iOS 18: news, release date, compatible iPhones and more

“The most important thing in the history of the company.” This is how some employees describe it iOS 18the next version of Apple’s mobile phone operating system, as noted by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. This new update, likely coming this fall, will include new AI-powered features that will rival Google (with Gemini) and OpenAI (with ChatGPT). Plus new customization options and many other new features.

In fact, even Apple itself has already confirmed one of the main iOS 18 features: Compatible with the RCS messaging protocol, bridging the communication gap that currently exists with Android phones via iMessage.

However, other improvements that will appear in iOS 18 are known to us thanks to rumors or leaks from sources, which in most cases tend to be very accurate. But, What are these new features and when will iOS 18 be available? And most importantly, which phones will be compatible with this version?

iOS 18 will have more customization options

Latest leaks suggest that iOS 18 will take home screen customization to the next level. Apple, in particular, will offer users the opportunity place icons more freely how can we do this nowadays. While the company will retain the grid layout, it will be possible to create white spaces on the Home screen, for example to group apps into rows or columns.

It’s unclear whether Apple will also allow customize icon layout, something we can already do through the Shortcuts app, but it hasn’t been implemented natively yet. We also don’t know if the company will add new lock screen customization optionsor improve widgets, which, we recall, were updated in iOS 17, with the ability to perform actions inside them.

Siri and iPhone search engine will have artificial intelligence

There is no doubt that one of the main features of iOS 18 will be artificial intelligence. Apple plans to implement it in some of its most popular services and features, including some of its apps. According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple will make Siri much smarter in the new version of the operating system. In particular, the assistant available on iPhone will be able to offer more complex answers and have a higher level of compression.

On the other hand, Apple also plans to improve spotlight, a search engine available on the iPhone and the rest of the company’s products, to make it more powerful thanks to artificial intelligence. According to the latest rumors, the search engine will be able to detect complex questions to which the user will receive a direct answer. Additionally, it will integrate with other apps to run certain features.

AI apps in iOS 18

Speaking of apps, Apple is also planning to introduce artificial intelligence into some of its most popular iPhone apps. One of them is Apple Musicwhich can get the feature of playlists created by artificial intelligence.

Messages app for iPhone It will also include artificial intelligence to generate automated responses, answer questions, and make suggestions. The office suite, or rather the Keynote and Pages applications, will integrate generative artificial intelligence.

Finally, Apple will bet on AI in Xcode with the goal of allowing developers to create applications much faster. Let’s remember that models like GPT-4 offer very advanced code generation features. Therefore, the integration of AI into coding from Apple is a clear response to the OpenAI language model.

iOS 18 will be more stable

Early rumors about iOS 18 showed that the company is pausing the release of new features to focus on “improving quality and performance” for iOS 17.. In fact, Bloomberg reported that engineers responsible for developing the software have been ordered to pause work on new features to focus on fixing all the bugs reported in ongoing updates. This would allow us to find bugs that were not even noticed in the latest versions of iOS 17.

Now, given the latest leaks about what’s new in iOS 18, it’s highly likely that the company has this issue under control and is now focusing on new AI and personalization features. This means that the next version will be much more stable than the current one and will also have many more features.

When will iOS 18 be released?

Let’s get down to business: when will iOS 18 be released? Although nothing is confirmed, it is highly likely that Apple will announce iOS 18. during WWDC 2024, will take place from June 10 to 14, 2024. At the company’s developer conference, we’ll also see news about other operating systems, including iPadOS, which will inherit many of the features of iOS; macOS, watchOS, tvOS and VisionOS is the operating system for Apple Vision Pro.

As usual, Apple will release the first beta of iOS 18 to developers at the end of WWDC 2024. The public beta will begin in a few weeks. The new version of the operating system is expected to officially appear on the iPhone in the fall; probably in September or October.

iOS 18: Supported Devices

Again, no details about iOS 18 compatible devices. Of course, the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, as well as the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will update to this version. The iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max will also do the same, and most likely the iPhone 13. If we look at previous compatibility, iOS 18 will be available for all these models.

• iPhone 15 pro max
• iPhone 15 pro
• iPhone 15 plus
• iPhone 15
• iPhone 14 pro max
• iPhone 14 pro
• iPhone 14 plus
• iPhone 14
• iPhone 13 pro max
• iPhone 13 pro
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone SE 3rd generation. (2022)
• iPhone 12 pro max
• iPhone 12 pro
• iPhone 12
• iPhone 12 mini
• iPhone 11 pro max
• iPhone 11 pro
• iPhone 11
• iPhone SE 2nd generation. (2020)