YES. This is HUGE for me. I hope developers can do something similar with CloudKit too, where they can make the option accessible in their apps. (Ulysses is one app I think could benefit from that, but I’m sure there are others.)
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This is the kind of thing that I like to see. Every year, Apple pushes iPadOS forward and makes it ever more capable. This is another item I can check off my iPadOS wishlist.
Be aware that a lot of file operations are afforded to third-party developers if they make use of them. I watched a WWDC talk on this topic:
If third party developers would work to make their iPad apps first-class, I think we’d see a world of difference in how people talk about iPad. I’ve mentioned in the past, that the bulk of trouble spots I have run into on iPad these days are failings of third-party apps, not the OS or first party apps.
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I am not so sure that I like the idea of the new AI “assisted” Photos App. Where, for instance, will i find the photos and screenshots that I have taken this morning? Sounds as if they could reside in separate places.
Semi-related: I heard there’s a new iCloud feature that lets you force it to leave full copies of files in local storage in specific folders. I’m hoping this will make iCloud syncing of apps like Logseq useable.
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I couldn’t agree more
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I liked all of the new iOS 18. I thought it was interesting.
Some of my favorite things that I like. Which probably aren’t a big deal to other people are:
Calendar app month view - I used week cal for years , but they went subscription and I didn’t want to pay for it anymore so I went back to the iOS calendar. I loved week cal for there month calendar view.
Reminders in the calendar- on the fence about that but it might be helpful.
Notes- love how you can now use different color text. And all the other changes to it.
Tapback - nice how you can add emojis
Messages- sending messages with line through them.
All the Ai stuff is interesting, but so far I’m happy with the little things.
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+1
I’ve been using a calendar with that feature for some time.
Those were my thought as well. A lot of quality of life improvements that make it easier to use. For me, having a separate passwords app will also be very useful.
Apple is an imperfect company because it is run by imperfect human beings but, to borrow from this article’s title, I think what Apple is doing to protect user’s privacy is “extraordinary.”
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So just clarifying here - the new voice transcription is an “Apple Intelligence” feature, which means my current iPhone 15 (non-Pro) will NOT be able to use it, correct?
Yep. I’d have to buy new iPhones and Macs (except my wife’s) here and I think a new iPad as well to use Apple Intelligence. All of this obsolescence is probably why Apple stock jumped up so much on Tuesday.
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Yes, the finance guys are expecting a lot of people to upgrade in the fall. But how many people are going to do that when they realize that the new Siri and some other software upgrades aren’t expected to roll out until sometime next year.
I think that the AI thing is probably as good of an excuse as any for somebody who is already planning to Upgrade, or Is on the fence.
That said, it is rather disappointing that my iPhone 15 – a current-year non-SE phone - will not be able to run the majority of the features. Given that just a few months ago the people in the Apple Store were literally telling customers that the main difference between the 15 and the Pro was the camera, and they should make decisions on that basis, I can’t imagine that this will be fantastic for Apple’s goodwill among consumers.
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I think it will depend on Siri living up to WWDC’s promise. If it does, a lot of people will want to upgrade especially if next year’s M5 comes out.
I don’t know. I think the type of customer asking Apple which device to buy probably isn’t the same that is going to care all that much about AI, at least initially until/unless it proves successful.
Also I don’t really fault the sales team on the floor because they had no way of knowing the requirements of the future iOS.
And finally, we’ve seen Apple walk those decisions back before. Wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn down the line that older phones will be able to perform a subset of the tasks (especially the stuff that just reaches out to their private cloud).
I am not faulting the sales staff. That’s not my point.
The point is that nobody had any reasonable belief that Apple would release software features in the next operating system that would completely shut out a phone that is still for sale as a current-year phone.
It’s not like it’s one small feature. It’s most of the improvements in iOS 18.
Right now, it is the tech press that is going over the stuff. But in the fall, when the average person gets told to upgrade to iOS 18 and they see that all of the AI stuff doesn’t work with the phone they bought less than a year ago, I don’t think that is going to land well with the public.
Apple is still fighting the public perception that they designed their devices with planned obsolescence in mind. This will not do anything to help that.
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I’m sorry that’s happening to you. I’d feel the same way.
That probably seemed true at the time running the then-current OS, especially for most people, but unlike in a carrier store, you’d expect Apple Store employees to at least mention the processor difference.
Things got weird when Apple started putting the previous year’s processor in the standard iPhones, because from a processor standpoint (and more than likely future iOS and security updates) it was like buying the previous year’s model used to be.
Most years that doesn’t matter all that much, but it increases the risk of being left behind with a still very new phone when something groundbreaking like AI is suddenly introduced.
Well, and that’s the other thing…from what I can determine based on reading, it’s not the processor at all. It’s the RAM. I know, I know, technically the SoC is a single unit, so it’s all together. But the processor boosts year-over-year aren’t really that significant. 6 GB in the iPhone 15 vs. 8 GB in the iPhone 15 Pro, however, makes the difference when loading the LLMs and such into memory.
AFAIK Apple store employees wouldn’t even be able to point out that difference, because Apple doesn’t actually publish their chip specs and their employees wouldn’t use third party info as part of a sales conversation.
But even if the processor had been pointed out, given that Apple has a good history of iOS supporting devices going back at least 5 years (iOS 17 goes back to the XR), I’ve never been worried about the next iOS having major software features that broke based on the processor. Somebody pointing out that the “Pro” had 33% more RAM, however, probably would have caused me to drop the extra couple hundred dollars as that’s a quality-of-life improvement no matter what.
That all said, I’m actually not that stressed out about it for my personal use case. It’s disappointing, not catastrophic. The one thing I was hoping for was better dictation, and I’ll probably just buy WhisperNotes or whatever it’s called and call it good. If I need to, I’ll take the Apple trade-in. I’m guessing it’ll be $400-$500.
But Apple is literally handing people the “planned obsolescence” argument that they’ve been battling for years. On a silver platter. Optically, it looks like a cash grab because Apple - who historically specs RAM on devices low in order to sell upgrades - was too cheap to properly-spec the A16 in anticipation of the upcoming AI needs.
I don’t think it was that intentional, but it’s not good that the argument holds water on some level.
I agree. I hope that at least some AI features will be available to older (!!) devices off-device via Apple’s secure AI cloud. It’s not like Apple didn’t know this was coming, although I expect they may have been caught by surprise at the speed of Microsoft and Google’s deployments.
Performance may be an issue, and the need for a connection, but if it’s as secure as Apple claims it to be it should not offer any particular risks. And it will be optional.
Whether Apple care enough for legacy devices remains to be seen.
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