With the announcement of iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and the iPhone Xr all of which completely adopts the company’s new bezel-less hardware philosophy, the OS that it ships with them should be put under the microscope as well. This is important because the overall experience with this relatively young hardware redesign hinges a lot on the software. The iOS 12 that they’re going to be shipping with, therefore, is a huge key to its success.
iOS 11, the company’s mobile platform, seems to be out of reach for the second most prolific mobile OS in Android, with a whopping 75% lead. Even if Android devices outnumber Apple's in sheer volume, the high adoption rate of the latest iOS indicates a lot of good things for the Cupertino giant. In a way, this is an indication that consumers of Apple trust the company's judgment when it comes to the future of mobile computing. This makes each and every iOS version update an earth shaking event in the world of mobile computing.
It has been incredible for the current generation of iPhones. It’s fast, intuitive, and highly efficient for iPhones 8 and below. In general, the gestures are refined and the animations are quick on iPhones with home buttons. But on the all-screen and home button-less iPhone X, however, the implementation has been flawed.
iOS 12 Enhancements
The iPhone X with iOS 11 was a great product. However, being so new and revolutionary, it was bound to encounter some hiccups along the way. The notch, for example, made it impossible for Apple to show previously displayable items. The do not disturb, rotation lock, and alarms indicators, for example, no longer had space on the status bar. To some people, this is a big deal as knowing whether this functions are on or off are important smartphone functions.
Unfortunately, these grievances are still present as the notch has not gone anywhere with the new phones. However, there are other UX improvements that could possibly compensate for the lack of status bar space.
The newest iPhones are expected to ship with iOS 12. Knowing what the OS has to offer is important news because it’s going to have a huge effect on the user experience.
The app switcher is more efficient.
Multitasking has been one of the main points of complaints about the iPhone X on iOS 11. Swiping up on the home bar and waiting for the multitasking view to appear takes longer than the previous way to do it by tapping on the home button twice. This is because the phone is trying to make sure that you didn't swipe up to go back to the home screen. While the wait for multitasking view is not terribly lengthy, it's still long enough to notice which takes a little bit away from the experience.
Finally, grouped notifications!
One of the biggest gripes that iOS users have with their devices is their lack of efficient notification management system. Each notification that a user receives just gets filed chronologically inside the notification center. This is inefficient as it tends to bury important notifications if you get a lot of them.
In iOS 12, Apple finally adopts a notification system similar to the one Android has already implemented in their devices long ago. The completely reworked iOS 12 notification system groups notifications according to apps and arranges them chronologically within the group. Users can then choose to interact either with each individual notifications or as a group.
Apple kicks things up a notch and introduces a theme group notification. This means that when notifications are related, the OS groups them together as well. This is an additional feature that only iOS has implemented.
ARKit 2.0
Apple’s new OS together with the extremely powerful A12 and A12 bionic chipsets enhances the iPhones’ augmented reality capabilities. One promising application of this is the built-in measurement app in iOS 12. The app lets users measure length, volume, and area of a particular object or space in real time using the futuristic technology.
Furthermore, iOS 12 comes with a new augmented reality file format that should work across all Apple systems called USDZ. It’s should make superimposing whatever 3D-rendered model of a certain item a lot easier to share and access.
It now supports multiple Face-ID recognition.
On recent iPhones with home buttons, Touch-ID supported multiple finger support. This essentially means users who wish to give others access to their phones can do so by registering their fingers on the phone. In iPhone X on iOS 11, only one face can be registered.
Multiple facial recognition support is an important addition to the new OS version as it allows another user to register their face to unlock the device. It’s an important feature to have for spouses or partners who wish to grant phone access to their significant others.
Improved performance
The optimized performance isn’t only for the new all-screen iPhones. Even older iPhones are also going to feel the benefits of the new iOS 12 performance wise. The Cupertino giant claims that the new OS would help older iPhones perform up to twice as fast under heavy loads. It also makes the camera launch faster, and keyboards to display a lot quicker.
This makes one wonder that maybe the iOS 12 is a lot lighter than the previous generation of iOS. This would definitely make the A12 Bionic chip-equipped iPhones exponentially faster than earlier ones.
Verdict
iPhone X was basically a first-gen product for Apple as it was such a huge change hardware wise. The company had to tweak and adjust the entire iOS that was partly designed for the bezel-laden iPhones of the past to work with the all-screen handsets. The iOS 11, therefore, had a bit of a compromised user-experience for the iPhone X.
The combination of new iPhones announcements and the new iOS 12, as always, is going to make a splash in the smartphone world. But, we have seen the blueprint of the hardware before. However, we're just seeing glimpses of the iOS 12 in beta tests.
So far, we're liking how the new OS is looking. The various improvements from iOS 11 like the multiple face support and more efficient app switcher and multitasking look like it's going to make the user experience on the new iPhone designs a lot better than how the iPhone X initially felt like.
iOS 11, the company’s mobile platform, seems to be out of reach for the second most prolific mobile OS in Android, with a whopping 75% lead. Even if Android devices outnumber Apple's in sheer volume, the high adoption rate of the latest iOS indicates a lot of good things for the Cupertino giant. In a way, this is an indication that consumers of Apple trust the company's judgment when it comes to the future of mobile computing. This makes each and every iOS version update an earth shaking event in the world of mobile computing.
It has been incredible for the current generation of iPhones. It’s fast, intuitive, and highly efficient for iPhones 8 and below. In general, the gestures are refined and the animations are quick on iPhones with home buttons. But on the all-screen and home button-less iPhone X, however, the implementation has been flawed.
iOS 12 Enhancements
The iPhone X with iOS 11 was a great product. However, being so new and revolutionary, it was bound to encounter some hiccups along the way. The notch, for example, made it impossible for Apple to show previously displayable items. The do not disturb, rotation lock, and alarms indicators, for example, no longer had space on the status bar. To some people, this is a big deal as knowing whether this functions are on or off are important smartphone functions.
Unfortunately, these grievances are still present as the notch has not gone anywhere with the new phones. However, there are other UX improvements that could possibly compensate for the lack of status bar space.
The newest iPhones are expected to ship with iOS 12. Knowing what the OS has to offer is important news because it’s going to have a huge effect on the user experience.
The app switcher is more efficient.
Multitasking has been one of the main points of complaints about the iPhone X on iOS 11. Swiping up on the home bar and waiting for the multitasking view to appear takes longer than the previous way to do it by tapping on the home button twice. This is because the phone is trying to make sure that you didn't swipe up to go back to the home screen. While the wait for multitasking view is not terribly lengthy, it's still long enough to notice which takes a little bit away from the experience.
Finally, grouped notifications!
One of the biggest gripes that iOS users have with their devices is their lack of efficient notification management system. Each notification that a user receives just gets filed chronologically inside the notification center. This is inefficient as it tends to bury important notifications if you get a lot of them.
In iOS 12, Apple finally adopts a notification system similar to the one Android has already implemented in their devices long ago. The completely reworked iOS 12 notification system groups notifications according to apps and arranges them chronologically within the group. Users can then choose to interact either with each individual notifications or as a group.
Apple kicks things up a notch and introduces a theme group notification. This means that when notifications are related, the OS groups them together as well. This is an additional feature that only iOS has implemented.
ARKit 2.0
Apple’s new OS together with the extremely powerful A12 and A12 bionic chipsets enhances the iPhones’ augmented reality capabilities. One promising application of this is the built-in measurement app in iOS 12. The app lets users measure length, volume, and area of a particular object or space in real time using the futuristic technology.
Furthermore, iOS 12 comes with a new augmented reality file format that should work across all Apple systems called USDZ. It’s should make superimposing whatever 3D-rendered model of a certain item a lot easier to share and access.
It now supports multiple Face-ID recognition.
On recent iPhones with home buttons, Touch-ID supported multiple finger support. This essentially means users who wish to give others access to their phones can do so by registering their fingers on the phone. In iPhone X on iOS 11, only one face can be registered.
Multiple facial recognition support is an important addition to the new OS version as it allows another user to register their face to unlock the device. It’s an important feature to have for spouses or partners who wish to grant phone access to their significant others.
Improved performance
The optimized performance isn’t only for the new all-screen iPhones. Even older iPhones are also going to feel the benefits of the new iOS 12 performance wise. The Cupertino giant claims that the new OS would help older iPhones perform up to twice as fast under heavy loads. It also makes the camera launch faster, and keyboards to display a lot quicker.
This makes one wonder that maybe the iOS 12 is a lot lighter than the previous generation of iOS. This would definitely make the A12 Bionic chip-equipped iPhones exponentially faster than earlier ones.
Verdict
iPhone X was basically a first-gen product for Apple as it was such a huge change hardware wise. The company had to tweak and adjust the entire iOS that was partly designed for the bezel-laden iPhones of the past to work with the all-screen handsets. The iOS 11, therefore, had a bit of a compromised user-experience for the iPhone X.
The combination of new iPhones announcements and the new iOS 12, as always, is going to make a splash in the smartphone world. But, we have seen the blueprint of the hardware before. However, we're just seeing glimpses of the iOS 12 in beta tests.
So far, we're liking how the new OS is looking. The various improvements from iOS 11 like the multiple face support and more efficient app switcher and multitasking look like it's going to make the user experience on the new iPhone designs a lot better than how the iPhone X initially felt like.