iOS 17 (above) was a pretty big upgrade for iPhone users, but a new report says it's small potatoes compared to what we'll see this year. iOS 18, which is scheduled for release in the Autumn, promises to be a huge upgrade – and inside Apple it's apparently being described as the biggest iOS upgrade ever.
The news comes via old faithful Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who told his Power On newsletter subscribers: "I'm told that the new operating system is seen within the company as one of the biggest iOS updates — if not the biggest — in the company's history." While he didn't go into any detail about what the update will include, we already know about two potentially very big changes: RCS support and an AI-enhanced Siri.
What to expect from iOS 18
RCS support is going to be a big deal, because it means Apple's Messages app on iPhone will be a lot nicer to Android users. While Apple's interpretation isn't going to include every feature that's available on Android, it will support the crucial ones: audio messaging, higher resolution photos and higher quality video, read receipts, typing indicators, better group chat and better encryption. While many of these features already exist in Messages they're for Apple-to-Apple sessions or exist in third party messaging apps. Rolling them out in Messages means iPhones will become a lot more sociable.
The other big deal is going to be Siri, which after years of falling behind the competition is expected to get a huge AI upgrade this year. As previously reported, Apple's Ajax – its equivalent to the likes of Microsoft's CoPilot and Google's Bard – is coming to Siri, as well as into core apps such as Pages and Keynote. The most obvious result is likely to be a more useful Siri that doesn't keep telling you to look things up on your iPhone, and that can better understand more complex queries. That should mean a big boost to things such as smart home control, and could help Siri catch up with other, more useful personal digital assistants.
We're expecting to find out much more in June, when Apple has its annual developer's conference. And no doubt we'll see a few more iOS 18 leaks before then too.
