
iOS 12, reviewed - tomduncalf
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/ios-12-thoroughly-reviewed/
======
klodolph
I missed my flight.

フライトが恋しいです

Hilarious. That’s “I missed my flight” in the same sense that “I missed my
wife (but she’s back from her trip now).” As in, “I long to be with my flight,
but alas, we are apart.” See:
[https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%81%8B%E3%81%97%E3%81%84)

飛行機に乗り遅れました

This would probably be the translation I would use. I’m surprised that it’s
not directly in the corpus as a canned phrase. In this phrase, 乗り遅れました
literally means something like “[I] was too late to board [the plane]” and
doesn’t express some kind of bizarre longing or affection for the plane.

~~~
TillE
Machine translation from/to Japanese is astoundingly awful. This has been my
barometer for whether the hype around "AI" is real, and I'm always
disappointed. It's a hard problem that's nowhere near to being cracked.

~~~
pcurve
Japanese and Korean languages are pretty hard to translate.

In Korean, 나좀 봐주라 literally translates into "Look at me", but in most cases,
it means, "cut me some slack".

Google translate gets this wrong.

If you Google translate "cut me some slack" into either Korean or Japanese, it
also fails.

But if you translate Japanese phrase "もう勘弁してくれよぉ" into English, it is
translated into "Please forgive me already", but in reality, it's more like,
"Cut me some slack! Or give me a break!"

Translation is hard.

~~~
curiousgal
Even French and German are hard, comparing deeply.org to Google translator
shows how awful the latter is.

------
bognition
Honestly it may sound stupid but the native integration with password managers
is a killer feature. I've trained my family to use 1Password and the biggest
pain point was filling in passwords on the iPhone.

iOS 12 completely fixes this issue.

~~~
jdcarter
Based on the review, it looks like the iOS 12 password manager has matured
quite a bit, but it doesn't say anything about integration with an external
password manager. How have things changed for 1Password users?

~~~
aeontech
You can now autofill passwords from a 3rd party password manager via a native
api integrating with the OS keyboard.

Source:
[https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=2...](https://twitter.com/rmondello/status/1041737681141587968?s=20)

~~~
babypuncher
No mention of KeePass, which is a shame

~~~
joshe
It's an api
([https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices))
so KeePass just needs to do the work.

~~~
greensoap
KyPass 4 works. Costs $7, but I was fine with that.

~~~
BuckRogers
Does KyPass autofill? I've been using MiniKeePass for years but would be happy
to pay for autofill support. It would also be nice if it kept a persistent
connection to my Dropbox database, eliminating the need to update it
periodically.

------
nxc18
Just updated on my iPhone 6s that I dumped due to slowness. It’s just as fast
now as the android I replaced it with and LastPass works with all my Apps now.
Only thing missing now is good keyboard support (disclaimer: haven’t tried
since update)

I’m really impressed and happy with this direction Apple’s taking. Hopefully
they’ve learned their lesson with the battery slowdowns.

~~~
buzzert
What do you feel is missing from the system keyboard on iOS?

~~~
ken
Dvorak. Even after more than a decade, it's the only current OS I can think of
that doesn't have a Dvorak option -- and the only Apple OS since the 1980's
that didn't.

There are third-party keyboards, but none of them are good. That's not the
third-party developers' fault: the iOS keyboard API is so wimpy, developers
literally cannot make a keyboard that works like the default ones.

I don't want to hunt and peck, so on iOS I mostly use the Japanese "flick"
keyboard, which is much more logical, but doesn't offer English
autocompletion, so it's just bad in a different way.

I really don't know why iOS doesn't support Dvorak.

~~~
apexalpha
>I really don't know why iOS doesn't support Dvorak.

Probably because Dvorak is used by less than 0.001% of the users and it is
only optimised to the English language.

It's _really_ niche.

~~~
ken
It works really well with any language that alternates vowels and consonants,
which is most of them. I can also confirm it works great with Japanese, via
Kotoeri (kana input essentially alternates vowels and consonants, even more so
than English). I have yet to run across a language where it isn't better than
QWERTY, though I'm sure they exist.

And less than 1 in 100,000 sounds awfully low. Where'd you get that number?
There's 700,000 people living in my city and I personally know a lot more than
7 Dvorak users here.

iOS does support Dvorak for Bluetooth keyboards, so it's not so niche to cause
Apple to ignore it completely. Isn't "Dvorak on BT (only)" even more niche
than "Dvorak"?

------
jwr
If the rumor that programmers and even executives had to carry and use iPhone
6 Plus devices for a while so that everyone felt the pain of slowness, then
I'm in awe. This is exactly what needed to be done.

This is a great release and I hope Apple continues in that vein. We don't
always need "NEW FEATURES", but we do always need fast, responsive and stable
systems.

~~~
kevincrane
At a previous company we periodically flipped a feature switch on our dogfood
builds that would throttle all network requests to simulate speeds in
developing countries with slower cell networks, and it was really cool to see
what stuff worked and what was awful when, for example, pictures could barely
load or assets wouldn't show up.

~~~
dingdongding
You mean Facebook? I know Facebook used to do this for a while

~~~
what_ever
Pretty much every big enough company does it.

------
adolph
Another review worth reading is MacStories. It covers the new Shortcuts
automation app in more depth.

[https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-
rev...](https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-12-the-macstories-review/)

~~~
chillacy
Shortcuts blew me away when I saw what you could do. I assumed based on the
demo that it was pretty limited, but you can set variables, loop, execute
remote SSH commands, call into APIs, execute Python, etc. And it comes with
API access to send iMessages/read contacts/etc. The fact that it's so much
easier to write an automation "script" or shortcut than swift code is huge!

~~~
frutiger
The System 7 OS on Macs introduced AppleScript[1] which offered a similar set
of features (but designed for the 90s).

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript)

~~~
saagarjha
AppleScript is still around, as part of OSA, which now includes JavaScript
support.

------
ProfessorLayton
I'm super happy with the update so far on my 6s. I did a comparison with a
family member running iOS 11 and the difference is huge, particularly for
camera apps.

My only sore spot with iOS now is the Music app's horrible UX. Otherwise, I'm
feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year.

~~~
invalidusernam3
"I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year"

That's great to hear. I used to be one of those people who got every new
iPhone release (or at most every 2nd release), but I've been keeping my trusty
old iPhone 6 going for a couple of years now and I have very little interest
in getting a new phone any time soon. My 6 is getting a bit slow, so if
performance is better on iOS 12 that's great news

~~~
read_if_gay_
Literally same situation here except with a 6 Plus. Upgraded this morning and
the speedup and faster animations are pretty damn noticeable. Camera used to
sometimes take 6-7 seconds to open which is now cut to about 1-2s. Definitely
recommend the update, the new features are also pretty convenient, I
especially like the new Do Not Disturb and Screentime provides some
interesting stats. Now it's just battery life getting awful, but I've been
putting off getting the battery replaced because spending a week+ without a
smartphone is borderline impossible and I have no backup device.

~~~
eatbitseveryday
Your old battery might be causing your slowness. Replace it for $30 in the
store, too; you don’t have to be without it for more than an hour if they have
the parts in stock. My iPhone 6a is super quick. Camera opens in under a
second.

------
baxtr
_When Apple first presented iOS 12 to the public and to developers, it
promised a feature called Group FaceTime that would basically work like Google
Hangouts; you 'd be able to video chat with up to 32 participants at the same
time. That feature has now been pushed back to a later software update in the
iOS 12 cycle—meaning it's not available for us to test yet._

Bummer... :/ that’s probably the one feature that I’ve been most waiting for

~~~
mrkstu
First developer beta[0] is out if you want to try it out...

[0] - [https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-
beta-...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/18/apple-seeds-first-beta-of-
ios-12-1-to-developers/)

~~~
saagarjha
We'll see if they keep it in. iCloud messages was reintroduced in the beta and
removed in public version.

------
throwaway427
Between this and my battery replacement I opted into, my 6S Plus feels brand
new. If your battery health is < 85% I really suggest you take advantage of
the cheap battery replacement by year end.

[https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-
power](https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power)

~~~
ben174
My iPhone X is at 90%. You don't think it's worth the $29 + trip to Apple
Store?

~~~
achompas
If your battery health isn’t low enough, Apple will not replace the battery.
This happened to my mom and her iPhone 6.

~~~
gnicholas
This was the rule early on, but I heard that they will now replace the battery
no matter what. The current guidelines don’t mention any threshold:
[https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-
power](https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power)

------
andrewla
A minor feature/bug fix that I noticed was that the "back to camera" feature
of the in-app photo viewer in camera is harder to activate.

That's a mouthful -- the way that I usually view photos is by bringing up the
camera (since that's so easy from many entry points) and clicking on the lower
left to get to the photos. The main downside of this is that if you didn't
slide exactly left to right (even the slightest diagonal) then it would exit
the photo viewer and go back to the camera. This was very annoying because if
you flip back a few photos and then mis-swipe, you completely lose context.

But now that has been made significantly harder to accidentally invoke. Still
possible, but harder, and it has so far made a nice difference for my usage.

~~~
karmelapple
I've been using iOS since the iPhone first came out and never knew about this
feature. Thanks for the hint!

------
xxxxxxxx
I just used Google Maps to get to work this morning using Apple Car Play -
it's awesome. There were a few annoying errors in Apple maps on my daily route
that I won't have to deal with ever again.

~~~
randie63
why do you need maps for your daily route ? public transportation ?

~~~
xuki
Some people drive to work.

~~~
teirce
Some people don't need a navigation system for a route they drive every day.

~~~
zifnab06
I tend to use Google maps anytime I drive in Seattle - they've added
information about accidents and closures that I'd otherwise miss. When I did
drive to work it'd routinely save me time when there was a wreck on i-5 by
telling me that and giving me another route.

------
hardtke
Article misses best new feature: You can close apps on the iPhone X by swiping
up from the app switcher, rather than holding down in a very small area to
bring the red x forward.

~~~
scarface74
Closing apps on iOS unless they are using location services in the background
(which you can disable) doesn’t save anything in terms of battery life or
processor usage most of the time.

~~~
trts
Sometimes I find I do need to close an app to “reboot” it. But yes. It’s
actually amusing to me to watch people compulsively close their background
apps. I used to try to explain why it wasn’t important but I don’t think
anyone ever accepted the advice.

~~~
Cyberdog
My wife is one of these people. I tried to talk her out of it and tell her it
actually makes her phone run slower, not faster, but, as typical, she'll
listen patiently to what I tell her and then go on doing her own thing anyway,
so I eventually gave up.

------
saagarjha
> There are three configurations for this feature in the notifications section
> of the iOS 12 Settings app: automatic, by app, and off. It defaults to
> automatic. In this case, notifications from one app will generally be
> grouped together, but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might
> intelligently decide not to in some cases.

This is transparent; it's decided the "thread identifier" for the notification
so that threads are split out separately:
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unmutablenotificationcontent/1649872-threadidentifier)

~~~
GeekyBear
>but, for not entirely transparent reasons, iOS might intelligently decide not
to in some cases.

This would perhaps be better worded as "for reasons the article's author
didn't understand, but people who familiarized themselves with information
released months ago at WWDC did…".

I'm going to reiterate the advice to read the MacStories review instead of the
one at Ars. It has much more depth and insight.

~~~
saagarjha
I’ve read both. Just wanted to explain how notifications work.

------
DrNuke
My no-frills, hardcore iPad mini 2 is alive and rocking again, thank you Apple
for having allowed that on a 5 years old machine.

------
ksec
The only feature I wish Apple would implement, is Phone Call no longer takes
full focus on my screen. We don't call as much any more, at least compare to 5
- 7 years ago. And we get lots more Spam calls than we used to. It really is
annoying when I am in the middle of something and a whole screen splash
telling me I have a call.

------
dirtylowprofile
I wonder is dark mode is coming to iOS 12 in later updates because it is
awkward to go back and forth with Mojave and iOS.

------
drcongo
Has anyone worked out how to stop mobile Safari asking to save passwords every
time you log in to something?

~~~
spost
Settings > Passwords & Accounts > AutoFill Passwords > Flip the switch to off

------
huangc10
Just talking instinctively (from using iOS 12 since GM last week), iOS 12 has
been one of the best and smoothest releases I've ever experienced. If you
haven't updated, do it now. Barring any security issues or HW bugs, outlook
for Apple looking very strong going into 2019.

------
oplav
Did the new emojis make it into this release? I can't seem to find them on my
updated phone.

It's pretty minor compared to all the other things, but I was looking forward
to some of them...

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-
ios-12-new...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17577288/apple-ios-12-new-
emoji-super-hero-cupcake-and-redheads)

~~~
jbigelow76
New emojis usually go into the .1 releases to nudge people into updating to
get the last major release's bug fixes.

------
teemo91
I updated to iOS 12(on an iPhone SE) yesterday and my WiFi calling feature
went to hell. Needed two/three reboots and toggling WiFi calling for it to
work again. Still seems flaky and I'm heavily dependent on it to work as my
apt gets 0 reception. Apart from this frustrating issue, I love the
integration for password managers they have now. It's made my life so much
easier.

~~~
garyrob
My AT&T WiFi didn't work immediately after the update, but I didn't reboot and
within a few hours it was working again. I did turn WiFi Calling off and on
again, once, in Settings---not sure if that was necessary as it didn't
immediately fix it.

~~~
teemo91
I use AT&T too. It was spotty but much better yesterday. I suppose it just
needed some combination of reboot/toggle to work again.

------
jvagner
Does anyone have any idea of when I'll be able to do a full-wipe re-install of
iOS 12 via iTunes? I have a super-annoying bug in Youtube and I'm hoping this
step will resolve things, but as of last night, my iPhone 7 wouldn't re-
install via iTunes because the version wasn't available from the software
center.

I deleted my Beta profile, but still no go.

~~~
xeroaura
Download the IPSW from here: [https://ipsw.me/](https://ipsw.me/)

Manually install through restore. Example:
[http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-
files/](http://osxdaily.com/2010/11/23/how-to-use-ipsw-files/) (Click restore
instead of update button for a full wipe)

~~~
jvagner
Wish that I could but I'm stuck in an endless cycle shown here:
[https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75](https://imgur.com/a/nnt1f75)

...and iTunes is unusable during this cycle.

------
kup0
Actually quite surprised, their claims of increased performance ring true. My
iPad Mini 4 and iPhones 5S and SE all seem significantly faster after
upgrading. On older devices it is more noticeable. No more animation lag,
hitches/delays, etc.

Would like to see a continued focus on these kinds of improvements.

------
EugeneOZ
Apple Maps (at least in Barcelona) are outdated too much. Wrong buildings,
wrong roads, wrong parcs - maps are 15 years old. Unusable.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
While Apple (naturally) never really publicized this, the map data they've
been using, including the terrible data where you are, has been cobbled
together from a variety of third parties. According to reports earlier this
year, a new Apple Maps data set is rolling out with iOS 12 -- but it's going
to take a long time to be everywhere worldwide, because they're essentially
building it from scratch the way Google did.

The good news is that they had their new data available where I live in the
San Francisco Bay Area during the iOS 12 beta period, and it's a noticeable
improvement. I haven't been using Google Maps too much recently, but I find
Apple Maps' routing here to be pretty comparable to Waze's, without doing the
"here's a crazy shortcut!" thing that Waze occasionally does. (Sometimes the
crazy shortcuts are good, but more often than not I've found they...aren't
good.) The bad news is that it's probably gonna be years before they get
Europe done.

------
Invictus0
> iOS uses machine learning to study how you manage your notifications and
> recommends how to deliver notifications in the future based on that.

This seems silly to me. I never have so many notifications on the lockscreen
that I need help organizing them. Different notifications require different
actions; ML can't possibly know the difference. For example, I never click
Google calendar notifications but I usually want them on top. It will be
confusing when everything is out of chronological order.

------
abraham_lincoln
Anybody try on a 5s?

~~~
irickt
Yes, installed smoothly, seems faster. For example, time until the camera is
up by swiping right on the lock screen is 2-3 seconds instead of roughly 6-8
seconds.

~~~
badpun
Same here. Installed it on 5s, seems faster (not 100% sure though, maybe
that's a placebo efect) than iOS 11. Definitely does not feel slower, so it's
safe to install IMO.

------
chris_wot
A “small” release that is 1.2GB? Hate to see what a large release will be...

~~~
saagarjha
Just because it's a small visual update doesn't mean that there haven't been
changes in system frameworks which now need to be updated.

------
BadassFractal
I'm going to be one of those people who wait until 12.1 or 12.2 this time. I
upgraded right away with iOS 11 and had my phone constantly lock up on me or
randomly restart, that was not a great experience. Especially when you're
renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app and your phone is
dead for 30+ minutes.

~~~
umanwizard
> when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app

Off-topic, but this is an incredibly horrible idea. Can you name and shame the
company so I make sure I never rent from them?

I tend to be a forgetful and generally clumsy person, which means I neglect to
charge my phone a lot. So I would be stranded in this case?

~~~
jeffh
Most of the car share companies operate this way near me. It's not
"exclusively via app", but most people rely on the app and NFC to unlock/start
and lock/end their trips for convenience.

That said ... you are in a car that can charge your phone too.

~~~
BadassFractal
In my case the issue wasn't battery, it was the phone locking up and no "reset
combination" for it would reboot it.

------
clon
I will buy an iPhone the day I can choose a different rendering engine for my
browser. Or, at minimum, Safari stops being a turd.

Just yesterday I watched hilariously how a friend tried to do an online job
interview on her iPad. But no MediaRecorder API support. Had to lend her my
200 euro Android burner to get it done. Pathetic.

Edit: To be fair, Edge would also have dropped the ball, but then again you
probably have FF or Chrome also installed. In iOS you are SOL.

~~~
scarface74
Or they could have used one of the dozens of apps that have the
functionality....

~~~
clon
She was in no position, as a job applicant, to be dictating the company as to
what sort of an app they should be using to interview her. They used an online
pre-screening tool called Videolind [1] which actually pretty cool.

But that is my point - if you force your customers to such a position, albeit
for plausible security reasons, you better make sure your browser is top of
the game.

I still very clearly remember when Jobs showed everyone that you can have a
Real Browser in your palm (as opposed to WAP-somethings). You could hear jaws
dropping around you. It was glorious! I do not think you get a proper browser
with iOS these days. The world has started to be "optimised for Chrome" and
this sucks.

[1] [https://help.videolind.com/article/4-video-does-not-
work](https://help.videolind.com/article/4-video-does-not-work)

~~~
sneak
> _She was in no position, as a job applicant, to be dictating the company as
> to what sort of an app they should be using to interview her._

We're off topic now, but why is that? I frequently get meeting requests to
speak to potential clients via Skype, which I decline because I don't use
Skype due to built-in surveillance.

