iOS 18 Seven Months Later: Customization and Notes App Impress, Apple Intelligence Not So Much
I still really like the customizable home screen.
One of the big changes iOS 18 brought to iPhones was more options to customize different iPhone screens, but the home screen customization was my favorite. I made a few changes to my home screen when Apple released iOS 18, and I’ve never looked back.
The first change was orienting everything to the right-side of my screen. I’m right-handed so this change makes it easier to access my apps — I can’t reach the top row so that’s where all my widgets are. I also enabled dark icons, as well as large icons. These are more aesthetic choices, as opposed to right-oriented apps, but at this point I can’t imagine going back to my home screen before iOS 18.
Tapbacks are better than ever
The expanded Tapbacks feature — Apple’s version of reactions — is probably my most used new feature in iOS 18. I used Tapbacks before Apple released iOS 18, but the heart was the only one that felt unmistakable in its translation. I always felt the others could be interpreted as passive-aggressive or even rude. And others seemed to agree with this assessment.
Conversions are a small but helpful feature in iOS 18’s Calculator app.
Apple overhauled the Calculator app when it released iOS 18. One of the major changes in the app is it now lets people perform conversions without accessing the internet, which is helpful so you don’t have to look up a conversion rate.
But Apple also removed the ability to repeat operations in the Calculator when it released iOS 18. It was a small feature, but as soon as it was removed I wasn’t happy — along with many others.
Thankfully, Apple brought the feature back with iOS 18.3. I’m happy it’s back, but I also wonder why it was removed in the first place.
While Apple made a lot of good improvements with iOS 18 that are still fun and useful more than seven months later, there are a few features I think could be improved on.
Some screen customization options are fine but not perfect
In addition to a more customizable home screen, Apple also introduced the ability to customize the lock screen and Control Center with iOS 18, but I haven’t found these to be as useful as I’d hoped.
If you ever accidentally turned your flashlight on from your lock screen — like me — you’d think customizing your lock screen would help avoid these accidents, but it hasn’t. If I change my flashlight control to another control, then I’ll just accidentally open another app instead of the flashlight. I could get rid of the control, but I’ve grown accustomed to having it and my Sports control on my lock screen so removing it would be inconvenient and cause me more work to find those controls.
The grayed-out date means I can’t send this message for that date yet.
This is one of those features I’ve wanted in Messages for a while. I was so happy when Apple announced it was coming in iOS 18, and it’s been a great feature to have. This feature has been useful when I’ve wanted to message friends in different time zones, but I don’t want to wake them up or forget to message them.
If I had one complaint about this feature, it’s that you can’t schedule something to send more than two weeks in advance. That’s fine for sending a message later that day like when someone gets off work, but if I remember someone’s birthday is in a few weeks and I want to make sure I send them a message, I’ll have to find another way to remember. I wish that window was larger, even by a few more weeks.
I’m not impressed by Apple Intelligence
For as big of a deal as Apple made of Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, I haven’t found any of the new features to be particularly helpful or even necessary. And I’m not alone. According to a survey from the trade journal SellCell, 73% of iPhone owners claim that AI features “add little to no value” to their phone experiences.
Some of these features, like Genmoji and Image Playground, arrived with iOS 18.2 in December, and I used them then but not much since.
I guess you could grow flowers out of kitchen pots if you wanted to.
These AI features also raise ethical concerns for me, like bias within the models and copyright infringement for generated images.
Bias within models can affect our behaviors and decisions. When OpenAI released GPT-4, that model’s system card said it could “represent various societal biases and worldviews that may not be representative of the user’s intent.” Models could therefore present harmful stereotypes as facts without a wider dataset or oversight. And I don’t want to risk perpetuating these stereotypes in any way.
Some image-generating models are also trained on copyrighted material. OpenAI told the UK’s House of Lords “it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.” Some might argue the Fair Use doctrine allows for these models to train on copyrighted material, but I don’t want to potentially contribute to an artist or creator not getting paid for their work.
Until Apple Intelligence and other AI models are ethically sound, I don’t want to use them more than I have to. And thankfully Apple lets you turn Apple Intelligence off — which I have.
What do I want from iOS 19?
While Apple is reportedly working on drastically changing iOS 19, I don’t think a complete remodel is necessary. If anything, iOS 18 has shown me that smaller, quality of life changes can be better than larger, more substantial adjustments. Apple’s iOS has a solid foundation, and I’d like Apple to focus on making more practical changes, like introducing a clipboard history or giving Notes a revision history, to have a successful iOS 19.
For more on iOS 18, here’s my initial review and our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
