Apple has begun pushing iOS 13 and watchOS 6 to supported iPhones and Apple Watches. Both updates bring substantial changes—especially iOS 13—and mark the beginning of a new annual update cycle.
While it may take some time, most users should see iOS 13 become available in the Settings apps on their iPhones or iPod touches by the end of the day today. The watchOS update will pop up in the Watch app on iPhones that are connected to an Apple Watch.
We’ve been able to observe this divergence starting in iOS 9 with Split View multitasking and Apple Pencil, and the transition continued with iOS 11 and its drag and drop-infused environment. It was only natural (and well-deserved) for the iPad to begin advancing in a parallel direction to iOS – informed and inspired by it, but also capable of growing on its own and tackling problems that an iPhone doesn’t have to solve.
From this standpoint, there are two sides to iOS 13: on one hand, an underlying tide that raises all platforms, featuring a distillation of themes Apple comes back to on an annual basis; on the other, a fork in the road, opening a new path for the iPad’s next decade. And against this backdrop, a single question looms large:
Can Apple balance both?
In my own experience with iOS 13.0, which was running on the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro phones, I've run into some minor issues, including apps crashing or freezing, menu items from apps lingering on the page even when I go back to the Home screen, and a stubborn cursor when I’m trying to edit text. Deleting apps is also completely unintuitive in iOS 13: When you long press on an app, it first shows you the option to share the app or rearrange it, before the apps begin to wiggle and display the familiar “X” for deletion.
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It might not be a bad idea to wait for iOS 13.1.
iOS 12 was supposed to represent a new vision for Apple, a solid foundation of stability that would have paved the way for a revolutionary version of its mobile software. But iOS 13 hasn’t lived up to those promises. There are some new privacy and security features that are genuinely interesting and look to continue on the path that Apple started down last year with its promises of more responsible software. But for the most part, it’s a largely minor update that’s more sizzle than steak. When a dark mode is the biggest feature in the update, that’s a pretty lackluster year.
The main focus of the Photos interface is the Photos section, which is now populated by default with a curated selection of your photos. You’ll find a set of tabs that let you choose whether to view Years, Months, Days, or All Photos.
And while professionals using the iPhone to shoot video are probably going to mostly rely on more powerful third-party apps, it’s great that these features are in reach for everybody. Because now, when you do need to flip, rotate, adjust, or re-crop an image, you can do it with all the ease of editing a photo.
Depending on the app, the menu will be different, but apps don’t enter jiggly mode like they used to. But never fear: it’s just that they don’t enter it right away. You can still get to jiggly mode pretty easily, and there are a few different ways to do it.
The reason Apple implemented this is because Bluetooth has enabled companies to sneakily track your location over Bluetooth by using beacons in stores, shopping malls, and even on popular city streets if they’re placed within range of a place you’d walk by.
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Apps that support Google’s Chromecast streaming platform often ask for Bluetooth access as well. While Chromecast streams content over Wi-Fi, the platform has a “guest mode” that makes it convenient for visitors to play videos or audio on your TV without having to know your home network password. But to find nearby Chromecasts for guest mode, these apps use Bluetooth.
Apple has today released iOS 13 for the iPhone, and watchOS 6 for the Apple Watch, and you can see our roundups for an overview of the new features you can start using right now. However, there’s a lot more still to come as Apple is staggering the software update schedule this year.
All games within Apple Arcade are free of in-app advertising and in-app purchases. Apple Arcade titles are also playable offline, meaning that users won't need to worry about busting through their data caps.
Apple says that no game service has ever launched with so many games. Apple Arcade gives players a chance to check out over 100 games from over 35 different gaming studios. Some of the most notable studios include Bossa Studios, Disney, Konami, Lego, Sega, and more.
But Apple Arcade does create an avenue for indie developers to pursue ambitious games that people will actually discover and play. It snaps into existence a business model that rewards ingenuity over compulsion. And it rewards games that are purposefully constructed with iOS devices in mind—rather than a slapdash port over from another platform—making the overall experience of playing those games more coherent. All for fivse bucks a month. Not bad.
Apple Inc. has been renovating its iconic store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue for almost three years, and when it opens to the public on Friday customers will likely notice new aesthetics, including 20-foot trees, plant walls and skylights that bring daylight into the subterranean space. But the most popular change may well be two new entrances, subtly placed on the north and south side of the store across the street from the Plaza Hotel.
Trees and natural light feature heavily in the updated store.
Cook counted down to the 8am EST opening with fans, then pushed open the large glass doors to let customers inside the refurbished Apple Store. He even threw out high fives as people filed into the store to buy their new handsets and Apple Watches Series 5s.
"Although Apple's cores aren't the biggest, they continue to lead in mobile performance," noted Gwennap earlier this year in The Microprocessor Report. And at the time he wrote that, he was talking about the A12 chip. The A13 performs about 20 percent better.
So the takeaway here is that specs and benchmarks don't take into account Apple's real advantages—tight integration into the device, and the company's development strategy for squeezing more runtime out of its batteries while boosting the performance of key apps.
Do you have an aging iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch that you want to keep using—and keep covered by AppleCare? The good news is that if you previously bought AppleCare+ for your device, you can now extend that coverage indefinitely on a monthly basis when the plan ends.
Happy iPhone day.
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Thanks for reading.