iOS 18 to gain customizable app icons and AI-upgraded apps

A new report suggests that further enhancements to both the Home Screen and various Apple apps are coming in iOS 18, arriving in fall 2024.

The forthcoming iOS 18, expected to be announced at June's WWDC event, will mix the usual round of new features alongside AI-based enhancements. Previous reports have proposed that Photos, Safari, Siri, Voice Memos, and Notes among other apps will gain AI-based abilities.

Another potential use of AI technology will come to Messages, with the app gaining the ability to suggest new custom emojis, based on what the user is texting. This would be in addition to the ever-expanding library of standard emojis, which work across various platforms.

Apple will also be allowing users further freedom in customizing their home screens. In addition to previously-mentioned reports of free placement and grouping of app icons, more customization options are on the way.

Bloomberg now reports that iOS 18 will give users the ability to change app icons, though it is unclear how far Apple will go with this.

As an example of app icon customization, users might wish to change the new black icon for social service X back to the sky blue color it was when called Twitter. It could also be possible to change, for example, all sports-related apps to have a red icon, or banking and finance apps to have green icons.

It's unlikely that outright app icon replacement would be officially permitted, as in letting users replace the X app icon with the old Twitter icon.

The company will reveal more of its plans for iOS 18 at WWDC, starting June 10th, 2024.

7 Comments

mikethemartian 1493 comments · 18 Years

About 6 months ago

Forget OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, etc. Apple will have full emoji AI supremacy.

chasm 3620 comments · 10 Years

mikethemartian said:

Forget OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, etc. Apple will have full emoji AI supremacy.

More importantly, most of Apple's efforts in "AI" seem to be focused on enhancing functions and apps users already rely on, and make them perform better.

This might be less "flashy" and "entertaining" than dangerously hallucinating AI chatbots who tell you to eat one small rock a day and glue your cheese to your pizza, but what we've seen reported here and elsewhere actually sounds like it will more-or-less seamlessly fit into my existing workflows, either by saving some steps or by saving some time.

We'll see what WWDC brings us, but so far I like the approach Apple seems to be taking compared to the AI-generated dog and pony show we get from the others.

danvm 1477 comments · 9 Years

chasm said:

mikethemartian said:

Forget OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, etc. Apple will have full emoji AI supremacy.

More importantly, most of Apple's efforts in "AI" seem to be focused on enhancing functions and apps users already rely on, and make them perform better.

Isn't that what MS and Google are already doing with MS Office + Copilot and Google Workspace + Gemini?

danvm said:

Isn't that what MS and Google are already doing with MS Office + Copilot and Google Workspace + Gemini?

My experience with Copilot is limited, since I try to minimize working with Windows compared to the pleasure of using a Mac.

I find Copilot to be very good at answering clearly-put questions, either directly from the Windows desktop or within Edge. I don't use a wide range of Windows apps, but unless I missed something Copilot in Office is still a chatbot (that will summarize a report if you ask it to). I don't see much in the way of what I would call true integration into existing apps apart from adding the chatbot at this stage.

Obviously I don't know for sure, but I'd expect Apple not to go quite that same route. I'd expect (I hope for) a key command/menu item to summarise or suggest improvements to a document. To me that would feel more "natural."

If that's what Windows is doing/working towards, great! Looking forward to that.

I avoid Google entirely, so I can't comment on Google Workspace + Gemini. I'm sure they'll do a nice job with it, but Google's raison d'etre is data scraping its users and selling that information. I've seen no media reports that suggest Google is changing that policy for Gemini, so that's a "never try" for me. I'd have to read Microsoft's privacy policy on Copilot before I'd trust it beyond the "playing around" stage.

Apple's existing privacy policies are the ones I most agree with, so that's what I use for most things. Naturally, I'll check any privacy exceptions/data collection documentation that comes to light about its AI usage, if any.

danox 3437 comments · 11 Years

danvm said:

chasm said:

mikethemartian said:

Forget OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, etc. Apple will have full emoji AI supremacy.

More importantly, most of Apple's efforts in "AI" seem to be focused on enhancing functions and apps users already rely on, and make them perform better.

Isn't that what MS and Google are already doing with MS Office + Copilot and Google Workspace + Gemini?

Microsoft AI where your computing life will be recalled in a rerun available to the highest bidder?..... I think Apple will do better building long term products when compared to Microsoft, Google, or Meta.