Apple's scheduled to show off the first look of iOS 13 at WWDC 2019 on June 3, but what will the new operating system hold for iPhone? Rumors suggest that many features initially planned for iOS 12 will show up in iOS 13, codenamed "Yukon," and dark mode will be the big ticket item this year.
Dark mode is one of the most requested features these days, but it's even more important with a navigation app. If you're using Google Maps for directions while driving at night, the default white background will shock your eyes and make it harder to see the road in front of you. Thankfully, you can now enable a dark theme to make this whole process a lot safer.
A universal dark theme has long been one of the most sought-after features we've been urging Apple to introduce for iOS. While this wish went unfulfilled with iOS 12, there's renewed hope that it'll finally touch down with iOS 13's arrival. The jailbreak community, however, has had this functionality available for quite some time, and you can too if you're running the right iOS version.
When someone sends you a funny video, image, tweet, what have you, often the first thing you want to do is share it with someone else. Instead of copying the link and jumping over to another chat to do so, WhatsApp makes it easy to share content right from the thread you received it in, via the forward feature.
Back in 2015, Amazon Prime Video was the first subscription-based streaming service to introduce the ability to download movies and TV shows for offline viewing on mobile devices. For travelers and users with limited data plans that like to watch films and episodes on the go, this was a godsend. Amazon has updated its apps many times since then, but the process remains relatively the same.
Right after Apple released iOS 12.2 dev beta 6 on Monday, March 18, it seeded the public beta version. So far, from what we can tell, the sixth beta includes a patch for an Apple Pay issue and yet another update to the "About" page in Settings, this time with a new section for warranty and insurance information.
Public beta testers are in for a treat today. While Apple is extremely inconsistent with the release schedules for the developer and public betas, the company has once again released both versions of iOS 12.2 beta 5 today, March 11. If you're a public tester, you now get to experience all of iOS 12.2's new additions for yourself, instead of needing to read about them for up to 24 hours in advance.
If you're an iOS app developer, your Monday just got better; Apple just released iOS 12.2 developer beta 5 to your Software Updates today, March 11. This fifth beta includes a number of small UI changes and tweaks, and likely some degree of under-the-hood improvements and bug fixes.
Apple released iOS 12.2 beta 4 to developers on Monday, March 4, and that means public beta testers will likely get the update on Tuesday. The update features a fresh "News" app icon, a new "Apple TV Remote" tile in Control Center, and a tweaked "About" page, in addition to seemingly under-the-hood updates. If you're not yet on the beta, now's your chance to see it for yourself.
Facebook has a new dark mode for Messenger, and it's a true OLED black theme. It's was hidden away in earlier versions and you needed to either run a root hack or send a moon emoji to activate it — but now, you can enable dark mode by toggling a simple switch in Facebook Messenger's settings.
Group chats in WhatsApp are great for communicating with multiple people at once, but that can be a blessing and a curse — any message you send will be seen by everyone, and that's not always ideal. Thankfully, there's a new feature that lets you respond to group messages privately.
Stumbling upon a specifically tailored advertisement on your iPhone can be a bit disconcerting. But that's what happens when you let advertisers track your data. Some of you may appreciate more relevant ads in apps, but the rest of you might consider it a straight-up privacy invasion.
It wouldn't be iPhone season without a new controversy. Chargegate, Apple's latest PR nightmare, is the name being used for charging issues on some iPhone XS and XS Max devices. If you plug in your iPhone at night — or whenever — then wake up or come back later and see that your iPhone has even less battery power, you're affected. But there is a fix you can implement right now.
Improved security options in iOS 12 provide you with automatic password suggestions, a way to find and change weak passwords, auto-filling of 2FA codes, and Siri integration. Most of these apply to iCloud Keychain, but Apple hasn't forgotten about users of third-party password managers; In iOS 12, you can use 1Password, LastPass, and others with the AutoFill feature in websites and apps.
If you're currently running macOS 10.11 or higher on your Mac and connect your iPhone to sync with iTunes, you may get an alert saying that "a software update is required to connect to your iPhone." Here's everything you need to know about what that means, how to update your system, and what to do if updating doesn't work.
While privacy and security are cornerstones of Apple's ecosystem, your iPhone isn't bulletproof. Creating a strong passcode will protect you from most threats, but there exist tools that can break through even the toughest passcodes via the Lightning port. Luckily, Apple has implemented a new security feature to disable your Lightning port and keep your data safe and secure.
Native screen recording, one of the hottest features that Apple included in iOS 11 and later, is easily started from the optional Control Center toggle on your iPhone. From there, you can stop recording from the same place or from the red status bar or bubble. It's a very convenient addition to iOS, but there's one obvious downside — that red indicator, which can appear in your recordings.
There are some nasty iOS bugs out there, many determined to crash the Messages app. For example, in February 2018, we saw a Telugu character render the iPhone messaging app totally useless. While that bug has been fixed, the nightmare continues in a new bug, aptly dubbed the "Black Dot."
While there are at least five cool things coming in iOS 11.4, they may not be enough to get you to install the iOS 11.4 beta on your iPhone. Since its initial beta release at the start of April, there have been plenty of known issues and user-reported bugs to deal with. While bugs are to be expected with a beta, you may want to read these before installing this one on your iPhone.
Why would Magic Leap, a company preparing to launch its first augmented reality headset this year, need a developer for iPhone and iPad apps? It's not as crazy as it sounds.
HBO's Westworld has touched down on iOS as a mobile game, giving players the chance to manage their very own futuristic theme park set in the wild west. Unfortunately, the game is currently only available in select countries as a soft launch until its fully developed. But if you'd like to try out this game right now, there's a simple workaround to get Westworld on your iPhone.
Back in June 2017, Apple promised us AirPlay 2, a simple way to connect and control multiple speakers together via an iPhone or other Apple device. While the feature was included in early iOS betas, by iOS 11's official release, AirPlay 2 was nowhere to be found. After all the numerous subsequent iOS 11 updates, it's finally here in iOS 11.4.
One major problem in previous iOS versions is that there was no way to keep messages in sync between an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac. If you deleted a message in the Mac app, it would not be deleted on your iPhone, and vice versa. Apple finally fixed this issue in iOS 11.4 by storing all of the messages in iCloud, not on individual devices.
We knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when. Apple has just announced iOS 11.3, a new update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and it will include a brand-new set of Animoji for the iPhone X.
One of Apple's best products is iMessage, which allows for quick, creative, and free messaging between iOS and Mac devices. However, users are reporting that conversation threads in the Messages app are occasionally out of order, which is equal parts confusing and annoying. Luckily, we have some ideas on how to fix the problem.
Move over Venmo, Apple Pay Cash is here, and it's built right into iMessage. If you're like us, you've been eagerly waiting to give this new feature a try on your iPhone ever since Apple announced it during WWDC 2017 back in June. While it was never released in the main iOS 11 update, it finally showed up in iOS 11.2.
Apple took a giant step forward in terms of user customization with the new Control Center in iOS 11. With an improved design, buttons you can pick and choose from, and even a new default Cellular Data toggle, it's definitely a better iPhone experience. However, Apple also took a giant step backward with the confusing Bluetooth and Wi-Fi toggles.
When you take a screenshot on your iPhone in iOS 11, a thumbnail preview appears in the corner for a few seconds. Tapping on it will give you immediate editing and sharing tools, but not everyone digs the convenience.
Remember the live fish wallpapers from iOS 9? They may be a fading memory at this point since Apple removed them all from the iPhone in iOS 11, but there is a way to get those fishies animated on your device again. They'll be live photos for your lock screen, which is as good as it will get until Apple lets us use all its live wallpapers, new and old, one day, which will probably never happen.
Group messages are great when you want to talk to multiple people at the same time. However, things can get disorderly real fast in the Messages app, especially if the same person is in multiple group conversations. That's where custom group names come in, which helps you make sense of all those disorganized threads with multiple names/numbers attached.
The keyboard is one of the biggest weak points of iOS devices, in part due to the lack of an option to add a number row. Fortunately, there is a way to quickly switch between the numeric and alphabet layouts on your iPhone or iPad's keyboard.
There are a ton of new features in iOS 11, but some of the best ones, in my opinion, are in the Camera app. They're not huge features, but they're much appreciated to anyone who's ever taken a Live Photo or portrait, or even to those who've needed to scan a QR code quickly.
One major iOS 11 improvement that Apple skimped out on during its WWDC presentation was the redesigned storage management system, which makes it easy to view storage consumption in greater detail on your iPhone — and even easier to free up storage space with surgical precision.
Deleting emails can be a tedious process on the iPhone, especially since the "Trash All" options have been removed ever since iOS 10 first came out. Though likely well-intentioned, this change places an undue burden on all of us iPhone owners who now have to erase emails individually.
The latest iteration of the gaming classic, The Sims, has arrived as a soft launch for both iOS and Android in Brazil. Aptly named The Sims Mobile, this free-to-play game seems to be very faithful to the PC-based version that won it so much acclaim. There are plenty of things to do in The Sims Mobile besides the usual home and character customization, and the game also lets you interact with real life friends to fully experience its virtual world together. Maintaining relationships, whether r...
Fans of Titanfall now have a great alternative to play on their iPhones whenever they're out and about. Titanfall: Assault has arrived as a soft launch for iOS devices. A hybrid between card-based and real-time strategy genres, the game will pit you against other players with some mech-on-mech action to dominate the battlefield. Taking some cues from Clash Royale, each unit that's deployed in Titanfall: Assault will automatically fight its way through opposing forces to accomplish its objecti...
Everyone loves emojis, but some folks aren't quite happy with the way the little yellow guys look on their particular phone. In order to replace them, however, your device needs to be rooted, and you'll usually need to perform some complicated procedure that ends up making your phone hard to update since it modified a ton of files on your system partition.
Signal, the encrypted messaging app, has seen 1.4 million downloads in just the first quarter of 2017—roughly twice the downloads it received in the same period last year. Rani Molla at Recode attributes this to Donald Trump's inauguration, as the private messaging service saw a 40% increase in US downloads between Election Day and the end of the first quarter of 2017.
Microsoft, even being Apple's fierce competitor, is no stranger to producing iOS apps—in fact, they've made 94 of them. But their latest iOS app may be their silliest yet: a goofy photo editor named Sprinkles.
Don't ignore the update sitting in your Settings app; you'd be leaving your iPhone's security vulnerable.
