Speaker 1: iOS twelve is available as a free download today and
Speaker 1: it will make your phone run faster.
Speaker 2: What's going on? I'm rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: iOS twelve was previewed back in June at Apple's Worldwide
Speaker 1: Developers Conference, and now it is ready for prime time.
Speaker 1: The new software is scheduled to launch today for iPhones, iPads,
Speaker 1: and other iOS devices.
Speaker 2: I've been using the.
Speaker 1: Beta version of it and it's pretty cool. It does
Speaker 1: bring some new changes. But first things first, who can
Speaker 1: actually get this? Well, if you have an iPhone, you
Speaker 1: can get this. If you have an iPhone all the
Speaker 1: way back to the iPhone five S, so five S
Speaker 1: and above you will get access to iOS twelve. With iPads,
Speaker 1: it goes all the way back to the iPad Mini two,
Speaker 1: iPad Air, iPad, fifth generation iPad pros, so you've got
Speaker 1: a lot there. And with the iPod Touch only the
Speaker 1: latest sixth generation iPod Touch will be getting the update
Speaker 1: to iOS twelve. Now, the thing about this release is
Speaker 1: that Apple made it a point to tell us that
Speaker 1: this will actually make your old iPhones and old devices
Speaker 1: run faster. They made it a priority to make it
Speaker 1: so that this software runs speedier on even old devices.
Speaker 1: So that's some good news if you have an old phone.
Speaker 1: If you have an old device you want to breathe
Speaker 1: some new life into it. I think you can probably
Speaker 1: squeeze an extra six months or a year out of
Speaker 1: your device if Apple's claims are true, and that's a
Speaker 1: good thing because it'll save you money. Apple says app's
Speaker 1: launch up to twice as fast, the camera launches up
Speaker 1: to seventy percent faster, and even the lowly keyboard will
Speaker 1: appear faster on your screen and feel more responsive. Now,
Speaker 1: I've been running the beta on my device, which is
Speaker 1: an iPhone ten, and this is a new device, so
Speaker 1: clearly it has the best processor, or well, it used
Speaker 1: to have the best processor until the new A twelve
Speaker 1: Bionic came out in the new phone. But it does
Speaker 1: seem snappier, and although this version of iOS doesn't bring
Speaker 1: a huge visible change, there are a lot of nice
Speaker 1: little touches and especially things under the hood. The first
Speaker 1: thing you'll probably notice is how it handles your notifications.
Speaker 1: They are now grouped together by default, so they're much
Speaker 1: easier to manage, especially if you get a bunch of
Speaker 1: notifications all from one app like Instagram. You can see
Speaker 1: them all kind of like in a little stack, and
Speaker 1: then you can tap to expand them to see them
Speaker 1: all one by one. Now, if you don't like them
Speaker 1: grouped together, and for certain apps you might like to
Speaker 1: have them stay one by one, you can go into
Speaker 1: the notification settings for that individual app and change it,
Speaker 1: or you can turn off grouping all together.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other new big thing is a revamp of Do
Speaker 1: not Disturb and the introduction of screen time. These are
Speaker 1: two items that should help with our digital wellness, but
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 1: So with do not Disturb, the big difference here is
Speaker 1: that you can now choose a bedtime option, so your
Speaker 1: phone will not show you a whole screen full of
Speaker 1: notifications when you're trying to sleep at night.
Speaker 2: Come on, you know you've done it.
Speaker 1: You kind of like wake up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night and you take a little sneak peek at
Speaker 1: your phone and you see.
Speaker 2: All those notifications and you're like, oh my gosh, now
Speaker 2: I'm stressed.
Speaker 1: Out because I want to reply or look at all
Speaker 1: those Well, that will no longer happen if you turn
Speaker 1: this feature on. It's a new toggle under your do
Speaker 1: not Disturb settings, it says bedtime and basically so there's
Speaker 1: two different things you've got do not disturb, which kind
Speaker 1: of like doesn't ring your phone unless it's important. But
Speaker 1: now if you add the bedtime option in, it actually
Speaker 1: won't even show you anything on your screen when it's bedtime.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend doing that because we need some digital
Speaker 1: wellness in our lives, so do that. And you can
Speaker 1: also have this turn on with the bedtime feature, So
Speaker 1: if you're not using this, I highly recommend you use it.
Speaker 1: If you're using a standard alarm to wake you up,
Speaker 1: you probably want to switch to bedtime. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit trickier to set up because you kind of have
Speaker 1: to use a slider to set your alarm, but it's
Speaker 1: so much better because bedtime alarms actually wake you up gently.
Speaker 2: Their audio slowly gets louder in the morning.
Speaker 1: So if you're familiar with the standard iPhone alarm, there's
Speaker 1: only one setting. It's basically really loud, really blaring, all
Speaker 1: in your face all at once, and for me, I
Speaker 1: can't deal with that early in the morning, So I
Speaker 1: love the bedtime feature because it slowly gets louder. Screen
Speaker 1: Time is also fascinating because now you can see how
Speaker 1: long you spend in each app and on your phone
Speaker 1: in general. And more importantly, you can now set limits
Speaker 1: on yourself and your kids.
Speaker 2: So there's a feature called downtime. This is new.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like do not Disturb, but it's for apps.
Speaker 1: And once you turn it on, you only have access
Speaker 1: to certain apps of your choice. So some apps you
Speaker 1: can say you always have access to, like your phone
Speaker 1: and your camera, but you can turn off access to
Speaker 1: these other apps on your phone if you have downtime
Speaker 1: turned on. And you can also turn this on for
Speaker 1: your kids devices, which will really come in handy. And
Speaker 1: you can also have it turn on automatically and off
Speaker 1: at certain times of the day. Like let's say you
Speaker 1: want them to read in bed for an hour before
Speaker 1: they go to sleep. You can have this downtime feature
Speaker 1: turn on at let's say seven pm if they're supposed
Speaker 1: to go to bed at eight pm. Basically it renders
Speaker 1: their I devices useless, so hopefully they read the book.
Speaker 1: And yes, your kids are not going to like you
Speaker 1: for turning on this feature. I can guarantee that. Then
Speaker 1: you have something called app limits. These are time limits
Speaker 1: that you can set on individual apps or categories of
Speaker 1: apps like social networking, entertainment, games, reading, and more. You
Speaker 1: don't have to put the apps into these categories. Apple
Speaker 1: automatically does it. So for me, I've been setting a
Speaker 1: one hour time limit on all my social networking apps,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I pretty much reached that.
Speaker 2: Limit, like in the morning most days.
Speaker 1: So once you reach your limit, the app is greade
Speaker 1: out and you see a little kind of sand timer
Speaker 1: next to it, and that tells you, Nope, no more
Speaker 1: time on this app. So if you want, if you
Speaker 1: still want to use that app, you can just tap
Speaker 1: it and it will give you a little menu to
Speaker 1: say ignore, and you press ignore, and then you could
Speaker 1: ignore for fifteen minutes or the full day. And once
Speaker 1: you ignore that app, it doesn't it doesn't affect the
Speaker 1: other apps. So all the other social networking apps are
Speaker 1: still grade out, so basically you can kind of use
Speaker 1: them on a one by one basis. Now for me personally,
Speaker 1: in the social networking is included Facebook Messenger is included
Speaker 1: in there, and that's kind of like an oversight.
Speaker 2: I got to figure out how to take that out
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 1: Social Networking bundle because I'd still like to use that
Speaker 1: even when I'm not using Twitter or things like that.
Speaker 1: You can also set a pass code so your kids
Speaker 1: can't just ignore these time limits. And there's the ability
Speaker 1: to combine you usage times across devices, So if your
Speaker 1: kid has an iPhone and an iPad, or if you do,
Speaker 1: you can have one timer across all your devices. So
Speaker 1: if you use Twitter on your iPhone and your iPad,
Speaker 1: you can say, look, I only want to use it
Speaker 1: for an hour across everything. This is a pretty powerful feature.
Speaker 1: I think Apple did a really nice job on it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it will evolve as people use it and as Apple
Speaker 1: gets feedback on it, but I think it's a good
Speaker 1: thing for us to have this. Personally, I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to limit my kids to one hour of Netflix a day.
Speaker 1: I will be updating their iPads with that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll probably disown me as their dad. The other thing
Speaker 1: I'm super excited about in iOS twelve is Seriri shortcuts.
Speaker 1: You can find these under settings and Siri and Search.
Speaker 1: You'll notice there's a few suggested shortcuts already made for you.
Speaker 1: But what's brilliant about these is that you can now
Speaker 1: set a shortcut of your making, plus an associated SII phrase,
Speaker 1: kind of like a keyword phrase that you come up
Speaker 1: with what Siri reacts to. For instance, phone will listen
Speaker 1: to my podcasts and navigate to work in the morning.
Speaker 1: I could set a series shortcut that says I'm headed
Speaker 1: to work, and when I say that, Siri would spring
Speaker 1: into action, playing my morning podcast playlist and then navigating
Speaker 1: to work for me. So she kind of does this
Speaker 1: little routine of things, and you do record the serie shortcut,
Speaker 1: So you come up with the phrase and then there's
Speaker 1: a little record button and you record it, and I
Speaker 1: guess Siri reacts to that the.
Speaker 2: Next time, so it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, individual apps do have to activate all
Speaker 1: these shortcuts in there, so you might not have a
Speaker 1: ton of shortcut options all on day one. But I
Speaker 1: think this is really going to extend the functionality and
Speaker 1: usefulness of Siri in a very big way. Another thing
Speaker 1: I'm very excited for, and this doesn't apply to everyone,
Speaker 1: but now CarPlay in iOS twelve has support for third
Speaker 1: party navigation apps. So nothing against Apple Maps. It's beautiful,
Speaker 1: but I'll be honest, I like to use my Google Maps,
Speaker 1: so that will now be available in iOS twelve. Ways
Speaker 1: will be available other third party navigation apps will be available.
Speaker 2: The big question is when will they be available. Now.
Speaker 1: If I was Google, I would have it immediately available
Speaker 1: day one, but I don't think that's how Google works.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll see Google Maps and way on CarPlay very
Speaker 1: soon when we plug our phones in in our car.
Speaker 1: Now for other little improvements, there are some revamped apps,
Speaker 1: like the Voice Memo app. It's all new and now
Speaker 1: auto titles your memos based on your GPS location. Plus
Speaker 1: it can sync your audio files to iCloud. There's a
Speaker 1: new virtual tape measuring app called Measure. This uses augmented
Speaker 1: reality to measure things. It's kind of cool. iBooks is
Speaker 1: now renamed Apple Books that has a whole new look
Speaker 1: and feel, and the battery now shows a lot more information.
Speaker 1: So the battery stats inside your settings now shows you
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff. For instance, you can now
Speaker 1: see which one of your apps are using the most
Speaker 1: battery over time. So for me, over the past ten days,
Speaker 1: it is Google Photos twenty four percent of my battery.
Speaker 1: But that's fine because I know I'm backing up a
Speaker 1: lot of pictures, then Twitter, then Camera, then Instagram.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 1: You can also now see your average screen time and
Speaker 1: screen off time for your battery.
Speaker 2: So for me.
Speaker 1: Today or I guess the last ten days, I got
Speaker 1: four and a half hours on my charge and then
Speaker 1: two hours off my charge, So I guess that means
Speaker 1: I got six and a half hours of battery life
Speaker 1: on a charge on my iPhone ten. That seems kind
Speaker 1: of low, but I do do a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: on my phone, and again that's an average. So maybe
Speaker 1: one day I use my phone for like a Facebook
Speaker 1: Live and I use a ton of battery in a
Speaker 1: short amount of time. But today I'm averaging eight and
Speaker 1: a half hours on my battery, so that's good. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you can see how iOS twelve will bring a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of new stuff to your iOS devices. I know
Speaker 1: some of you do not like to download these things immediately.
Speaker 1: That's fine, but I will say the beta of iOS
Speaker 1: twelve has been rock solid, so if you want it,
Speaker 1: you can check for it in your settings, go to
Speaker 1: General then Software Update, or you can wait for a
Speaker 1: notification from Apple. Usually these things hit earlier in the morning,
Speaker 1: but who knows, it could happen anytime during the day.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: You can find links to everything I talk about here
Speaker 1: at richontech dot tv, or you can check the show notes. Also,
Speaker 1: I was up in Petaluma over the weekend, so I
Speaker 1: filled in for Leo Laporte on his radio show, and
Speaker 1: also did an episode of the new Screensavers on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So if you want to see any of that stuff,
Speaker 1: I'll put all the video and audio you in the
Speaker 1: show notes. You can watch that, listen to that, and
Speaker 1: also put it on my website as well.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Tomiro. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you real soon.