The best new features in the big iOS 18 update for iPhones that’s available now

But there’s plenty to explore in the meantime.

Here are some of the changes we’re most excited about iOS 18.

A new home screen design

Apple iOS 18 lets you customize your home screen wallpaper, app icons, and widgets. You can move your widgets to better fit your backgrounds, rather than lining them up from the top and filling each space before creating a new row.

The update also offers a new customization sheet that lets you tint app icons with different colors. It also added Dark Mode wallpapers, which tints apps.

iMessage is becoming more interactive

Tired of the limited emoji reactions in iMessage? You definitely need iOS 18.

Apple’s director of internet technologies product marketing, Ronak Shah, said this is a “huge year for Tapbacks.” iOS 18 will now allow users to tap back on a message with any emoji or sticker. The update brings it closer to other messaging platforms like Google Chat, Slack, or WhatsApp.

The new update also lets you schedule messages in advance, which is a popular feature on apps like Slack.

You’ll also have more ways to express tone over text with the ability to bold, italicize, underline, or strikethrough any text. You can also visually amplify messages with text effects like making them jitter, bloom, or shake. Some words and phrases will automatically suggest a text effect, so you can quickly select it.

You can cut down on time spent searching for photos

Apple exec Craig Federighi called the update to the Photos app in iOS 18 its biggest redesign yet.

The app will now be unified into a single view with a photo grid at the top and your library organized by theme at the bottom.

With the new update, you can declutter your app from things like screenshots by filtering them out. You can also select months or years to quickly jump to specific dates.

Collections organizes your photos into specific topics, such as Recent Days, People and Pets, and Trips. You can also pin specific collections that are most important to you or that you plan to access frequently.

No one has to see that app you have

Apple is offering new ways to improve app privacy with iOS 18, and one of the new features lets you add apps to a locked folder to keep others from seeing them on your phone.

The update also allows you to require Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode to access certain apps. Information from inside the app will also be hidden from other places in the system, like search, notifications, or call history.

Tap to exchange Apple Cash

Apple Pay also just gained a leg up on Venmo and Zelle.

The new Tap to Cash update makes transactions more seamless than ever by allowing users to exchange Apple cash with each other without sharing a phone number or email address. All you have to do is hold your iPhone against another to send a payment to it.

Apple Maps is becoming more hiker-friendly

Apple Maps will have topographic maps with detailed trail networks and hiking routes with iOS 18. The new update includes all 63 US national parks. It can be saved to your phone and accessed offline while you’re in a remote area. It offers turn-by-turn voice guidance to give you directions along the way.

Added features with the AirPods Pro

AirPods will also gain some new capabilities with the iOS 18, including voice isolation, which will be available on both the original AirPods Pro and AirPods Pro 2. The feature will be able to cut down ambient noise, such as wind or nearby traffic, and prioritize your voice so that you sound clear during phone calls.

The AirPods Pro 2 will also bring better adaptive audio, including a slider that can adjust between default, less noise, or more noise.

Gamers can also enjoy personalized spatial audio for a more immersive gaming experience. The AirPods Pro 2 will additionally have better voice transmission quality for in-game chat and streaming. iOS 18’s new game mode will also put AirPods into low latency mode, which helps reduce the delay between commanding an action and hearing its corresponding sound.

Customizable control center

You can now rearrange your control center to include your most used controls in the front and even set up multiple pages. You can also customize your Action button to access your favorite controls and swap out different controls on your lockscreen or other quick access buttons.

Math just got easier

iOS 18 integrates the Calculator app with the Notes app to bring Math Notes. You can write out equations and have them solved automatically to help with homework, budgeting, planning, and more. You can use variables, graph equations, convert units, and solve functions.

The Notes app will also gain transcribing features and, for Apple Intelligence users, audio recording summarization.

Apple Intelligence is right around the corner

Apple is integrating a much-anticipated generative AI system into iOS 18. Apple says the new technology “harnesses the power of Apple silicon” to “create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.”

The features, which begin rolling out in October, won’t all be available at launch. Some are expected next year.

But the eventual updates will give Siri a new look that has an “elegant glowing light” that wraps around the edge of your screen. The tool will have better language understanding capabilities. It will also add systemwide Writing Tools and Image Playground, which lets users create playful images and use them in messages.

Apple has also announced its partnership with OpenAI, which will let users opt into integrating ChatGPT into Apple’s software. This will allow users to use ChatGPT through Siri or when completing tasks within apps on their iPhone.