You ask most iPhone users and they will tell you that if there was one thing they would take from Android, it is the customisation. The freedom to mess around with your home screen, apps icons, themes and all.
However, their pleas – assuming they made any – to those who occupied some fancy spaceship-like building in Cupertino fell on deaf ears for years. The power of iPhone and the Apple cult may have curtailed them from a full-scale revolt.
But Apple has answered their prayers by wrapping up customization into a beautiful box with a sticker attached; “Welcome to iOS 18”.
Customizable home screens
This statement might sound like a joke but trust me on this when I say that the superpower of iOS 18 is being able to paint all icons any color you want at anywhere of your choice within your phone’s display. But no! This simple adjustment is what mostly differentiates iOS 18 from competitor O.S.s like Android. Because many iPhones owners do not have access to Apple Intelligence which only begins this month.
An Android user reading this might be tempted to roll his or her eyes. No. We might be little late but we also want some play time. Though, that’s rather unusual for an i-phone users like me who are more inclined towards keeping my icons locked in grids without any color whatsoever on my home screen. Instead, however, iOS 18 allowed me to escape these fetters and equip myself with a dream home screen colored red.
This method can’t get easier than it is right now. You don’t require jailbreaking or creating a Siri Shortcut as well which is quite demanding task for sure as we just need only press hold onto our homescreen followed by pressing “Edit” button at topmost left corner and then you see several options where you can experiment with by sliding up or down in vertical movement whatever choices are available there . Then choose size icon-whether lighted colored ones or just shades of black or grey that are not too bright and finally select where you want those symbol to be placed on your main screen, for example anywhere else outside your tray.
My favorite form of customization so far is simply making the icon bigger which hides its name thereby easing up my home screen a little bit (you know what I mean lol). But that leaves some extra space at the bottom of the home screen right above the app tray. Which could have accommodated one more row of apps. And while that irked me in the beginning, I have settled down with it.
Next comes the option to colorize icons-although you might not always like what color your iPhone decides they should be. You can change this by using the color picker and selecting whatever shade pleases your eyes. You can also alternatively keep them by default dark or leave them automatic to turn dark along wallpaper as soon as there is sunset. Tho 3rd-party apps struggled fitting into this picture but hopefully they’ll catch up.
So how did I use all these powers given to me? I have created multiple home screens each painted, some hideous and others beautiful. It’s kind of every home-screen wish coming true don’t you think?
Only now I need to get rid of all my apps at once from my home screen. Tim, listen!
More control over “Controls”
There are more modifications to be made. Suddenly, when the Control Centre came out, we were all swiping down and not up anymore. The same applies here though you will need to swipe a little bit further. But there is a big change – the Control Centre is now paginated, customizable, and a bit more colorful.
Like on the home screen, you can move them around and make them bigger or smaller. They don’t have to be round any longer. They can also be rectangular or square but with rounded edges in all cases. You can expand both network panel and music widget to take over the whole page; by default they have their own pages as well.
That’s just only one of its pages named Favourites. Controls will have their own gallery like widgets where even third-party app controls will appear. So that you can choose whichever ones you want and also have second, third or many other pages.
Talking about widgets, the home screen has some new first-party widgets such as Vitals, Journal and Training Load. Also, If an app has a widget available for it than you can either resize that app icon into a widget or vice versa.
Another Android power given to iOS is the ability to customize quick buttons on its lock screen. Goodbye long-lasting flashlight plus camera combo on lock screens? Yes! Just like Control Centre does now too different quick controls are possible there starting from dark mode going by calculator even coming up with shortcuts thus soon there are supposed to be third party alternatives for this feature too.
Locking/Hiding Apps
While it would have been nice if App Library could be customized. But that seems saved for later versions only because everything cannot go your way? What really matters the most right? There was at least once when using your iPhone you might have thought about locking apps let alone hiding them Right?
Therefore upon long pressing an app icon there should arise two options “Require Face ID” and “Hide and Require Face ID”. The first one is simply “lock”, while the second one is”hide”.
Therefore if you lock an app, it will need Face ID to open but it will still appear on the home screen. But if you want an app off your home screen, choose hide.
When an app is hidden, it goes away from the home screen but resides in a separate folder inside the App Library. This folder appears at the bottom of that library which does not display its icons. Until you use facial scan to unhide them.
A refuge for all your passwords
Speaking of privacy and security, we should also mention Passwords application. So now iOS (and iPadOS, macOS, visionOS or even Windows) has its own first-party password manager. Being outside settings, right inside Passwords are all accounts’ credentials including Wi-Fi passwords and Passkeys. It will also notify you if any of your accounts were compromised.
So, all these function harmonises across gadgets. For example, if you save a password on your iPhone it will be saved on your iPad, Mac or even a Windows PC. These passwords could additionally be AirDropped to others.
This is not all new at the end of the day as Keychain has actually been doing the same thing for some time. Some people may know this while others may not know it. So, with a separate app that sits right in your App Library, it becomes easier to manage the passwords.
One privacy change that I really appreciate is about choosing which contacts an app can access. Instead of giving every person’s details an application can now only have access to the few contacts from where you can get them. This method eliminates possibility of sharing out my entire contact list.
Photos app knows who you are
Amongst everything else, Photos app has gone through a radical redesign. The tabs have been removed and replaced by one page which contains Library, For You and Albums together. This means there will be no need to switch tabs again just scroll down the page.
The library appears at the top displaying photos taken or screenshots taken or those copied from somewhere else as well as screenshots. If you simply scroll up, you’ll get back to classic Library view with filters – Years, Months, All – plus sorting options and close button that goes back to default view.
If swiped rightwards, Carousel will display featured photos & memories et cetera. The top half could be customized too – add more Collections instances apart from changing or removing those there now yourself.
But hold on: don’t ignore what’s going on in the bottom half though! There’s Recent Days People Memories and so forth. Again since they were always tucked away under For You this might as well be something new. Or old-something just known recently or forever/never before But now they’re front and center. Hence you can rediscover snaps that date back to the earliest days. As well as curated albums for special occasions or of your friends and family.
Scroll down further, and you’ll find more – like all the albums, different media types, deleted photos, and hidden ones as well.
It’s not easy to redesign an application which is almost used daily. There’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. Personally I didn’t like this layout much initially in these first few days when I was trying to get used to it; I just wanted my old layout back. However after using it for over a month now I can say that this new app is just perfect in searching for photos.
The end of the blue bubble vs. green bubble saga (sort of)
Messages follow next. Having added some handy features like Stickers and Check-In among others over the past several years, Apple continues with its tradition this year too. Next on Apple’s list would be RCS or Rich Communication Services, same messaging standard currently used by Android phones. It’s weird that most people in India don’t even know about RCS at all!
Even so, how does it all change for those with a preference for either blue or green bubble? This is the end of blue versus green bubble war, in a way! Yes and no.
For instance, you can now transfer pictures and videos while maintaining their 2000s nature; have read receipts and be on multiple chats at once. However, the divide still exists between messages that appear as blue bubbles on iPhones and green ones. Which are exclusively sent by Android devices though there exists some convergence between the two.
Although I was not able to use RCS here in India now.
A feature that would be more interesting to most of us is Send Later which is really helpful especially when one forgets a lot like me. I can just schedule a message – say a happy birthday wish- up to a year ahead.
Consequently, any emoji you want can be used to react to messages or even stickers. Plus, if one wishes to make texts more expressive they can employ new text formatting options or even animate them using WordArt-style effects. However the old message effects are gone (to be honest, they were slightly more fun).
Finally T9 Dialer on iPhone
T9 dialer on iPhone has also been introduced into Phone app so that one can locate contacts just by typing their names on keypad. Moreover searching through recent calls, transcribed voicemails as well as contacts too easy from Recents tab. The other thing I discovered is that you can simply type in any month into your search bar and it will show all calls made during January.
Emails Sorted
As we speak about communication, let me quickly skim over what’s new in Mail app. There isn’t much new right now but later this year it will become smarter enough to group emails into different categories such as Primary, Transactions, Promotions and Updates.
In short words Primary tab will have emails from your friends and family while others would come under other tabs. For instance, a new digest view will show snippets of receipts, marketing emails and newsletters that have been bundled together by sender.
Notes learn maths
I always find myself using the Notes app to jot something or another and I think it would be even more useful to me. Now as I can create collapsible subheads and highlight text so my notes will look neater. Above all, if that wasn’t enough, now I can transcribe conversations right within the app. Secondly there is the possibility of doing Maths on your phone.
For instance, whether you want to add up a vacation budget or split the grocery bill just type out or write down the math and you are done. The application also remembers these calculations for long sits through serious problems. Similarly, this can also happen in Messages.
In fact, it is not only the Calculator app that is being updated concerning maths. Now, this application has the ability to perform calculations based on scientific principles as well as convert units of measurement. Additionally, it provides access to all previous calculations carried out within the last 30 days. And allows for deletion of either a single one or all at once. That’s not all; calculator now does expressions directly.
Apple names it Maths Notes. It behaves normally like its name suggests. On flicking the switch button, a new note opens for mathematical purposes. It works exactly like the math feature in Notes app. You can either type down or write by hand any expression of this type.
The tidbits
One aspect that gets overlooked here and there is how Reminders app and Calendar are merged together. Besides regular calendar events, Calendar app now shows reminders too. You can see them but also create new ones, modify or complete them straight from Calendar.
Safari has a couple of little improvements too. The Reader is changing with a table contents and summary so you know what your article says before you start reading. The next one is Highlights which will underline important information in webpage . However, I have not been able to use any of these features in beta till now.
Game Mode was relocated from macOS straight to iOS operating system platform . It works like its name suggests: ensuring perfect gaming experience . Moreover , AirPods and game controllers have reduced latency.
If you have been keeping a journal on your iPhone already then iOS 18 contains some nice upgrades such as directly logging your mood into Journal with an option to count writing time as mindful minutes in Health; streaks and stats are shown in a new insights view making goals easier to track; enhanced sorting and search allow you to quickly find old entries; while brand new widgets for home or lock screen give writing prompts and streak displays.
Accessibility remains important even with iOS 18 and one great feature of these lot is Eye Tracking that will control your iPhone by just looking at it, no hands. Then there’s Music Haptics, which syncs the rhythm of songs with Taptic Engine so if you can’t hear beat, you can feel it. Vocal Shortcuts helps people with serious abnormal speech.
Wait, where’s the AI
Well, iOS has some AI underpinnings but no Apple Intelligence just yet. In fact all those beautiful party tricks including Writing Tools, Image Playground and the new Siri are late to the game. They should be available later this year probably in September though still in beta and restricted to US customers only. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst thing about this is that AI train will only be accessible for iPhone 15 Pro. And iPhone 15 Pro Max (and their successors coming out next year) users exclusively.
Conclusion
It appears that Apple has made significant progress in customization/personalization/user power. As a result of repainting your home screen into any color or redoing Control Center as well as lock screen on IOS 18—these are things every iPhone user has always wanted to have on his/her device.
First, it is unsettling to observe that the Photo app has been changed; nevertheless, a closer scrutiny reveals that it makes it easier to rediscover memories. Upgrades in core apps such as messages, notes and calculator bring about new features that simplify everyday functions. There are also more additions such as Game Mode, Eye Tracking, etc. Which eventually contribute to enhancing its overall iPhone experience.
However, keep in mind that this beta version only gives a glimpse into the future with some AI anticipated or Apple calls it Apple Intelligence which will make Siri “more capable and helpful” but not yet available for most people. Regardless, iOS 18 is a great step forward for iPhones blending some of the flexibility traditionally associated with Android. While maintaining the polished user experience Apple is known for and many would ever care about. So wait till September and y’all are in for a treat!
