I lost my keys” was added and then the third-party Tile app exposed the necessary information. Siri is also becoming a little more personal by learning what actions you may perform everyday. Siri can now suggest app actions on the lock screen such as ordering coffee or starting a workout. Other apps are also becoming more aware. For example if you have a movie pass in the wallet app, Do Not Disturb (DND) can be activated.
Other app such as News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and iBooks also received a UI refresh. Speaking of iBooks, the name is no more. iBooks has now been rebranded as Apple Books. The Stocks app now includes more charts, top stories from Apple News, and includes a stock ticker above stories. Additionally, the Stocks app is coming to iPad for the first time. Voice Memos has been redesigned and will sync iCloud memos between other devices. Voice Memos is also coming to the iPad for the first time.
Do Not Disturb has seen a little revamp. DND will now hide alerts during bedtime hours and a new morning lock screen feature will show weather info and a dismiss button to enable alerts again.
Similar to the latest version of Android, a feature dubbed Screen Time gives you a weekly summary of how you’ve used your iPhone or iPad. You can view a detailed breakdown with times, apps, and how often you pick up your iPhone or iPad. You can also view which apps are sending you the most alerts. Adding to that, you can now set app time limits. This will also give you reminders that time is almost up. Of course you can ignore alerts, but reminders will persist. These features can also be added to children’s devices and can be managed via Family Sharing.
Another notable addition is the introduction of group FaceTime calls. FaceTime will gain the ability to group calling for up to 32 users. Participants will have the ability to easily join and leave calls.
New characters were added to Animoji. Animoji can now also be used within FaceTime and you can add on other sticker packs and filters. Memoji was newly introduced and allows you to create a personalized Animoji based on you. The service looks and sounds really similar to Bitmoji on Snapchat.
Last but certainly not least, CarPlay was touched on very briefly during the keynote. The in-car system is now gaining support for third party mapping apps such as Google Maps and Waze.
iOS 12 will be released to the public as a free update this Fall.