Apple’s annual iOS update, iOS 12, will be hitting devices later this year. It’ll bring things like your standard performance improvements, new Animoji features, Memoji — since everyone has always wanted to turn themselves into an Animoji — group FaceTime, camera effects, ways to limit your screen time, Augmented reality, digital wellness, Siri shortcuts, and a focus on sharing your experience with fellow iOS users are among the key highlights of the update.
Here’s a list of the new features added in iOS 12:
Performance in iOS 12
Apple put a big focus on speed with iOS 12, making it faster to load apps and take photos. An iPhone 6S running iOS 12 will launch apps 40 per cent faster, bring up the keyboard 50 per cent faster and take a photo from the lock screen 70 per cent faster compared to the same phone running iOS 11.Tweaks to the CPU software should mean that these speed upgrades don’t come at too high a cost to battery life. The CPU ramps up when it detects that more power is needed (if you start scrolling, for example), and ramps down again to conserve battery life afterwards. In times of high load, these CPU tweaks should mean that apps last twice as fast.
Animoji and Memoji
A huge hit last year, Apple decided to add a few more emoji upgrades for the latest version of its iOS. New animoji include the ghost, koala, tiger and t-rex, and you’ll be glad to hear they all include tongue-detection so you can wag your tongue to have your ghostly digital replica do the same. With Memoji, Apple has also given users the ability to create tiny digital avatars of themselves.
Screen Time Widget
In the Widgets section, accessible by swiping to the right on the Home screen, there’s a new Screen Time widget where you can see how much time you’ve spent on your iOS device lately, and what you’ve been doing. You can also see your full Screen Time usage metrics in the Settings app.
Augmented reality
Apple announced the second version of its augmented reality develop kit – ARKit 2. This includes improved face track, better 3D object detection and adds the ability for multiple people to experience the same virtual environment simultaneously. The Measure app will also allow people to measure objects in augmented reality, by dragging their viewfinder across an object in the real world.
Do Not Disturb
With iOS 12, Apple is giving users the tools to balance their time on and off the screen with the new Do Not Disturb and Screen Time features. Based on your when the users go to bed, the DND mode will be activated automatically, dim the display, and hide notifications. When you wake up, you get the option to unlock notifications. With Screen Time, Apple will let you assign time per app to prevent overuse. The feature will also prevent you from spending too much time at night indulging in social media. Parents will also get multiple features to manage their kids’ usage and manage it with remotely from iOS’ Family Sharing feature.Managing notifications is easier too with new notification stacks that bundle all alerts app-wise to declutter the notification center.
Scan QR Code in Control Center
There’s a new Control Center shortcut for scanning a QR code.
Battery Info
In the Settings app, the battery usage chart shows usage for the last 24 hours or the last 10 days instead of the last 7 days. There’s also a whole new chart that displays battery usage information.
Group Facetime
Facetime now supports group video calling with up to 32 users and users can join even during an on-going call. Facetime is now integrated into Messages and you can directly jump into the video call from a chat group. During the video call, Facetime automatically determines which of the members is speaking and their tile automatically comes to the fore while others make room.
Managing notifications also gets easier
Apple is finally bringing grouped notifications to iOS 12 in a huge and long-overdue step. The next big iOS update, which started seeding to developers today, will support grouped notifications, and you can dismiss all alerts from the same app easily to save yourself from notifications hell. Grouped notifications will be stacked on the lock-screen and from there you can banish certain apps to the ‘Quiet’ section in the Notification Center. You can also turn off notifications from certain apps more easily.
Measure App
Apple is launching a new Measure app in iOS 12, which leverages ARKit 2 to quickly gauge the size of real-world objects just like you would with a tape measure or a ruler. Measure can also automatically provides the dimensions of objects such as picture frames, posters and signs. With Measure, iOS users can take a photo and share it along with its accurate dimensions for their work or any other purpose.
ARKit 2
The final push when it comes to Augmented Reality is the second major version of the company’s ARKit. In case you don’t know, ARKit is used by third-party developers to create immersive experiences.The most significant new feature of ARKit 2 is the ability to use two or more iOS devices to create a single AR mixed world experience. For example, two or more iOS devices will be used to make sure their owners are seeing the same thing running the same app.
Shortcuts App
Apple didn’t want app developers to have all the power over Siri. Thanks to a brand new app called Shortcuts, you’ll be able to create your own Siri integrations. In practice, it seems like more advanced iOS 12 users will like this feature the most. If your favorite app doesn’t offer the kind of Siri integration that you want, you can make your own shortcut. This is all based on your needs and habits. Even though this process requires a bit of work, it has the potential to pay off in the long term really.
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