Apple releasing iOS 18 on Monday, September 16

Apple has officially confirmed that iOS 18 will be released on Monday, September 16, bringing with it a variety of new features and improvements, although not all new iOS 18 capabilities will be made available on day one, with some of the update’s most exciting upgrades, such as Apple Intelligence, set to arrive later in the year.

On release next week, iOS 18 will include an all-new customizable Home Screen, a redesigned Control Center and Photos app, a long-awaited password manager app, the ability to lock apps with Face ID, iMessage improvements, including the ability to use any emoji as a Tapback reaction and schedule messages, format text with bold or underline, RCS support for improved messaging with Android devices, and more.

iOS 18 will be available on the iPhone SE (2nd generation) and later, including the iPhone XS, iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

With iOS 18, users can arrange apps and widgets in any open space on the Home Screen, allowing for a new personalized experience. Users are able to choose a light, dark, or tinted look for their Home Screen, with customizable app icons and widgets. The introduction of the Passwords app builds on the foundation of Keychain, offering users a centralized hub for managing passwords, passkeys, Wi-Fi passwords, and verification codes. The app also includes alerts for common password weaknesses, enhancing overall security.

The Photos app has received a major redesign with a simplified single view and new collections that allows users to browse their photo libraries by themes without the need to organize content into albums.

Later in the year and throughout 2025, Apple will be launching and expanding on Apple Intelligence, bringing advanced AI capabilities to the iPhone. With Apple Intelligence, users will be able to streamline everyday tasks, as AI provides personalized assistance by learning user behavior and offering more context-aware recommendations. Siri will become more proactive, handling complex commands and offering suggestions before they’re requested, enhanced text prediction and autocorrect will improve based on personal language styles, making communication smoother and more intuitive, and real-time translation will make multilingual interactions more seamless.

Apple Intelligence will also include Image Playgrounds, which will allow users to create an entirely new image based on a text description, suggested concepts, or even someone from their Photos library. Genmoji will allow users to create completely custom emoji based on a description, and allow them to be sent in iMessage, and in 2025, Apple Intelligence will feature OpenAI ChatGPT integration, allowing Siri to tap into ChatGPT for certain requests, broadening the capabilities of Apple Intelligence alone.