iOS 18 is now available, offering iPhone users worldwide exciting new ways to personalize their devices with more customization options for the Home Screen and Control Center.
It also introduces the largest redesign of Photos, making it simpler to find and revisit cherished memories. Messages and Mail have received major upgrades as well. Starting next month, iOS 18 will introduce Apple Intelligence, a personal AI system that combines the power of generative models with individual context to deliver highly useful and relevant insights, all while ensuring privacy and security are maintained.
More Customization Than Ever
iOS 18 brings more customization options than ever before. Users can now arrange app icons and widgets on their Home Screen to perfectly complement their wallpaper, or design the ideal layout for each page. They can also customize how app icons and widgets appear, choosing between light, dark, or a colored tint, and even enlarge app icons for a sleeker look.
The redesigned Control Center offers greater flexibility, allowing users to organize key controls like favorites, media playback, Home controls, and connectivity, as well as access a new controls gallery with options from third-party apps.
Favorite controls can also be accessed using the Action button, and for the first time, users have the ability to modify or remove controls directly from the Lock Screen.
The Biggest Photos Redesign
The latest update to photos is the most significant yet, making it simpler to rediscover and enjoy cherished memories. The streamlined layout offers a unified yet familiar view of your library.
New smart collections, such as Recent Days, People & Pets, and Trips, automatically organize your photos using on-device intelligence, saving you time on searching. Users can also personalize their experience by customizing the layout to highlight what matters most to them and pin favorite collections for quick access.
More Powerful Ways to Stay Connected in Messages and Phone
Messages has gotten a major upgrade, giving users even more ways to express themselves and stay connected. You can now use formatting options like bold, italic, underline, and strike-through to better convey tone.
Brand-new text effects make words and phrases pop, while emoji and sticker Tap backs provide endless ways to react in a conversation. You can even draft an iMessage and schedule it to send later. And when cellular or Wi-Fi isn’t available, Messages via satellite lets you connect to a satellite and send texts, emojis, and Tap backs through iMessage and SMS.
For messaging contacts who don’t have an Apple device, the app now supports RCS, offering richer media and more reliable group chats compared to the old SMS and MMS systems.
The Phone app also gets smarter, allowing users to record and transcribe live calls. This makes it easier to capture important details and refer back to them later. Participants are notified before a recording starts, and the transcripts are automatically saved to the Notes app, where you can easily search and review what was discussed.
Intelligent Categorization in Mail
Coming later this year, Mail will introduce a new categorization feature to help users manage their inbox more effectively.
The Primary category will allow users to focus on the most important or time-sensitive emails. Meanwhile, emails related to Transactions, Updates, and Promotions will be grouped by sender in a new digest view, making it easier to quickly scan and find the key messages from businesses when needed.
Distraction-Free Browsing with Safari in iOS 18
Safari, already the fastest browser in the world, gets even better with iOS 18. New features like Highlights make browsing more informative by surfacing key details — such as a location’s address or extra info about a movie, TV show, or song — once a page has loaded.
The revamped Reader offers a cleaner reading experience with options like a simplified view, article summaries, and a table of contents for longer reads. Plus, the new Distraction Control feature lets users hide annoying elements on a webpage, like sign-in prompts or content overlays, for a smoother browsing experience.
The All-New Passwords App
Passwords is a new app built on the Key chain framework, designed to simplify password management by keeping all your credentials — including passwords, pass codes, and verification codes — in one convenient place.
It’s protected by strong end-to-end encryption and syncs effortlessly across all your devices. The app also keeps you safe by alerting you if a password is weak, reused, or involved in a known data breach.
User-Driven Privacy Features for Enhanced Control
iOS 18 provides users with enhanced privacy tools, allowing them to control who can see their apps, how contacts are shared, and how their iPhone connects to accessories.
With the new locked and hidden apps feature, users can ensure that sensitive information, like app notifications and content, remains private. They can lock apps, or take it a step further by hiding them in a secure folder.
When an app is locked or hidden, its content, such as messages or emails, is concealed from searches, notifications, and other parts of the system. Additionally, users can choose to share only specific contacts with an app, and developers now have the ability to offer a more seamless and private connection between third-party accessories and the iPhone.
The First Release of Apple Intelligence Features, Arriving Next Month
Apple Intelligence is seamlessly integrated into iOS 18, leveraging the capabilities of Apple Silicon to understand and generate language and images, automate tasks across apps, and use personal context to simplify and speed up daily activities—all while ensuring user privacy and security.
The first set of Apple Intelligence features will launch next month, offering experiences that are intuitive, easy to use, and designed to help users focus on what matters most.
With the new Writing Tools, users can easily refine their text by rewriting, proofreading, or summarizing in apps like Mail, Notes, Pages, and even third-party apps.
In Photos, the updated Memories feature allows users to create personalized movies simply by typing a description. Natural language can now be used to search for specific photos, while video search has become more powerful, enabling users to find specific moments within clips.
The new Clean-Up tool identifies and removes distracting background objects in photos without affecting the main subject.
In both Notes and the Phone app, users can now record, transcribe, and summarize audio. When a recording starts during a phone call, all participants are notified, and after the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to highlight key points discussed.
iOS 18 Features
- Apple Maps: Users can explore thousands of hikes in U.S. national parks and create custom walking routes, accessible offline. They can also save favorite hikes, routes, and locations in a new Places Library, with options to add personal notes.
- Game Mode: Improves gaming by providing consistent frame rates during long play sessions. It also enhances responsiveness for Air Pods, game controllers, and other wireless accessories.
- Apple Pay: New payment features allow U.S. users to redeem rewards with Discover credit cards, apply for loans through Affirm, and U.K. users can access installments with Monzo Flex at checkout. The Tap to Cash feature enables users to send and receive Apple Cash by holding their iPhone near another iPhone or Apple Watch. The new ticket experience in Apple Wallet provides event details, including venue maps, weather forecasts, and Apple Music playlists.
- Notes App: Instantly solves math formulas and equations as you type. New collapsible sections and highlighting tools make it easier to focus on key details.
- Calendar App: Now integrates tasks from Reminders alongside events. Users can create, edit, and complete reminders directly from the Calendar, and the updated month view gives a quick overview of all tasks and events.
- Journal App: The new insights view helps users track journaling goals, and search and sorting features make revisiting past entries simple. A Journal widget lets users start entries quickly from the Home or Lock Screen, and journaling time is tracked as mindful minutes in the Health app.
- Home App: Introduces guest access, allowing users to grant temporary control over locks, garage doors, and security systems. The updated Energy category helps users make informed decisions about home electricity use.
- Emergency SOS Live Video: During emergency calls, users can share live video or recorded media with dispatchers via a secure connection, providing more context to get help faster.
- Air Pods Updates: Transform how users handle calls, respond to Siri, and enhance gaming with Air Pods 4, Air Pods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and Air Pods Pro 2. Features include Voice Isolation, head gestures to respond to Siri, improved wireless audio latency, and Personalized Spatial Audio for more immersive experiences.
- Air Pods Pro 2: Later this year, Air Pods Pro 2 will offer a clinical-grade, over-the-counter hearing aid capability for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. A hearing test can be completed at home to personalize the hearing aid settings, making hearing assistance more accessible.
- Health App: Redesigned Medical ID for easier access by first responders. It also provides pregnancy data insights, adjusting recommendations based on changes in physical and mental health.
- Fitness App: Users can now customize the Summary tab on iPhone, and Apple Fitness+ has been revamped with personalized workout and meditation recommendations, improved search, and more motivating awards.
- Accessibility Features:
- Eye Tracking: Enables users to navigate their iPhone using just their eyes.
- Music Haptics: Allows deaf or hard-of-hearing users to feel music through the iPhone’s Taptic Engine.
- Vocal Shortcuts: Lets users perform tasks with custom vocal sounds.
- Vehicle Motion Cues: Reduces motion sickness for iPhone users in moving vehicles.
- Car Play: Now supports Voice Control, Sound Recognition, Color Filters, and Bold Text, improving accessibility in cars.
Getting Started with the New iOS: A Step-by-Step Guide for iPhone Users