I’ve been living with the public version of iOS and while I shared my initial thoughts, I wanted to touch back on some of those things.

Notifications

While I never had a problem with too many notifications before this, I really love the way that Apple has worked notifications now.  The organization and the ability to customize the notification how you want them is a great step up.  

Do Not Disturb

The normal Do Not Disturb has remained unchanged for the most part.  Do Not Disturb While Driving has received a bit of a facelift with some color changes.  When driving, I like the darker colors.  It looks like the music player and blends in some.  It makes me wonder if this is prepping us for a dark mode in iOS.

Do Not Disturb bedtime is a pleasant and silly surprise.   By setting what time you want DND to come on at night and go off in the morning, your phone will transform.  I really like the morning when I wake up and get to see a calming screen with the weather and time on it instead of the cluttered screen filled with notifications on it.  It’s a little thing but makes my morning, I don’t want to say easier, but calmer.

Music

There’s been a couple of changes that I really like with the music app if you use it.  I use Apple Music these days and I like the new “My Friends Mix” which is a weekly updated playlist of songs that my friends on Apple Music are using.  I have a few friends on Apple Music that I don’t really know, but still, I’m getting a good mix of songs every week.

I’ve kind of hated how buried the “love” button has been buried in music the last few iterations of Apple Music, but iOS 12 makes a change that makes it better.  By Force Pressing on the now playing bar at the bottom of the screen, you now have all the options you’d have if you hit the more button.  You can love or hate a song, add to your library or playlist, or share, saving yourself a few button taps. 

And finally, a feature I’ve wanted since Apple music, Notifications! If you add a pre-released album to your library, you now get a notification when that album releases and the whole thing is added to your library.  No more wondering and checking for updates.

I hope Apple takes this a step further and sends you updates about when bands you love add something new that you can check out.  It would make the entire experience that much better for me.  

Speed and Battery

The phone still feels very speedy to me.  

Going from page to page, pulling up the camera or keyboard, multitasking all just seem that much smoother.  Almost in its entirety, iOS 12 just feels faster.  Granted, I’m using an iPhone X (for 1 more day at least, until my iPhone XS Max gets here).  I wonder what the speed gains on older phones are like.  I know that they are there.  My wife’s iPad Air is being used more these days than the last year.  It seems much faster as well.

I have had a hiccup or two when scrolling through settings and Photos.  Everything just seems to pause.  Nothing moved for a few seconds and made me wonder if my phone froze.  It would spring back to life, but it was odd that it happened a couple of times in the settings app.  

Battery so far seems pretty good.  I’ve spent most the day on LTE and not wifi the last two days and my phone has lasted through the entire day.  I haven’t been putting the phone under great strain, but I have put it through some and the battery seems to hold up on my iPhone X.  My iPad Pro also seems to be lasting the same or better than before.  

Photos and Shortcuts

Besides writing about Photos, I haven’t really spent much time in Photos.  I like all the changes that they made, and I haven’t really been taking too many pictures, but still, I wish there was something that would draw me there more.  Maybe a notification that I have a new memory or feature photo, or even a new portrait mode picture I should change.  

I’m not sure that I’d want the notification that often though.  Maybe once a week to check-in on what’s happening would be good though.

The Shortcuts app seems like such a great tool but I’m not sure how much use I have for it at the moment.  I’ve set up heading to work and heading home shortcuts so that I get directions, my door locks, and my podcast starts playing.  I really like it, but it took some tweaking and running a couple of times to really get it right.  

I know that there’s going to be a learning curve with an app like this, and I also know that it’s going to take a while for more apps to get tied into the app.  I’m excited to mess around with the app some more though.  As I said, I think it has tons of potential.

Looking Forward

The beta of iOS 12.1 has come out and things are coming out from the code.  

There are still some holes that need fixing like Group Facetime and maybe some things like photo and music notifications.  We also know that there’s a refresh coming for the iPad soon, maybe with iOS 13, so the developers are still working hard on things.

What are your thoughts?  What are you looking forward to coming up? What features do you want to see next?

I’m still working my way up to a full review of iOS 12, I’m hoping to publish it this weekend, or early next week.  

Also, look for my first impressions of the iPhone XS Max and Apple Watch Series 4 tomorrow night, as I get to pick up my kit from the store tomorrow.