iOS 13
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Apple just released the first iOS and iPadOS 13 beta to everyone
This is your opportunity to get a glimpse of the future of iOS — and iPadOS. Apple just released the first public beta of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, the next major version of the operating systems for the iPhone and iPad. Unlike developer betas, everyone can download those betas without a $99 developer account. But don’t forget, it’s a beta.
The company still plans to release the final version of iOS and iPadOS 13.0 this fall (usually September). But Apple is going to release betas every few weeks over the summer. It’s a good way to fix as many bugs as possible and gather data from a large group of users.
As always, Apple’s public betas closely follow the release cycle of developer betas. And Apple released the second developer beta of iOS and iPadOS 13 just last week. So it sounds like the first public beta is more or less the same build as the second developer build.
But remember, you shouldn’t install an iOS beta on your primary iPhone or iPad. The issue is not just bugs — some apps and features won’t work at all. In some rare cases, beta software can also brick your device and make it unusable. Proceed with extreme caution.
I’ve been using the developer beta of iOS and it’s still quite buggy. Some websites don’t work, some apps are broken.
But if you have an iPad or iPhone you don’t need, here’s how to download it. Head over to Apple’s beta website and download the configuration profile. It’s a tiny file that tells your iPhone or iPad to update to public betas like it’s a normal software update.
You can either download the configuration profile from Safari on your iOS device directly, or transfer it to your device using AirDrop, for instance. Reboot your device, then head over to the Settings app. In September, your device should automatically update to the final version of iOS and iPadOS 13 and you’ll be able to delete the configuration profile.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 13. This year, in addition to dark mode, it feels like every single app has been improved with some quality-of-life updates. The Photos app features a brand new gallery view with autoplaying live photos and videos, smart curation and a more immersive design.
This version has a big emphasis on privacy as well thanks to a new signup option called “Sign in with Apple” and a bunch of privacy popups for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi consent, background location tracking. Apple Maps now features an impressive Google Street View-like feature called Look Around. It’s only available in a handful of cities, but I recommend… looking around as everything is in 3D.
Many apps have been updated, such as Reminders with a brand new version, Messages with the ability to set a profile picture shared with your contacts, Mail with better text formatting options, Health with menstrual cycle tracking, Files with desktop-like features, Safari with a new website settings menu, etc. Read more on iOS 13 in my separate preview.
On the iPad front, for the first time Apple is calling iOS for the iPad under a new name — iPadOS. Multitasking has been improved, the Apple Pencil should feel snappier, Safari is now as powerful as Safari on macOS and more.
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A closer look at the best new iOS, macOS and watchOS features from WWDC
As expected, there was a lot at yesterday’s big WWDC keynote. In fact, you got the sense watching the whole thing unfold that Apple had to race through a number of its new features to cram everything into the two-hour-plus event.
For many, the new Mac Pro was the star of the show, but for Apple, the clear the focus was on software. The company is keenly aware as hardware sales slow that its future is all about software, services and content. This week at the show, we got a guided look through the best new features iOS, macOS and watchOS have to offer.
No surprise, iOS 13 brings the biggest changes of the bunch. Dark Mode is the highlight so to speak. The feature has the same selling points as it does on other operating systems — namely being easier on the eyes and the battery. With a touch in settings, users can turn set it as a constant or have it switch when the sun goes down.
The feature swaps in dark wallpapers and will work with all of Apple’s native apps. Third-party supports is coming as well and will be a part of its development platforms like Swift, going forward.
Apple Maps, a major underdog at launch, continues to get some key upgrades. Most notable is Lookaround — a competitor to Google’s longstanding Street View, which brings seamlessly stitched photographs to help users better navigate around. The feature was extremely smooth in our brief demo. It’s hard to say how it will behave on cellular networks out on the street, but the preview was certainly impressive.
Imaging is a key part of every iOS upgrade, and this one’s no different. Photo editing has been much improved, with more pro-style control over aspects like white balance, contrast, sharpening and noise reduction.
There are some handy dummy proof additions as well, like the ability to adjust saturation without impacting flesh tones. iOS’s editing tools are coming to video as well, this time out, with the ability to adjust settings and even rotate orientation. The photos app also gets a new dynamic view that groups images by occasions like birthdays, giving you another opportunity to mark the unwavering march of time.
This year’s show marked a big moment for iPad as well, as the tablet’s operating system broke free from iOS. For users, that primarily means more functionality on the larger screen, including the ability to to open up multiple windows of the same app for additional multitasking. That joins various other features like improved gesture based highlighting and cut and paste that help iPadOS behave more like a PC.
Far and away the most exciting addition here, however, is actually on the mac side. macOS Catalina brings Duet/Luna style second screen functionality to the tablet, letting it serve as an external monitor. The feature can be used wirelessly (over bluetooth) or tethered.
Our demo was the latter (WWDC is a busy place for wireless signals), but operated pretty flawlessly in spite of some complicated demands. With an iPad Pro, users can draw with the Apple Pencil. There’s also a handy Touch Bar-style menu tray at that populates the bottom of the iPad display.
A couple of watchOS additions are worth mentioning, as well. The most significant is native menstrual cycle tracking. The feature, which is also coming to iOS, gives users a way to keep track of another key aspect of health.
Other additions to the wearable operating system include a native app for audiobooks and a noise app that uses the watch’s built in mics to alert wearers of loud sounds that can lead to hearing loss.
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Apple announces iOS 13 with dark mode, updated Apple apps and privacy features
Apple shared some of the new features that you’ll get with the release of iOS 13 this fall. There are a ton of small and big feature updates, and it felt like Apple executives were rushing through the presentation because there are so many things to announce.
“iOS 13 is a huge release packed with lots of capabilities,” VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said. But Federighi immediately started with performance improvements.
For instance, Face ID is 30 percent faster. Downloads and updates on the App Store are a lot smaller. Updates are 60 percent smaller on average because your iPhone won’t download the full app every time you get an update. And apps should launch twice as fast.
Dark mode and low-level improvements
Many apps have already adopted dark mode. But Apple is adding system-wide dark mode for iOS 13. With a simple button in Control Center, you’ll be able to switch from a light interface to a dark interface. Native apps, such as Music, Messages and Calendar have all been updated to support dark mode.
Notifications and widgets look darker. When you open an app, Apple is using a solid black background, which should look good on an OLED screen as it won’t emit any light.
The native keyboard now supports typing by swiping from one letter to another. The share sheet has been redesigned with intelligent suggestions based on your most important contacts. In the Music app, you can now see scrolling lyrics.
Apple apps get updated
When it comes to first-party apps, Safari has options to change text sizing and settings per website. Mail gets rich text editing. Notes gets a gallery view and folders.
Reminders has been completely redesigned. There’s a new quick type bar to add a task. You can indent tasks below bigger tasks. You can also tag people — they receive a notification in iMessage.
Apple’s Meg Frost also showed the new version of Apple Maps. In addition to improved data in some parts of the U.S., there’s a feature that works just like Google Street View called Look Around. Moving from one location to another in Look Around is incredibly smooth.
There are more updates to Apple Maps, such as the ability to share your ETA with friends, collections of favorite places, the ability to share lists with friends, etc.
Apple will map the U.S. with its own data by the end of 2019, other countries will be upgraded later.
Privacy, privacy, privacy
Apple is updating location tracking in apps. You can share your location with an app just once. Third-party developers soon won’t be able to share details about your Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth signal, which should put an end to many privacy scandals.
Apple is also going to compete with “Sign in with Facebook” or “Sign in with Google” by introducing “Sign in with Apple.” This way, you can create an account without sharing personal information. You can even share a randomly generated email address that relays emails to your real email address.
HomeKit is also becoming more private. With HomeKit Secure Video, you can store up to 10 days of security camera footage in your iCloud account. Apple doesn’t have the keys, and footage doesn’t count against your storage. Logitech, Netatmo and others will support that feature.
In order to make HomeKit devices more secure, Apple is bringing HomeKit to routers so that connected devices don’t always have to talk to the internet directly.
iMessage gets more personal
iMessage still feels like an improved version of SMS. Apple is going to make it more like WhatsApp. With iOS 13, you’ll be able to add a profile picture and share it with your contacts, and you’ll get to control who can see your profile picture.
Apple is using this opportunity to improve Memoji with more customization options. And the company is going one step further by copying Bitmoji and creating stickers with your Memoji.
Photos
On the photo front, Apple is adding a new portrait lighting effect — and portrait lighting will become more customizable. The camera app is getting more pro features with buttons to control saturation, highlights, shadows, etc. All of this will be available for videos, as well. And Instagram users will love that you’ll be able to rotate videos.
When it comes to your photo library, iOS automatically hides duplicates photos to keep the best shot. There’s also a new tab to explore your photo library. Navigating your library feels more fluid with autoplaying video vignettes. There’s a new tab bar so that you can see highlights from the past years, months and days.
Siri gets smarter
Apple is adding more voice features across the board. For instance, when you receive a message and you’re wearing AirPods, you can hear the message you just received and reply.
If you want to watch a video or listen to music together, you can share audio with someone else who has an iPhone and a pair of AirPods. I don’t think it means that you’ll be able to stream music to two pairs of AirPods — you still need two iOS devices (update: nope, you can pair two pairs of AirPods with one iOS device).
On the HomePod front, you can tap your phone on your HomePod to send audio to your HomePod. The smart speaker is also getting support for live radio stations — I can’t believe it wasn’t already available. You’ll finally be able to set up multiple users for the HomePod to control your own calendar, messages, music and get personalized results.
CarPlay is also receiving an update with better Siri features. You can now control third-party apps, such as Pandora or Waze, with Siri. And the Siri animation doesn’t fill up the entire screen anymore.
On iOS 13, the Shortcuts app will be installed by default. You’ll get recommendations for shortcuts that could help you. And Siri should sound better overall with new voice-generating software.
There are plenty of other new features in iOS 13, especially on the iPad. If you want to read more about iPadOS, read our separate post.
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Apple’s iOS 13 will include a system-wide Dark Mode
Apple’s iOS 13 is getting a dark mode, the company announced today at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose. Confirming an earlier leak, the new dark mode will be system-wide and can be turned on or off from iOS’s Settings or through a new Control Center toggle. Once enabled, Dark Mode will change the color of the Home screen dock, the background colors of iOS screens, and Apple’s built-in apps like Apple Music, Notes, Messages, Photos, Calendar, Music and more.
Other system features have also been prepped for Dark Mode like the dock and share sheet, so it’s a seamless experience.
Meanwhile, Apple iOS developers will be able to customize their own apps for Dark Mode by way of Apple’s newly announced framework, SwiftUI, also announced today.
Dark themes for apps have become fairly popular, thanks to the rise of OLED smartphones in recent years. Because a dark mode lights up fewer pixels, it can help conserve battery life on phones’ OLED screens. Dark themes may have other benefits as well, in terms of decreasing device addiction and improving sleep, some claim.
Apple is not the first to launch a system-wide dark mode, however. At Google’s developer conference in May, the company introduced Dark Theme for Android Q which will work across its mobile OS and in first-party Android apps, with developers able to code for it in their own applications.
Several third-party apps today support darker themes of their own, including Twitter, YouTube, Google, Medium, Reddit, Wikipedia, Instapaper, Pocket, IMDb, iBooks, Kindle, Google Maps, Waze and Opera Mini.
Below is the leaked image of Dark Mode for comparison:
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Leaked screenshots confirm dark mode is coming to iOS 13
9to5Mac’s Guilherme Rambo managed to obtain screenshots of iOS 13. While it still looks like iOS, there’s a twist — there will be a system-wide dark mode to make your apps look better at night. Apple is expected to announce the new version of iOS at its WWDC keynote on Monday.
With iOS 13, users can enable dark mode in the Settings app or with a toggle in Control Center — you may have to add the Control Center button in the Settings app first.
And here’s what it’ll look like according to 9to5Mac’s screenshots:
As you can see, the home screen doesn’t change much, except the dock at the bottom. But the Music app looks completely different with white text on top of a black background. The tab bar at the bottom also switches from transparent white to transparent black. Apple still uses red for buttons and links, which makes the app slightly less readable.
Enabling dark mode also affects user interface elements at the operating system level. When you take a screenshot and tap on the screenshot thumbnail, top and bottom menus are dark, for instance. Developers should be able to support dark mode in third-party apps as well.
In other news, Rambo also shared a screenshot of the new version of the Reminders app. It now features four different menus — today, scheduled, all and flagged. The user interface has been refreshed as well.
Finally, 9to5Mac also confirms a previous scoop with the icon of a new app called “Find My.” Apple plans to merge Find My Friends and Find My iPhone into a single app on both the iPhone and iPad.
Rumor has it that there will be more fundamental changes with iOS 13. Apple plans to let you open multiple windows of the same app. This way, users will be able to work on multiple documents or see multiple conversations at the same time. This will be a key new feature for iPad users in particular.
You can also expect smaller updates to Safari, Mail, font management, the volume indicator, the keyboard, etc.
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