Last night (3rd June 2019), Apple did their annual WWDC (world wide developer conference) keynote where they announce the new updates to Apple operating systems. Here they demonstrate and announce the new phone, laptop, watch, iPad and tv software. iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS and now ipadOS. I always love it when Apple do their keynotes, they fill me with joy and awe, sometimes for the good but i often get caught up in it all and my judgement gets clouded. It usually takes me a day afterwards to realise that even though a lot of them are great changes … some of them just aren’t for me.
For this blog I will be focusing on some of the things they announced on iOS 13. Obviously with the number of different changes, new features etc there would be far too many to touch on here. The post would be about 10 pages long.
So the very first thing they mentioned was a system wide dark mode. Dark mode is a fairly recent occurrence but for me I prefer it so much to light mode. Black background with white writing stands out so much clearer for me and it just looks pretty. Dark mode has been on a number of apps already and is on the macOS (which is what I’m using right now) and its pretty so its awesome that this is now coming to smaller devices.
Dark Mode with changing Wallpapers
The next announcement was the changes to photos. Mostly to show that’s it has become smarter and arranged in a better way. It hasn’t changed a lot but the small changes can always make a big difference. One of these changes was that videos and live photos autoplay whilst looking through the albums. Another addition is a new folder for screen recordings. These are both great as you can instantly see the animations on videos and gifs without having to click on them and it saves time (for me anyway). There was also a feature where photo previews are smarter. For example, if you were to look at your photos in days or months, it would show the best photos from that period and wouldn’t show any duplicates. The duplicates would be there on the show all photos but to look at specific days it would only show one or a couple. This is a pretty change but its not something i use often. I may search for photos by location but time periods isn’t a big thing for me. There are also some changes to make photo editing easier and prettier. Oh and you can edit videos by flipping them now too.
Another main change was the additional security set into the iOS. With apps and companies wanting to track location and use our data more, Apple are standing by to protect us. Now I didn’t know this but some apps can gather our location through wifi and bluetooth which Apple have come up with a way to prevent us being tracked via this method. Some apps would require our location to be active and companies can use this info and track us. With iOS 13 we can say that an app can use our location always, whilst open, never and now once. This means anytime that app would want to use our location we would have to allow it again but this is great news. We can also get a notification whenever an app uses our location in the background (something which I’ve also noticed a few times).
A big bug bear of mine with signing into new apps and webpages is the “log in with …” and then use google or facebook. From this companies can have our email addresses and sign us up to spam. With iOS 13 Apple creates a new and specific email address to use for these and then it forwards replies to our real email addresses. THANK YOU APPLE for this … I just hope that if you claim the money my great uncle from Nigeria left me, that you’ll give me a little bit of that.
One of the major flaws from years passed was Apple maps. Since this failure, Apple have been working endlessly to make it an app that will be useful and great. From flyovers to road mapping, it has gotten better and better. In iOS 13 they’ve improved it even more. For America anyway. Streets will be mapped in more detail and the changes to road infrastructure will be on there. There are also changes such as being able to pin and save multiple pins for a later date. I love this as i often look up places before i head somewhere, and ATM have to save them on notes and copy, paste. With this i can save them and then it shows how far away from the pins I am in my current location. This is EPIC for me. With even more detail, Apple have made a street view possible in certain areas. Sure google have had this for quite some time but to have it all in Apple maps is a good leap forward.
"Apple street view"
One of the major differences between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X (released in the same year and approx the same time) was the addition and inclusion of memojis in the X models. These were made with the exception front camera and were only available on the X models. NOT ANYMORE … with iOS 13, any phone that can install the iOS can make and send memojis. Now they can’t be animated like on the iPhone X but being able to have them is a good step forward. Also with these they can replace emotes so you can send a Jim with heart eyes emoji to family or friends.
Memoji Emotes
There are a large number of other changes and additions to iOS 13 but id still be typing them a year later and I don’t want to waffle and bore (any more than I do anyway). I am excited and looking forward to these changes and the inclusion of news+ to the UK iOS release. I will write other blogs regarding the other operating systems and will include links on this blog for future reading.
The next we will hear about iOS 13 will be around September when the next announcement will be for the new phones, iPads, etc. I just hope I remember the software side when this comes to be.
Thank you for sticking with me this far.
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