Apple has announced that iOS 12 will be available to download on September 17.
iOS was first announced during Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The new software, available for all devices currently running iOS 11, brings a variety of new features to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, including grouped notifications, Memoji, ARKit 2, redesigned navigation in Apple News and huge performance improvements, especially for older devices.
Within iOS 12, Apple has given app such as News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and iBooks (rebranded as Apple Books) a fresh new lock and feel, and has given Do Not Disturb a revamp, allowing you to optionally hide alerts during bedtime hours and a new morning lock screen feature that will only show weather info to stop late-night glances at your phone from stopping you from falling back to sleep.
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.
With iOS 12 apps launch up-to 40% faster, the keyboard can appear up-to 50% faster, and sliding over to take photo from the lock screen can be up to 70% faster on an iPhone 6 Plus, claims Apple. Alongside the many features launching with iOS 12, Apple has created Memoji, new personalized Animoji characters. – Uusers will be able to create fully custom Memoji characters, with Apple offering the ability to choose skin tones, facial features, hair styles, glasses, jewellery, eye colour, accessories, and more.
Throughout the beta testing cycle, Apple continually developed the operating system, squashing bugs and introducing new features and enhancements; however, to the surprise of many Apple also announced that group FaceTime calls, one of the key features shown during the softwares reveal at WWDC, wouldn’t be available until “later this fall.”