Apple WWDC 2018: Apple Shows Off iOS 12 With High Speed & Performance, Even On Your Old iPhone

As expected, at Apple's annual developer focused event WWDC 2018, the Cupertino giant unveiled a whole bevy of software announcements, most important of which was the iOS 12.

Apple claims that iOS 12, the latest version of its mobile operating system, is designed to make all everyday tasks faster and more responsive than ever before.

In Apple's own words, iOS 12 packs in a ton of AR functionality, makes communications fun and expressive with Memoji and Group FaceTime, and with Screen Time, helps customers understand and take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices.

Apple's iOS 12 also introduces Siri Shortcuts, enabling Siri to work with any app, delivering a much faster way to get things done. Siri getting smarter is always good news!

More importantly, the major productivity gains in iOS 12 will be made available to the oldest supported devices -- as far back as the iPhone 5S. Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, actually focused on iOS 12's benefits on these older devices to highlight some speed improvements. According to Apple, iOS 12 brings performance improvements to more devices than any previous version

¡°We¡¯re very excited about the new communications features we¡¯re bringing to iPhone and iPad with Memoji, a more personal form of Animoji, fun camera effects and Group FaceTime,¡± said Craig Federighi, Apple¡¯s senior vice president of Software Engineering. ¡°With iOS 12, we¡¯re enabling new experiences that weren¡¯t possible before. We¡¯re using advanced algorithms to make AR even more engaging and on-device intelligence to deliver faster ways to get things done using Siri.¡±

Also with iOS 12 comes increased privacy and security, claims Apple. For instance, Safari browser's enhanced Intelligent Tracking Prevention helps block social media ¡°Like¡± or ¡°Share¡± buttons and comment widgets from tracking users without their permission. Safari now also automatically creates, autofills and stores strong passwords when users create new online accounts and flags reused passwords so users can change them.

iOS 12 availability

The developer preview of iOS 12 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta program will be available to iOS users later this month at beta.apple.com. iOS 12 will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 5s and later, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation, iPad 6th generation, iPad mini? 2 and later and iPod touch 6th generation.