Apple released iOS 18 in September, which means it has been more than half a year since the tech company released the iPhone operating system. I wrote at the time of iOS 18’s release that customization was a big aspect of the OS, and while that remains true there are other features I’ve used almost daily, and some features that I’ve used once and forgotten about — I’m looking at you Apple Intelligence.
When new iOS versions drop, they typically don’t include every feature originally announced for that version. Some of those features aren’t released until weeks or even months later. Since the launch of iOS 18, Apple has added new emoji, Apple Intelligence features and new Control Center controls to its operating system, as well as bug fixes and security patches.
I started using the beta version of iOS 18 on my iPhone XR and 14 Pro in July when Apple made that version of the software available to developers and beta testers. Since then, I’ve used the software on both of those iPhones as well as an iPhone 16 Pro to take advantage of all the new Apple Intelligence features. But frankly, I think if Apple wants to keep advancing, it shouldn’t get hung up on Apple Intelligence and keep moving forward on making and improving smaller, more impactful iPhone and iOS features.
Here are some of my favorite iOS 18 features, some I think could be improved and what I hope to see in future iOS updates.
Customizable home screen remains a major highlight
I still really like the customizable home screen.
One of the big changes iOS 18 brought to iPhones was more options to customize different iPhone screens, but the home screen customization was my favorite. I made a few changes to my home screen when Apple released iOS 18, and I’ve never looked back.
The first change was orienting everything to the right-side of my screen. I’m right-handed so this change makes it easier to access my apps — I can’t reach the top row so that’s where all my widgets are. I also enabled dark icons, as well as large icons. These are more aesthetic choices, as opposed to right-oriented apps, but at this point I can’t imagine going back to my home screen before iOS 18.
Tapbacks are better than ever
The expanded Tapbacks feature — Apple’s version of reactions — is probably my most used new feature in iOS 18. I used Tapbacks before Apple released iOS 18, but the heart was the only one that felt unmistakable in its translation. I always felt the others could be interpreted as passive-aggressive or even rude. And others seemed to agree with this assessment.
The eyes emoji is another good Tapback option.
Being able to react to a message with the hundred points (💯) or the face with tears (😂) emoji feel more natural and clear in what I’m trying to convey. And with the new emoji in iOS 18.4, including my favorite face with bags under its eyes, there’s less wiggle room for interpreting these reactions as opposed to the thumbs up or even the “Haha” tapback. It also opens up new avenues to respond to messages.
Lets say someone sends me a video of a lion and I don’t really know how to respond but I want to let them know I’ve seen the video. Of the original Tapbacks, the thumbs up and “Haha” both feel rude. But I can use the lion (🦁) emoji to at least acknowledge the video. It is a lion in the video after all.
The Notes app is my unsung hero
I used Notes before Apple released iOS 18, but the changes introduced to the app are some of my favorites.
Collapsible sections in Notes was my favorite organizational change in iOS 18, but the biggest, best change in the app is the ability to add voice memos to notes and then create a transcript of that voice memo within the note.
Using this feature for interviews has been helpful for me. Just generating a transcript is a huge time saver, that way I don’t have to listen back and type out interview notes and rewind to make sure I heard things right the first time and so on. I imagine this feature would be equally helpful in a classroom or a work meeting as well.
Apple improved the Calculator app by bringing a feature back
Conversions are a small but helpful feature in iOS 18’s Calculator app.
Apple overhauled the Calculator app when it released iOS 18. One of the major changes in the app is it now lets people perform conversions without accessing the internet, which is helpful so you don’t have to look up a conversion rate.
But Apple also removed the ability to repeat operations in the Calculator when it released iOS 18. It was a small feature, but as soon as it was removed I wasn’t happy — along with many others.
Thankfully, Apple brought the feature back with iOS 18.3. I’m happy it’s back, but I also wonder why it was removed in the first place.
While Apple made a lot of good improvements with iOS 18 that are still fun and useful more than seven months later, there are a few features I think could be improved on.
Some screen customization options are fine but not perfect
In addition to a more customizable home screen, Apple also introduced the ability to customize the lock screen and Control Center with iOS 18, but I haven’t found these to be as useful as I’d hoped.
If you ever accidentally turned your flashlight on from your lock screen — like me — you’d think customizing your lock screen would help avoid these accidents, but it hasn’t. If I change my flashlight control to another control, then I’ll just accidentally open another app instead of the flashlight. I could get rid of the control, but I’ve grown accustomed to having it and my Sports control on my lock screen so removing it would be inconvenient and cause me more work to find those controls.
I kept flashlight, but now I occasionally open the Sports app on accident.
I like the ability to customize your lock screen on paper, but I think Apple needs to take it a step further. Changing my camera control to the Sports control has been nice, but I think Apple should let you move those controls to another location on the screen.
Apple has also made it possible to customize your Control Center more and more with iOS 18 and its updates — like the ambient sound controls. And these options are fine, but what really irks me about the new Control Center is the scrollable menu on the right-side of the screen. To access your Control Center, you have to pull down from the top-right corner of your screen. And sometimes when I perform this action, I unintentionally scroll through my different Control Center pages.
I still use my Control Center when I need to, but it’s really irritating when I open it and I automatically jump to my Music control or another page in Control Center and then have to find my way to the first Control Center page. The best solution I can come up with is removing that scrollable bar on the right-side of the screen or moving it lower on the screen to make it harder to accidentally hit.
Send Later is good, but it could be great
The grayed-out date means I can’t send this message for that date yet.
This is one of those features I’ve wanted in Messages for a while. I was so happy when Apple announced it was coming in iOS 18, and it’s been a great feature to have. This feature has been useful when I’ve wanted to message friends in different time zones, but I don’t want to wake them up or forget to message them.
If I had one complaint about this feature, it’s that you can’t schedule something to send more than two weeks in advance. That’s fine for sending a message later that day like when someone gets off work, but if I remember someone’s birthday is in a few weeks and I want to make sure I send them a message, I’ll have to find another way to remember. I wish that window was larger, even by a few more weeks.
I’m not impressed by Apple Intelligence
For as big of a deal as Apple made of Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, I haven’t found any of the new features to be particularly helpful or even necessary. And I’m not alone. According to a survey from the trade journal SellCell, 73% of iPhone owners claim that AI features “add little to no value” to their phone experiences.
Some of these features, like Genmoji and Image Playground, arrived with iOS 18.2 in December, and I used them then but not much since.
I like ravens and I like books, but I can’t think of a time I’d use this emoji.
I used Genmoji a handful of times in order to write about it, but I haven’t found much use for it beyond that. We have almost 4,000 emoji already, and I use like 10 of them, so creating more emoji with Genmoji doesn’t feel necessary. I don’t need more than my 10, thank you.
And I haven’t used Image Playground much either. Many images I created in order to write about the app sit in the uncanny valley, and others I created didn’t make sense — think a volcano with trees at its base on a kitchen countertop. Otherwise, I haven’t found a practical use for the app.
I’m also not impressed by the Apple Intelligence notification summaries. My colleague Nelson Aguilar points out the feature can take things too literally sometimes and doesn’t work well with sarcasm — which is most of the messages my wife and I send to each other. Inaccurate news app notification summaries also led Apple to change which apps the feature works with in iOS 18.3. For now, notifications from news and entertainment apps aren’t summarized, and luckily you can totally turn the feature off altogether.
And while some people are waiting for Apple to upgrade Siri with Apple Intelligence, I’d be fine if it never happens. According to ChatBase, depending on which LLM model you use, general accuracy can range from 50% to 89%. And accuracy can fluctuate as models get older, too. For example, research shows that GPT-4’s accuracy in identifying prime numbers fell from 84% to 51% in three months. So even if a model is correct nine times out of 10, the accuracy of that model could drop significantly in a relatively short amount of time. And I don’t want to figure out whether a ChatGPT-integrated Siri is correct or not at any given moment, I just want it to work.
I guess you could grow flowers out of kitchen pots if you wanted to.
These AI features also raise ethical concerns for me, like bias within the models and copyright infringement for generated images.
Bias within models can affect our behaviors and decisions. When OpenAI released GPT-4, that model’s system card said it could “represent various societal biases and worldviews that may not be representative of the user’s intent.” Models could therefore present harmful stereotypes as facts without a wider dataset or oversight. And I don’t want to risk perpetuating these stereotypes in any way.
Some image-generating models are also trained on copyrighted material. OpenAI told the UK’s House of Lords “it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.” Some might argue the Fair Use doctrine allows for these models to train on copyrighted material, but I don’t want to potentially contribute to an artist or creator not getting paid for their work.
Until Apple Intelligence and other AI models are ethically sound, I don’t want to use them more than I have to. And thankfully Apple lets you turn Apple Intelligence off — which I have.
What do I want from iOS 19?
While Apple is reportedly working on drastically changing iOS 19, I don’t think a complete remodel is necessary. If anything, iOS 18 has shown me that smaller, quality of life changes can be better than larger, more substantial adjustments. Apple’s iOS has a solid foundation, and I’d like Apple to focus on making more practical changes, like introducing a clipboard history or giving Notes a revision history, to have a successful iOS 19.
For more on iOS 18, here’s my initial review and our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
Watch this: Make Money for Recycling Old Tech and Let the Broken iPhone Go
