Information that Apple has big plans for iOS 18 bloombergmark garman.
In his subscriber-only Q&A section, power on Newsletter Garman said today that iOS 18 could be the “biggest” software update in iPhone history.
“I’ve heard internally that this new operating system is considered one of the biggest iOS updates, if not the biggest, in company history,” he wrote.
Garman said he plans to share more details about specific iOS 18 features and changes coming up, but there are two new features that could be included in the update, as outlined below. We already know about it.
iOS 18 will be released in September, and the first beta version for developers will be available during Apple’s annual developer conference WWDC in June.
RCS support
In November 2023, Apple announced that the iPhone’s Messages app would support the cross-platform messaging standard RCS starting in the “late second half” of 2024, so it could become a feature in iOS 18 based on that time frame.
RCS support improves the default messaging experience between iPhone and Android devices in the following ways:
- High resolution photos and videos
- voice message
- typing indicator
- read the receipt
- Wi-Fi messaging between iPhone and Android devices
- We’ve made improvements to group chats, including the ability for iPhone users to leave conversations that include Android users.
- Stronger encryption compared to SMS
These latest features are already available in iPhone-to-iPhone conversations with blue bubbles via iMessage, and many of the features are also available in third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. RCS support on iPhone extends functionality to the green bubble in the Messages app.
Smarter Siri
Garman said he expects iOS 18 to include generative AI technology that “should improve the way both Siri and the Messages app answer questions and autocomplete sentences.” He said Apple is also considering generative AI capabilities for other apps across its platforms, including his Apple Music, Pages, Keynote, and Xcode.
information Apple has reported that it plans to build an extensive language model into Siri to help users automate complex tasks. This feature includes deeper integration with the Shortcuts app. According to the report, the feature will be released in an upcoming iPhone software update (likely iOS 18) in 2024.
Generative AI surged in popularity in 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that can respond to questions and other prompts. Google and Microsoft released similar chatbots last year as more companies enter the space. Chatbots are trained on large-scale language models so they can respond like humans.
