Tech Tip — iOS 18 First Impressions
Apple’s annual update to its most popular operating system has happened on schedule. Every September, we know there will be some time dedicated to making updates and changes to our phone’s operating system. I mentioned some of the features that would become coming when they were first announced in June during Apple’s WWDC event. Now those features—well, most of them—are here. Here are some first impressions of the new iOS 18 updates.
If there is one word to describe what this year’s update is all about, it is customization. There are not a lot of ‘headline’ features that came with the 2024 update. This year, we mostly get ‘quality of life’ updates that make our phones and iPads easier to use and put more control in the user’s hands. This is a big shift for Apple. They have managed to keep the operating system pretty locked down for the first eighteen years. Despite Android continually adding customization features, Apple has slowly trickled them in over time (a lot of time). While there are several benefits that come from that approach, it has, at times, been painful for Apple users to wait for slick new ways to use their devices that Android users have been enjoying. This year’s update closes plenty of gaps in the ability to make your iPhone your own. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Customizing Your Lock and Home Screen
Customization is the name of the game in iOS 18, so you’ll hear that a lot throughout. Possibly one of the biggest asks for Apple’s set up has been the ability to place app icons wherever you want on your home screens. Previously, when you placed your icon, it locked into the next open space of the grid. It worked top to bottom, left to right. No exceptions. Now, icons and widgets still lock into the grid, but you can select which slot you want to place those apps in. So, if the first icon you would like to place is in the lower right corner, you can do that. If you just want to have icons in the four corners of your screen and leave the rest blank, you can. It is a small thing that will go a long way. It is great when you don’t want to block the picture you have on your Home Screen, or to make certain apps more reachable while holding the phone one-handed. You get the idea. It’s a nice thing to finally have.
The Lock Screen now also allows for customizations that didn’t exist before. On any Lock Screen, everyone had the same flashlight and camera quick launch buttons at the bottom of the screen, no changes allowed. No longer. Now, you can select which items you want there, including the ability to make those Shortcuts, Control Center Items, or applications. It is a nice update and feature to have, and works especially well when using focus modes, so you can tailor to the needs you specifically have when in certain focus modes. This makes it quicker to get to what you need, and removes the possibility of getting distracted by opening up to your entire Home Screen. Using focus modes is a really productive way to set up specific use cases for your phone. Again, imagine you set your phone to a focus mode for visiting a store, and you can now add only the applications that you want to jump to quickly right on your Lock Screen. Combined with Face ID, this gets you right where you want faster than ever.
Customize Your Icons On Your Home Screen
In addition to being able to move the app icons or widgets around wherever you want now, you can change the look of the icons themselves. I have to admit, I found this a little odd at first, but it quickly grew on me. At least part of it. You can now elect to have larger app icons and remove the names of the widget and applications. While this doesn’t allow you to place more icons on the screen (would love to see that in the future), it does clean the look up considerably.
Also, you can toggle between dark and light mode to get a different look to your icons throughout the day. It does have an automatic setting also, which will have dark mode enabled at night and light mode throughout the day. I love the way this looks.
Finally, there is an option to tint your app icons to match the colors of your screen, or just to be your favorite color. This is one I am not sure that I am sold on. Seems a little weird to have everything be one color. Some apps just aren’t made for unusual colors. That said, it will truly allow you to create a custom look, and with time and practice, you may be able to end up with a stunningly cool, fully personalized look for your Home Screen. I am sure there are tons of examples now available across different social platforms. Maybe something will inspire you.
Control Center
Control Center has also received some nice updates with iOS 18 as well. You can now have multiple pages that easy to swipe through, you can add more items to each page, and there are more options for things to appear in Control Center.
By default, you’ll have what your Control Center used to look like, a music page, a Home App (Smart Home) page, and a connections page (Wi-Fi, bluetooth etc.). All of these are handy, and even if you did nothing, it is an improvement over what we had previously. Adding the ability to customize in new ways, and these can become a really handy way to control elements of your device with a touch of a button. I am still exploring the options here, but the most notable change may be the ability to easily change the size of each Control Center element. Before these were only available as a small icon. Now you can drag to resize and they function more like widgets. The change, in a many ways, makes your Control Center pages feel more like Home Screen pages. I think that will be helpful for casual users to make these pages more productive for them.
Finally, a simple, yet helpful update (thus why this really feels like a quality of life update year): there is a button in Control Center to power off your phone. This no longer needs to be done with the physical buttons on the side of the phone.
The New Passwords App
One new application that Apple added this year is the Passwords app. You have been able to store your passwords with Apple for quite some time in the Keychain function as a part of Safari. Now, there is a full and proper application for storing and managing passwords. In the future, I may dive in deeper to this application, but it is fairly straightforward. It is easy to use, with a familiar interface to other applications from Apple. If you do not have a password manager today, STOP RIGHT NOW and get this set up. (PSA over) This is an excellent starting point for anything that is not currently using a password manager at all, and it is a welcome update for anyone who relied fully on the Keychain function previously.
I do think it is missing some elements that will make it useful for people who have made the change and have all their critical information such as passwords, credit cards, and personal identification already captured in a tool like 1Password. For me, I am interested to see where this goes, but I will be sticking with 1Password for the foreseeable future because it has all the ability to store and secure every type of data point.
Wrap Up
I only hit on some of the bigger updates for iOS 18. In a year without much of a headliner feature, the smaller ones can easily drift into the background. The fact is that the updates from this year, when combined, make for a solid step forward for iOS and iPadOS. Not groundbreaking, but highly functional. Next month, I’ll get into more of the details around how iPad’s improvements can be put to use in making it a great companion device for any leader. Plus, we will have the piece that most people are waiting for, Apple Intelligence. That will be an upgrade that begins to release later in October and expands throughout the coming year. I will cover that in detail once I have had time to begin using it in earnest.
What do you think about the latest iOS updates? What are your favorite new features?
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