When iOS 18 arrives on your iPhone later this year, it could bring with it a new look. However, it remains to be seen how extensive these interface changes could be.
News of a new look with iOS 18 comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who mentions a possible redesign of the iPhone software in his latest column. In the newsletter sourced from this column, Gurman claims that Apple is “actually working on updating the design of iOS as early as this year,” according to a report from 9to5Mac.
Apple will reportedly turn its attention to macOS after redesigning iOS 18, presumably to ensure continuity when switching from one Apple device to another. But Gurman says the macOS changes won’t be ready until either 2025 or 2026.
The report lacks details about what Apple has planned for its iOS redesign and whether the changes will be as drastic as the 2013 iOS 7 update, which ditched skeuomorphic design elements in favor of flatter-looking icons. One detail Gurman mentioned is that iOS 18 likely won’t adopt the look and feel of the visionOS interface that debuted on the Apple Vision Pro headset. Designed with the Vision Pro’s pass-through features in mind, this software, with its 3D buttons and glossy backgrounds, doesn’t really fit on an iPhone display.
While this detail tells us what iOS 18 won’t look like, it doesn’t offer much of a clue as to what Is in stock. And since nature abhors a vacuum, I have a few ideas.
One of my favorite changes in recent iOS releases has been the addition of widgets to the home screen thanks to the iOS 14 update. I particularly like the ability to stack widgets on top of each other to maximize screen space.
What I want to see with stacked widgets is more of a visual indication that there is more than one widget with information relevant to me. Right now, you scroll through stacked widgets with a swipe of your finger. My favorite way to do this is to tap and hold on a stack of widgets so that all the widgets fan out in front of me so I can see all the information at once.
As I tell Apple about its widget business, I hope the company also expands the widget interactivity introduced in iOS 17. For example, you can currently check off completed tasks in a reminder widget or use widgets to control playback of apps like music, podcasts, and books. I want to be able to tap a Mail widget when I want to compose a quick reply without launching the full Mail app, or to scroll through a multi-day forecast directly from a weather widget.
More slide-on panels
One of the things I like about the Galaxy S24’s Circle to Search feature is the way it uses sliding panels to display search results as you circle an image or tap on it to learn more about it. This way, you don’t have to leave the app you’re in when you want to look up additional information – you simply do your search, scroll through your results, and immediately go back to what you were doing.
Apple already offers this in some cases when you ask Siri a search question. A results window will appear at the top of the screen, giving you a brief overview of the digital assistant’s response. However, tapping to learn more takes you to a completely different app and has no easy way back to where you were. On the Galaxy S24, you can simply tap the back arrows to return to your starting point once your curiosity is satisfied. I would like to see a future version of iOS take a similar approach, especially if we see an influx of AI-powered features in iOS 18 as rumored.
Better multitasking
Since we’re on the topic of making it easier to jump between things on the iPhone, I’d like to see Apple embrace multitasking on its phones. And I think Apple’s own iPadOS offers a simple solution that can copy the iPhone software.
Notably, iPadOS has a Dock feature that allows you to swipe up from the bottom of the iPad’s screen at any time to reveal a range of your favorite/most used apps. The closest the iPhone comes to this is swiping up to get to the app switcher. But then you have to search through all the open apps on the phone to find what you’re looking for. The iPad’s approach is faster and more useful, even on devices with smaller screens.
Home screen management features
With additions like the App Library and App Folders, managing iPhone home screens has become much easier over the years. But it doesn’t bother me that the only way to rearrange which apps are on which home screens is to physically drag the app icons from one screen to the next. Drag an icon out of its place and the others start rearranging themselves, increasing the effort to clean up – it’s a real pain in the ass.
That was not always so. Back when you could manage your iPhone through the iTunes app on your Mac, you could rearrange app icons much more easily on a much larger display. Then, once you sync your iPhone, the rearranged home screens will appear automatically.
I’m not saying we need to go back to managing iPhones through iTunes, especially since iTunes no longer exists as an app. (Even when it did, it was completely ill-equipped to handle all the various iPhone elements it needed to manage.) But I wouldn’t mind if some sort of iPhone management app became available for the Mac, which offers another way to optimize home screens to my liking. Maybe it can show up when the macOS revision happens in 2025 or 2026.
Outlook for iOS 18
Based on the reports we’ve heard about iOS 18 so far, the introduction of artificial intelligence features is likely to be the focus, along with a smarter, redesigned Siri. The rumored redesign doesn’t sound like a major overhaul, but rather an attempt to refresh the look of the iPhone’s software after a few years of updates that focused more on adding new features.
Still, I hope Apple doesn’t miss the opportunity to use this obvious redesign to make it easier to switch to different apps and features on your iPhone. We’ll find out what the company’s plans are soon enough as Apple sticks to its usual schedule and previews all the iOS changes at the start of the summer.
