iOS 12 is launching today!  I’ve had a chance to go hands-on with the beta for most of the summer on my iPad and more recently on my iPhone, and I wanted to give you some things to try out once you update.

First things first

If you have an iPhone 5s or newer you should upgrade. This goes for the iPad Air as well. This one of the best updates in regards to useablity in a long time. It will make your old device feel that much faster. 

 Once you finish updating your phone, the first thing you might notice is the speed.

Updating my 2-year-old iPad Pro brought it back to life.  This thing is flying again.  I’m not sure what they did with iOS 11, but it seemed to be stuck in the mud in terms of speed.  Even my new iPhone X was struggling to open some apps quickly. Lately, I’ve had many experiences where an app will freeze or it will take a while for an app to open.

Test it out though.  On iOS 12, things just seem silky smooth.  Going from screen to screen really seem to glide instead of hiccup.  

iOS 12 seems to be a lot about polish, and I think they’ve done a great job.  

Notifications

The thing I think is the biggest change next is the way that iOS 12 handles notifications.  In iOS 11, notifications just seemed to come one after the other.  If you got a message, followed by a reminder, followed by a tweet, and then another message that’s the way that they’d appear in your notification center.

iOS 12 organizes notifications differently.  Now, it groups them together by app.

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You can see in my notification center here that:

• the music player is a different color
• Under my twitter notification, it looks like there’s another.  This is because they now stack.  
• The same thing happens under my podcast notification.  

When you click on one of the stack notifications, all of the individual notifications spread out for you to see or dismiss.

Just push the show less button to collapse them again, swipe from right to left, or force press on it to get more options.  

If you press on manage, it brings up a card with more options.

If you select Deliver Quietly all notifications from that app will not show up in Notification Center, but they won’t pop-up or alert you that they are there.  You will have to go to Notification center to actually view them.

If you select Turn Off… it will turn off all notifications for that app.  If you change your mind and want to re-enable notifications for that app, you will need to go into the settings app and change it.  

This card also gives you the settings button which will take you to the notifications settings for the app were you can change if you see this app’s notifications on the lock screen, if the notification stays on the screen temporarily or permanently until you dismiss it, and a few other options that you can play around with.  

Apple wants you to be able to control your notifications more, so try to tune each app to your liking.

Messages

If you have an iPhone X or you’re getting a new Xs or Xr you’ll want to go check out the new Animoji and Memoji.

The Memoji is especially fun because you get to make yourself or others. Apple created a system very much like the Nintendo Mii. 

Then just like normal Animoji you can animate and share your creations.  

When you are sending an iMessage to a friend, if you click on the camera it will open up the camera for you to send whatever to a friend.  Now though, you can spruce up your picture with stickers from your iMessage apps, draw on the picture or video, or even use animoji or memoji as a facial filter.  

This should help bring iMessage up to par with things like Snapchat and Instagram.  If you work it into your workflow, I think it can really be fun.

And the last change to messages I want to talk about isn’t even in the messages app.  Now when you try to sign into one of your secure websites or apps that needs to text you a code to make sure that you are really you, messages will autofill that code into the blank for you!  No more having to open the app, close app, open messages, remember the number, go back to the app, etc.  It will make your digital life a little bit easier.

Siri Shortcuts

This is actually something I haven’t gotten to really test out, but I think is one of the biggest changes to iOS.  

Now, don’t freak out, but your phone is studying you.  It takes notes about things that you do all the time.  The good thing is, your phone is keeping it all on the phone, and it’s all private.  It’s not sending your data off to anyone.

What it is trying to do, is to make your life easier.  Right now because none of the apps, other than the ones that Apple makes, have been updated for the software, I haven’t really gotten to try this out.  The idea though is that if you always order a coffee at Starbucks when you leave for work and you get in your car, it will give you directions to work, and a button that will order your coffee for you.

Once apps started to get updated for iOS 12, you’ll start to see those apps offer you a Siri shortcut which you can name and record the phrase you want to activate said shortcut.  

Apple will be rolling out an app called Shortcuts on Monday as well that will help you build a shortcut like that.  You could create a button, or ask Siri to start the flow, that would lock your internet connected lock, find the best directions to work, order your cup of coffee for pick up, and start your favorite playlist for you drive in.  

That seems like a lot of power, if you have very specific routines, and if the apps that you use are opting into the Shortcuts app.  

Your phone is about to get a lot smarter.

Screen Time

Another interesting feature coming with iOS 12 is Screen Time.  Your phone will be measuring how much you actually stare at your phone during the week and will give you a digest at the end of the week. It will show you how much time you spent on certain apps and app categories.

The idea here is to help combat phone addiction.  Say you’re on social media way too much, now you’ll actually get to see how much time you spend on it. You can also set limits for yourself, where your phone will give you a warning when you get close to your time limit and will keep you out of the app for the rest of the day if you exceed it.

Of course, this is all optional.  You can turn it off in the setting under Screen Time.  If you have Family Sharing set up, you can also use Screen Time to monitor how much time your children are using apps, or limit them to using certain apps as well.

Wrap-Up and what’s next

Those are the biggest things I think most people will want to mess around with once they update, but there are actually lots more features like strong password creation, a new photos app, refreshed apps like stocks, voice memos, etc, the ability to use 3rd party map apps in CarPlay if your car stereo has CarPlay, and better Do Not Disturb.

I’m planning on writing a little bit more next week about the new Photos app so look for that early next week.

I’m also looking forward to trying out watchOS next week since I haven’t gotten to use it.  So look for that coming later in the week.  

Is there anything you’d like to see in regards to iOS 12?  Any request?  What have you found is your favorite iOS 12 feature?  Let me know!