Apple Intelligence might be the new hotshot in town, but iOS 18 is offering many features beyond that. The company announced Monday at its iPhone 16 “Glowtime” event that the new software update for iPhones will arrive on September 16.
iOS has some notable aesthetic updates, including the ability to place icons anywhere on the home screens and leave blank spaces. Plus, you can change the color of icons and even make them larger. Using Siri will now light up the edges of the iPhone instead of appearing as a glowing orb at the bottom.
What’s more, the control center now has a multi-page layout with the ability to customize and add controls with support for third-party apps. You can also swap out the default flashlight and camera icons on the lock screen.
The update brings a dedicated passwords app and a redesigned Photos app. The new Photos app does away with the bottom bar and different tabs and adopts a single-page view. The app will surface old photos regularly through different carousels.
In terms of language-related updates, there will be a multilingual and multiscript keyboard, support for Hindi in the translate app, and support for Arabic in Live Text.
The call app gets a massive update that lets you search through call history and contacts. In the Messages app, you can now schedule messages for later.
You will get the iOS 18 update if you have an iPhone XR or later or an iPhone SE (second gen) or later. Here is the full list of devices with iOS 18 support.
We will have a longer story about the iOS 18 update and what you get out of it later this month.