iOS 18: everything you need to know about the next iPhone update

Every year, Apple announces the new version of iOS at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. It then enters a beta testing period (first reserved for developers, then for the public) before being marketed in September, when the new iPhones go on sale.

We don’t expect the process or timeline to change this year, but that’s about the only thing we can count on being the same as previous years. As for iOS 18 itself (its features and changes), rumors and leaks suggest what could be one of the most significant iPhone software updates in years.

The following is a summary of the rumors and leaks, but keep in mind that the final product may not look quite like what you read here. Information about upcoming Apple products is often unreliable, and even when it’s accurate, plans change. That said, this is what we think we know so far.

Updated March 18: Apple is reportedly in discussions with Google about including its Gemini AI in iOS 18 and has had discussions in the past with OpenAI.

iOS 18 Release Date: When will iOS 18 arrive?

For the past decade, the new version of iOS has been released in September, usually during the second or third week. We haven’t heard anything to suggest this year will be any different, so here are the release dates from the last five years for reference:

• iOS17: September 18, 2023
• iOS16: September 12, 2022
• iOS15: September 20, 2021
• iOS14: September 16, 2020
• iOS13: September 19, 2019

Before its general release, Apple will offer a developer beta immediately after the WWDC keynote in June, followed by a public beta in early July. It will go through several beta versions, with some features added, changed and removed, before the main release in September.

iOS 18 Compatibility: Which iPhones will receive iOS 18?

We haven’t heard any specific rumors about which devices will be compatible with iOS 18, but the prevailing assumption is that all phones with iOS 17 will get iOS 18. That means everything from the iPhone XR and XS or the 2nd generation iPhone. SE up to the iPhone 15, and of course, the iPhone 16 which will be presented this fall. Here is a list of all iPhones supporting iOS 17:

• iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max
• iPhone XR
• iPhone SE (2nd generation or later)

It’s likely that some of the coolest new features won’t be supported on older phones because they don’t have the necessary hardware (a neural engine or GPU powerful enough to run AI elements, or sufficiently of RAM). This is typical of new versions of iOS.

iOS 18 Features: The Biggest iOS Update… Ever?

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has reported extensively on the development of iOS 18 and claimed in his Power On newsletter that “the new operating system is considered within the company to be one of the biggest updates iOS, if not the most important, in the company’s history.

There will be major new AI features, we expect many ambitious updates and changes beyond just integrating AI into everything.

A brand new Siri

The most visible theme of iOS 18 would be AI. Specifically, generative AI, which Apple has been slow to bring to market while products like ChatGPT, Bard, CoPilot, Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and others have taken the tech world by storm.

There has been a huge effort within Apple to create a generative AI technology stack, and we’ve seen Apple publish papers on a number of topics like a big new language model called Ajax, a benchmark of object called Ferret, new voice recognition models, and much more. more.

Siri is reportedly getting a big “generative AI” overhaul, using big new language models and other advanced AI to take it to the next level.

AI everywhere

Siri isn’t the only place Apple is reportedly integrating new, advanced AI. We don’t have all the details yet, but Apple has reportedly made a change to bring advanced AI features to as many of its products as possible. Apple Music playlist generation is an oft-cited area, as is code generation in Xcode, AI features in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, and much more.

Apple is expected to follow a hybrid approach, performing many AI tasks on-device to improve privacy, security and responsiveness, but also using cloud-based AI for larger tasks that cannot be run on an iPhone. And there’s reason to believe that Apple could also jump into the generative AI pool, with plenty of generative AI research published recently by Apple researchers.

In March, it was reported that Apple was talking with Google about including its Gemini AI in iOS 18, but in what capacity, no one really knows.

RCS support

At the end of 2023, Apple announced what seemed like the unthinkable: RCS support was coming to iPhone. Yes, Messages will always be a lock for SMS by default and no, iMessage isn’t going anywhere. But the “green bubbles” will be RCS and not SMS, when sending SMS with other devices that support RCS.

The trap ? This won’t happen until “later in 2024”, which almost certainly means iOS 18, if not iOS 18.1 or 18.2. When it arrives, you’ll finally get things like read receipts, full-size images and videos, typing indicators, and more when sending messages to people using Android phones.

New accessibility features

According to MacRumors, Apple is planning several new accessibility features for iOS 18, including Adaptive Voice Shortcuts, which will allow users to turn specific accessibility features on or off using a custom phrase, and Live Speech , which will allow users to type in what they want to say and If you have it read aloud during phone calls or video meetings, you will have the option to add recorded phrases to categories.

The report also lists five macOS apps that will support custom font sizes, but because font sizes work differently in iOS, this feature may be limited to macOS.

Influence Vision Pro

Apple’s visionOS interface introduces many new interface elements, including circular icons on the Home screen. A rumor from Israeli news site The Verifier claims that “Apple is working to integrate elements of the visionOS operating system from the Vision Pro glasses into the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 updates.” This could mean that huge changes are coming to iOS – after all, it’s been over a decade since the last major overhaul that shook things up in iOS 17.