Apple released iOS 18 on Sept. 16, a week after the company announced its new iPhone 16 lineup, Apple Watch Series 10 and more at its September event. The operating system brings a lot of new features to your iPhone, like more ways to customize your home screen and updates to the Messages app.
Read more: Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18
I’ve used the operating system since it was released in beta after WWDC. In that time, I’ve explored the features Apple mentioned at its event, and I uncovered a few other features the company didn’t mention.
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Here’s what you should know about the new features and improvements iOS 18 brings to your iPhone.
Customizable home and lock screens
You’ve been able to customize your iPhone’s home and lock screens with widgets and different backgrounds, iOS 18 lets you customize your home screen’s apps and layout, as well as your phone’s lock screen functions.
During the WWDC Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, showed how iOS 18 lets you arrange your iPhone’s apps and widgets on your home screen however you want. Previously, these icons would fill your home screen from top to bottom, sometimes obstructing backgrounds you might like. iOS 18 lets you arrange your icons around your background or in any way you want — something Android has offered for many years.
You can also easily customize the appearance of your app’s icons. You can give your icons a dark mode filter, or tint your icons to match your wallpaper.
The operating system also lets you swap out the camera and flashlight functions on your iPhone’s lock screen. That way you aren’t accidentally turning your iPhone’s flashlight on while putting it in your pocket — but you might open another app instead.
More from WWDC
Updated Control Center
Apple also announced at WWDC that iOS 18 updates your iPhone’s Control Center. With the operating system, you can access more controls for things, like whatever music you’re listening to and specific apps. You can also change which apps you see, as well as their size, so you have quicker access to the buttons you use more often.
Messages gets an upgrade
Your iPhone’s Messages app also gets an update with iOS 18. With the latest operating system, you can schedule messages to send later, react to messages with more Tapbacks and format messages and specific words in your messages with text effects. If you want to emphasize something in a text, you can bold it, underline or use other effects to get your point across.
The OS also brings Messages via satellite to many iPhones. The feature works similarly to Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite feature introduced on the iPhone 14 and 15 series. Emergency SOS is for making an emergency call even if you don’t have a signal, but Messages via satellite will let you send a message to anyone, even without a signal. So you can message your spouse or parents to let them know how your camping trip is going.
Apple also brings RCS — rich communication support — to Messages, so your iPhone will play nice with your friend or family member’s Android device.
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