Apple’s latest next version of its iPhone software, iOS 13, will speed up phones, the company has claimed, saying apps will launch up to twice as fast.
“Nothing is more important to our iPhone users than performance,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, while announcing the new software on Monday at the firm’s annual developer conference in San Jose, California.
Federighi said app updates in iOS 13 would be up to 50% smaller with 60% fewer updates and the new system would speed up other tasks, too, such as Face ID facial recognition unlocking the iPhone XS 30% faster.
The big crowd pleaser, however, appeared to be the introduction of Apple’s system-wide “dark mode”, which turns the user interface from black text on a white background to white text on a black background, as has become popular in a variety of apps.
Dark mode reduces eye strain in low light conditions and saves battery power on top-end smartphones because black pixels on OLED screens – such as those on the iPhone X and XS – consume no power.
Apple also introduced a new Apple social login system, which it compared to Google and Facebook’s system of login to third-party services.
“Sign in with Apple has all the convenience without giving away all your data,” said Federighi. “It’s the fast way to sign in without all the tracking, authenticated on device and logged in with a new account without giving away any information to a third party.”
If an app would like access to names or email addresses, it can ask and users have the choice to give the developer the data. “But if you choose to hide your email address, we’ll create a unique random address that forwards to your real email address, and it’s unique to the app so you disable it at any time,” said Federighi.
Apple announced a new HomeKit Secure Video system, which it says can encrypt and upload video from compatible home security cameras to iCloud accounts via iPads, Apple TV or HomePod speakers.
Apple also added new portrait lighting effects, new Memoji stickers, smarter photo organisation and more advanced video editing to iOS, and it said it was working on a new updated Maps app for the US by the end of the year and other markets in 2020.
