What is coming with iOS 18 — for Users & for Devs
5 min readJul 16, 2024
Hi everybody,
It is very nice to see you here after five months! 🤠
In this article, we will go in deep together to Apple’s new version for its phones — iOS 18!
But before, let me ask you my usual question:
Did you read my previous articles? 🤔 If not, then here they are: 👀
- Important things that every iOS Developer should know + Book advise
- What is Reactive Programming | RxSwift + Bonus Books
- Async/await in Swift | What is it?!
- What is SwiftLint? — The trip to the Clean Code
- Grand Central Dispatch & DispatchQueue in Swift
- What is SOLID?! — Bonus DRY principle
- (Possible) Interview questions and answers for every junior iOS Developers
- 13 Git commands that you will need in your career — Cheat Sheet
- What is Lifecycle of ViewController? — iOS Development with Swift
- How to become a developer? || Why you should NOT become?
- Reference and Value types in Swift — What are they?
- Unit testing | Swift
- Codable — Encodable/Decodable
- 7 sources to learn Swift
- What is Objective-C?
- 14 profiles that you MUST follow if you wanna become an iOS Dev.
- How to support “Dark Mode” in an iOS App — Swift, SwiftUI & Objective-C
- 15 Interview-questions that you will be asked as an iOS Developer
- How to create an AI chatbot using Swift? — Thanks for 100 followers!
- Swift | Inheritance & Overriding
- What is CI/CD? | Continuos Integrity & Delivery
- Avoid this 10 common mistakes as an iOS Developer
- What is SwiftUI — Does it worth to learn it?
- UIKit & SwiftUI — Which one to choose: A Comparative Analysis for iOS Development
- Invalid update: invalid number of items on UICollectionView — How to solve this bug?
- How to implement SNTP for an iOS App
- Avoid Updating to the Latest Version of CocoaPods — How to solve CocoaPods related issues?
Ok, now let’s start with our main topic. 🧐
What you should know as an iPhone user?
A lot of things will be changed with iOS 18.
- You will be able freely place widgets and apps, as you know before Apple had restriction for placing widgets & apps but with this update, you will be able to place apps wherever you want — yes, exactly like your MacBook!. To be honest, I do not like it, and I hope that there will be an option to turn this function off and keep old “restriction” alive.
- You will be able to customise icons and widgets. App icons & widgets can sport a new dark look or even be tinted with any color to match your wallpaper. That sounds good in topic of design.
- You will be able to swipe and hold from the top right corner to access multiple pages of controls in Control Center. This will give you a multiple page and customization option. From now on, you can add and remove functions for a custom control experience.
- If you have a friend or family member who is using Android device, good news for you! You can from now on enjoy improved messaging with them as well through Rich Communication Services. What does it mean? It means features like read receipts and typing indicators will work across platforms.
- If your device is iPhone 14 or newer, then texting won’t be limited by cellular coverage anymore. iOS 18 will allow you sending messages via satellite.
- Messages gets a slew of improvements including the ability to react with any emoji or sticker. You will be also able to schedule message sending with “Send Later” option. Before you could not use formatting (bold, italic, underline) but now you can.
- The most important thing for Apple and its users is privacy, so contact can now be granted permission on an app-by-app basis, giving you more control over your data. Bluetooth device connection gets a security upgrade with a new secure interface.
- The photos app gets a major overhaul with a new, single library view for all your photos. This smart collections automatically organize your favorites for easy access!
There are many other things, but those are important ones. Feel free to add other things that sounds interesting to you. 🤠
What you should know as an iOS Developer?
Well, you should definietly check if your app and its privacy policy is compatible with iOS 18. Apart from this, here are other things that you will need to pay attention || enjoy with it.
- A brand new Controls API will allow us to create a custom controls for our apps that can reside directly in the Control Center or even on the Lock Screen! It gives a powerful way for users to quickly access specific features within our app without needing to open it first. (Sounds fantastic!)
- If you are working with AR (I don’t…), then your experiences will benefit from the update to RealityKit 4. It unifies features across iPhone, iPad and Mac, allowing for smoother cross-device AR app development. New features like character animation enhancements and support for MaterialX shaders open up creative possibilities for AR apps.
- With users having more freedom to personalize their Home and Lock Screens, we will need to ensure our apps can also adapt to various layouts and color schemes. App icon appearance APIs will be crucial for maintaining a consistent look and feel within the user’s customized environment.
- On most of places is safety first, but in our case we say privacy first. We will need to stay updated on any privacy permission changes, like the new app-level contact permissions. Additionally, updates to Bluetooth security protocols might necessitate adjustments in apps that rely on Bluetooth connections.
- There will be significant changes to core functionalities like Messages and the Photos app, through testing of our app’s integration with these features I would say is essential to ensure a smooth user experience on iOS 18.
Yes, good luck to us! 👀
Oh you want to thank me: You have couple of options: clap, comment, share, follow or buy me a coffee. 🙂
