iOS 18 vs iOS 17: Has Apple Brought Enough Upgrades To This Generation?

Naijasoundbaze

19 Jun, 2024

Apple isn’t shying away from calling iOS 18 one of the biggest updates to the operating system in recent years. The arrival of generative AI on the scene is likely to make your iPhone a lot smarter than it has been. Moreover, the customisation aspect has been addressed vastly, thereby giving iOS the biggest visual overhaul ever since its inception.

In fact, many have been calling iOS 18 the update that blurs the line between iOS and Android! Is that true? That’s a discussion for another day. Right now, we are interested in learning about how iOS 18 differs from iOS 17, the older OS version for iPhones that has seemingly been insignificant in comparison.

iOS 17 had introduced the least upgrades in comparison and was more of an iterative update to iOS 16. Although most of you are likely to make the upgrade to the newer OS once Apple readies it for the world, wouldn’t it be interesting to know all about the actual points of differentiation between these versions of the operating system? There are more reasons than the iOS 18 AI features to consider upgrading.

Hence, our iOS 18 vs iOS 17 comparison will explore all the changes and upgrades coming to your iPhone later in 2024.

iOS 18 vs iOS 17: Dissecting the upgrades
In a basic comparison between iOS 18 and iOS 17, the former would naturally win by being a successor with superior refinements and new features. Since the developer betas of iOS 18 are only available to select app developers and beta testers, it is too early to say whether Apple has delivered a stable and efficient operating system.

Apple Intelligence AI features

Generative AI has been an important point of consideration upon which a modern operating system is evaluated, regardless of its usefulness in reality. Android popularised the idea of generative AI models integrated into the OS and as a result, most Android phones have had Gen-AI features for months. iPhones were spartan caves in comparison.
With Apple Intelligence, iOS becomes an operating system with enough street smarts baked in to stay competitive in today’s world. Most of Apple’s on-device Gen-AI features are based on a proprietary AI model and Siri’s capabilities have been extended by integrating it with GPT-4o-based ChatGPT. Features like the ability to summarise webpages, get AI-powered Writing Tools, advanced image editing and create custom images as well as emojis have made iOS 18 more interesting than its predecessor.

Customisations features

Ever since iOS 14, Apple has been slowly giving the platform more customisation options to make their iPhone unique. While iOS 17 had barely added anything to the customisation front, iOS 18 goes all in with a customisable home screen and app icon colours, just like Android.
The Control Centre has been revamped with resizable control buttons of your choice and the Controls Gallery feature adds more pages of control shortcuts. Even Siri’s interface has been changed from a floating orb to one that glows its colours along the screen’s borders. The shortcuts on the Lockscreen can also be customisable, just like Android.
In essence, iOS 18 seems to have borrowed customisation ideas solely from Android.

Hide apps

For an operating system stressing the importance of privacy, iOS 17 gave no options to the user for hiding certain apps from other users. iOS 18 rectifies that.
With iOS 18, you now get the ability to hide an app in the App Library, complete with the protection of Face ID/Touch ID. Hence, if you like to keep your banking and shopping apps away from your kids’ reach, you can do that on your iPhone.

Satellite messaging

While iOS 17 only offered emergency SOS messaging via satellite, iOS 18 now provides the option to send regular SMS messages via satellite. This will be of great importance to explorers who need to stay in touch from remote corners lacking network connectivity.

Note that this feature is only available to users of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 series devices.

RCS messaging

After getting engaged in the controversy with Google and the EU, Apple has finally given in and included RCS messaging with the iOS 18 update. For those unfamiliar, RCS messaging will allow modern texting features like reactions, emojis and multimedia file transfers while sending a text to an Android phone and vice versa. However, Apple is still using the green bubble to denote RCS messaging – the blue bubble is reserved for iMessage.

Redesigned mail app

The Mail app in iOS has always been a clutter and iOS 17 barely did anything to make it more pleasant. With iOS 18, the Mail app gets a redesigned interface that relies on advanced Machine Learning algorithms to sort your emails by category and list them under separate tabs. Hence, promotional emails are marked separately whereas emails from your contacts take up the primary section.

Along with the new Apple Intelligence-based Writing Tools, the Mail app could theoretically eradicate the need to download Gmail and Outlook separately.

Passwords app

In iOS 17, the only way you could access your app and account saved passwords was to head to the Settings app and open the Passwords section. iOS 18 makes it a lot easier by introducing the Passwords app, a standalone app holding all your sensitive data like account passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, passcodes and more. It can also check for vulnerabilities with the current passwords and come up with suggestions to make it stronger.

Game Mode

While the year of iOS 17 saw a lot of console games being ported to the platform, it did nothing to make the experience better. The issue of pestering app notifications has often been found to take away from the gameplay experience. The new Game Mode in iOS 18 will keep the notifications at bay, boost the frame rates and improve accessory responsiveness while playing video games.

Tap to Cash

iOS 17 amazed everyone with its ability to AirDrop files and contacts by tapping the top of two iPhones. iOS 18 extends that convenience with the Tap to Cash feature, which lets you make digital payments via Apple Pay to your friend by bringing the two iPhones closer and tapping their top.

Call recording and transcription

For the longest time, Apple has avoided including a native call recorder in pursuit of following its privacy guidelines. However, iOS 18 raises a conundrum by including native call recording — a feature that breaches privacy.

iOS 18 now allows users to record voice calls similar to Android phones. Along with the call recording, the OS can also generate a transcript of the conversation, which can eventually be summarised by AI. Apple says that the Phone app will notify the caller on the other side with a loud voice prompt to notify them of a recording session.

Hence, for all those who relied on third-party accessories to record calls, iOS 18 now makes it as easy as one tap away.

Should you upgrade to iOS 18?

iOS 18 is a vastly compelling upgrade over its predecessor and based on our early preview, it seems that the iPhone will now be a lot more enjoyable to live with.

However, we recommend staying away from the developer and pubic beta releases to avoid a sour first-hand experience, owing to the usual stability issues in beta software. It would be wise to wait and download it on the iPhone 15 and older compatible devices once Apple readies the public build of iOS 18 by September with the next-gen iPhone 16 series.