Along with finally revealing its move in the AI product wars, Apple showed its next operating systems at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10:
- iOS 18.
- iPad OS 18.
- macOS Sequoia.
- VisionOS 2 for Apple Vision Pro.
iOS 18, iPad OS 18 and macOS Sequoia full releases are coming in fall 2024.
iOS 18 makes cosmetic changes and adds developer options
iOS 18 will offer Android-like customization. You can change the position and color of app widgets, and icons will have their own Dark Mode color schemes. You’ll be able to customize which Controls are available on the lock screen. The Control Center is getting a new look, enabling a continuous swipe down from Control Center to media and other applications.
Developer betas of iOS 18 are available today, with public betas later this month and official releases in the fall.
SEE: iOS 18 will come with Apple Intelligence generative AI.
iOS 18 includes new privacy options for hiding and locking apps. You’ll be able to use Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode to unlock locked apps or the Hidden Apps folder. This way, you can decide what apps are accessible to anyone you hand your phone to.
iOS 18 adds device pairing options for developers
For developers, Apple is adding new privacy options for apps that may access contacts or other devices. Users will be able to decide which contacts an app can see. Developers will be able to set what options they want to offer in terms of which devices on a network their app can access when devices are being paired.
SEE: What do the 2024 iPads offer for professionals?
macOS 15 Sequoia adds AI, some quality-of-life perks
The next macOS will be Sequoia, which will receive the same customization upgrades as iOS 18. It will have Apple Intelligence, which brings generative AI capabilities such as email summarization throughout tentpole Mac applications like Mail and Pages.
Continuity, a feature which enables sharing between devices, is getting even more seamless with the ability to control an iPhone from a Mac, including interacting with apps. Sequoia has some other neat quality-of-life changes for work, such as the way dragging a window to the edge of the screen will automatically put it in a tile folded to the side so you can see the whole window.
Apple Vision Pro gets visionOS 2 and international releases
The Apple Vision Pro headset will soon be available outside of the U.S. Customers in China, Japan and Singapore will be able to buy it June 28. Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. will follow on July 12.
The new operating system for the headset will bring new developer APIs, including capabilities with which you can “pin” spatial content to physical locations for manufacturing, healthcare and other business applications. Professional photographers will have access to a couple new workflows for creating 3D-looking “spatial” content for Vision Pro.
Plus, Mac Virtual Display is getting a boost, expanding the screen area in Vision Pro to panoramic 4K for increased productivity.
