Al technology can sometimes act a little weird or glitchy, and your best iPhone is no different. If you're having issues with your networks not working correctly or your keyboard keeps suggesting odd words, you can reset many settings in just a few simple steps.

In iOS 15, you can reset the phone's settings, remove network connections, erase content, zap the keyboard dictionary, rearrange the Home screen, or dump Location and Privacy data — here's how.

How to reset all of your iPhone's settings

If you've mucked with the Settings app too much or you want your preferences to go back to factory defaults, resetting all of them is easy.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.

4. Tap Reset
5. Tap Reset All Settings. You may have to enter your passcode to do so.

How to reset your iPhone's network settings

Something wonky with your Wi-Fi? LTE towers not connecting? If you can't get online or have sluggish service, your network preferences may be to blame. Wiping them will get rid of all your saved Wi-Fi access points and their passwords, VPN, and APN connections, as well as reset your cellular connection with the towers, allowing you to enjoy a fresh start on your network.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.

4. Tap Reset
5. Tap Reset Network Settings. You may have to reenter your passcode to do so.

How to reset your Keyboard Dictionary

If autocorrect suggests some bizarre language, it might be time to dump your keyboard dictionary cache.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.

4. Tap Reset
5. Tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary. You may have to enter your passcode to do so.

How to reset your Home Screen layout

Want to go back to Apple's default app layout? Resetting your Home screen will move all default apps to the main Home screen and dump all third-party apps on subsequent screens. It won't reset your wallpaper, however, or delete any of your apps.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.

4. Tap Reset
5. Tap Reset Home Screen Layout. You may have to enter your passcode to do so.

How to reset Location and Privacy

If you want to restore your location and privacy settings to their system defaults, removing all access from third-party apps and requiring them to re-prompt you, this is the way to do it.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.

4. Tap Reset
5. Tap Reset Location & Privacy. You may have to enter your passcode to do so.

How to erase and restore your iPhone

If your iPhone is FUBAR or you want to restore an already-activated phone from a backup, here's how to wipe it and bring it back to Apple's initial setup screen. Note: You'll lose all data on the iPhone that hasn't been transferred to iCloud Drive or another cloud-based service.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. It's at the bottom.
4. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.

A valuable troubleshooting tool

Resetting various settings in your iPhone can sometimes help fix random glitches or issues you may be experiencing, but it can be a pretty extreme measure. Still, it has its uses. Just make sure you back up your iPhone before you reset any major settings, that way, you always have a backup in case something goes awry.

Updated November 2021: Updated for the latest version of iOS 15.

A few iOS releases back, Apple introduced a Markup editor in the Photos app. The Markup editor can be access in the Photos app on both iPhone and iPad, and it allows you to draw on photos, highlight specific areas with callouts, add text for fun captions, and more. Here's how to get the most out of the Markup editor in the Photos app, without ever having to download a third-party app!

How to access the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad

Though you can draw on photos and video inside Messages for spur-of-the-moment fun, you can also access a more thorough Markup editor from the Photos app itself. (Just for images, unfortunately — there are no tools available for video at this time.)

1. Launch Photos from your home screen.
2. Tap the Photos tab in the lower-left corner of the screen.
3. Select the photo you want to edit.
4. Tap Edit.

5. Tap the More (…) button.
6. Tap Markup.

You can now add doodles, callouts, and text to your photos.

How to draw on your photos with the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad

Once you're in the Markup editor, the fun begins.

1. Tap your preferred drawing tool along the bottom. Your options include a pen, a highlighter, and a pencil. There is also an eraser.
2. Tap the color picker circle to the right to choose a color for your drawing tool (except eraser).
3. Begin doodling on your photo.

Want a thinner or thicker line? Here's how to go about doing it.

1. Tap your preferred drawing tool along the bottom if not already chosen.
2. Tap your drawing tool again to bring up the sizes for that tool.
3. Select the thickness of your paintbrush, as well as color opacity.

How to make a callout in the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad

If you want to highlight a specific aspect of your photo, you can add a callout. Here's how!

1. While in Markup mode, tap the plus + button, located in the bottom right corner.
2. Select Magnifier.
3. Touch and drag the callout to highlight any aspect of your image.
4. To adjust the size, touch and slide the blue dot alongside the callout circle.
5. To adjust the magnification of the callout, touch and slide the green dot alongside the callout circle.

6. To change the color of your callout, just tap on the color you want to use from the color menu at the bottom. There is also a color picker if you want to use a non-standard color.

How to add text to a photo in the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad

Need to add a funny caption to your photo? You're in luck: Markup offers text addition, too.

1. While in Markup mode, tap the plus + button, located in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap Text.
3. Drag the blue handles at the ends of the box to make it larger, and touch and drag the entire box to move it around.

4. Double-tap the text to go into editing mode, and type in the text you want.
5. Tap a color at the bottom if you want to change it — there is also a color picker if the color you want isn't in the standard options.
6. Tap anywhere outside the text box to finish.

1. Tap the Font button in the lower-left corner (it has two As on it).
2. Tap Helvetica, Georgia, or Noteworthy to select a font face.

1. Tap the Font button in the lower-left corner (it has two As on it).
2. Move the slider to adjust your font size.

1. Tap the Font button in the lower-left corner (it has two As on it).
2. Tap the text alignment you would like (left, center, right, or justified) in the resulting menu.

How to undo or redo a move in the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad

Made a mistake in your markup? You can quickly undo it with the tap of a button. Just tap the curved arrow to the left if you want to undo, and you can do this as many times as necessary. To redo, just tap the curved arrow to the right.

Questions?

Want to know something else about the Markup editor in the Photos app on iPhone and iPad? Let us know in the comments!

Updated August 2020: Updated for the latest versions of iOS.

If you want to check out the app extensions that are available in Apple's built-in Maps app but can't seem to figure out how to enable them, read on.

Maps extensions became available starting with iOS 10. My colleagues swooned over all of the cool app extensions and what they could do.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find them.

"Do you have OpenTable on your iPhone?" "Is Uber available in your area?" Yup and yup. Still no toggle switch in Settings. When I tried to enable an app that I knew was available as an app extension, I got nothin'.

The fix!

Turns out, the problem was that I hadn't downloaded a supported app. From there, you must also enable an app extension in Maps.

Did you have trouble finding Maps extensions?

Please tell me I'm not the only one that had trouble figuring it out. Somebody have my back in the comments, will ya?

I'm a sucker for code names. They're so Bond. While Apple doesn't use public code names for iOS the way the company does for OS X — no big cats like Snow Leopard or California landmarks like El Capitan — it does use internal code names primarily based on ski resorts. They're not meant for the public but, once a version of iOS goes public, they're not hard to find.

• 1.0: Alpine / Heavenly
• 1.1: Snowbird
• 2.0: Big Bear
• 2.1: Sugarbowl
• 2.2: Timberline
• 3.0: Kirkwood
• 3.1: Northstar
• 3.2: Wildcat (iPad only)
• 4.0: Apex
• 4.1: Baker
• 4.2: Jasper (4.2.5 - 4.2.10: Phoenix)
• 4.3: Durango
• 5.0: Telluride
• 5.1: Hoodoo
• 6.0: Sundance
• 6.1: Brighton
• 7.0: Innsbruck
• 7.1: Sochi
• 8.0: Okemo
• 8.1: OkemoTaos
• 8.2: OkemoZurs
• 8.3: Stowe
• 8.4: Copper
• 9.0: Monarch
• 9.1: Boulder
• 9.2: Castlerock
• 9.3: Eagle
• 10.0: Whitetail
• 10.1: Butler
• 10.2: Corry
• 10.3: Erie
• 11.0: Tigris
• 11.1: Bursa
• 11.2: Cinar
• 11.3: Emet
• 11.4: Fatsa
• 12.0: Hope
• 13.0: Yukon
• 14.0: Azul
• 15.0: Sky

While knowing these names doesn't add to the feature set of the software, it does add a little depth to the experience. And because they're technically secret code names, they're ever so much cooler than desserts.

If you're running iOS 10 or macOS Sierra or higher on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, there are a whole bunch of messaging improvements to explore and play with, including bubble and screen effects, tapbacks and big emoji, and handwriting and Digital Touch options.

But what happens when you send a message with one of these options to a friend not rocking iOS 10 or macOS Sierra or higher? Here's how the new messages show up on older iPhone, iPads, and Macs.

Bubble and screen effects

When it comes to making message bubbles pop out on the screen or fill your window with balloons, older versions of iOS and OS X don't quite know what's going on. But like any good piece of accessibility software, they're happy to describe it to you: Send a message with the Slam effect to someone on an older device, and they'll see your original message, followed by:

All the little bubbles have the "sent with [effect] Effect" wording, while the full-screen alerts just describe the screen contents. For instance, if you sent someone a message with the shooting star effect, your recipient would get the original message, followed by:

In theory, macOS Sierra should get all these effects, but currently, only Invisible Ink is rendering properly, so you may see some commented bubble effects on that platform, too.

Tapbacks and big emoji

When you double-tap or press-and-hold on a message in iOS 10, you can send a "tapback" — Apple's version of a Facebook or Slack reaction. On macOS Sierra, those render as little icons in the upper right corner of your pal's message bubbles, but older versions of the software don't have that icon set to play with.

Instead, if you send a "Ha ha" tapback on your friend's picture of Pikachu, he'll see:

It's a little strange, but as my colleague Lory Gil put it: "At least we know how you feel, even if we can't see it."

On the emoji side, iOS 10 and macOS Sierra can display huge icons if you're using three or fewer of them; older versions of Apple's operating systems will simply display those emoji at regular size.

Stickers, gifs, and URLs

One of Messages' big improvements in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra is the introduction of Sticker packs and gifs, which you can send as is or "stick" to the sides of your friends' messages in reaction.

Send those stickers to a buddy on iOS 9 or OS X El Capitan, however, and you'll get static images. If you've attached them to a specific message bubble, that won't display — you'll just see the stickers load one after the other.

There's another big Messages change: contextual URLs, which display previews of web pages or services like Apple Music, just show up as normal old web URLs on older machines.

Handwriting and Digital Touch

Last but not least, we have Apple's watchOS-turned-iOS-and-macOS features: Handwriting and Digital Touch. With the company's Digital Touch drawing board, you can annotate over photos or video, draw a sketch, send a series of taps, or send a kiss. And tilt your device horizontally, and you'll get a sketch pad where you can handwrite out your message and deliver it in real time.

On older devices, these features mostly work, though without the animations present on iOS 10 and macOS Sierra. Your sketch and handwriting samples will send as fully-realized masterpieces rather than displaying line-by-line, your kiss displays as a blank black screen, and any tap sequence you send will display all the taps on the screen together — one big mass of overlapping circles.

Other questions about Messages and older devices?

Let us know in the comments.

Updated August 2018: This information is still all correct.

APFS is the Apple File System. It was introduced at WWDC 2016 and, starting this year, it will replace the existing HFS+ file system on Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, iMac, and Mac Pro.

Apple made a developer preview available for macOS Sierra back at WWDC 2016. With iOS 10.3, Apple's released APFS to every modern iPhone and iPad owner on the planet as well. Yeah, pedal to the metal.

Most of us don't need to know much about Apple File System. It's an implementation detail that will be largely transparent as it rolls out. Any future features it enables, like smarter backups and faster updates, and things we haven't even thought about yet, will no doubt get marketed all on their own anyway. For them, APFS will likewise be an implementation detail as well.

For anyone interested in file systems, though, there's a lot in APFS to find interesting.

What's new with APFS?

At WWDC 2018, Apple announced big changes coming to macOS Mojave, including a systemwide Dark mode, redesigned Mac App Store, new Finder and Desktop tools, and a whole lot more. One note Apple dropped during the Mojave presentation, almost as an afterthought, is that APFS will finally support Fusion Drives with Mojave.

Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, has reportedly shed a little bit of light on what's happening with APFS support for Fusion Drives on the Mac. The news comes by way of an email response.

From MacRumors:

In response to Jonathan's question, Federighi gave a short but enticing answer, which we verified:

Hi Jonathan,

We intend to address this question very soon...

Thanks,

• craig

Previously, Apple published a support document stating that APFS will not be supported on Fusion Drives at High Sierra's launch. If you've converted your files to APFS on a Fusion Drive in the High Sierra beta, you'll have to revert them back to HFS+.

How to revert your Fusion Drive back to HFS+ file system in macOS High Sierra

Why is Apple replacing HFS+?

HFS+ has been around since 1998 — almost twenty years ago — and has been updated and McGyver'd in almost every way imaginable since then in order to try and keep up with the demands of modern computing.

Since then we've gone from the Mac to iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, and Apple Watch, from a few million devices to over a billion devices, and from kilobytes and megabytes of data to gigabytes, terabytes, and beyond.

We've also gone from hard drive platters to solid state disks, from physical installs to digital downloads, and from manual backups to Time Machine and iCloud. We've gone from rigid, single-threaded data structures to more flexible approaches.

Through it all, HFS+ and its valiant crew have kept it running. Running in the red, maybe, held together with bubblegum and paperclips, but running.

But running in the red is no way to get to the future. For that, you need something new.

Sometimes, to make it to the future, you need a fresh approach.

What makes APFS more consistent?

While HFS+ runs on all of Apple's current devices, from Apple Watch to Mac Pro, there are differences in how it's been implemented across those devices, including key areas like encryption. That means different source code and separate maintenance and development.

APFS was designed to scale more consistently across Apple's platforms, now and into the future. That should allow for a single code base with fewer resources need to develop and maintain it and allow it to grow faster and better.

Will APFS be faster?

A great deal of speed has to do with perception. It's faster to reach for a drink on the table next to you than to have to get up and go get it from the fridge. APFS does several things to make Apple devices feel faster.

APFS, for example, focuses on low-latency. So, it prioritizes things like app launches and data delivery. That should minimizing beach balls and spinners.

It also does fast directory re-sizing, which means you shouldn't have to wait to see how big a directory is, if you're in the habit of looking.

How does APFS better suit SSDs?

Apple says APFS has been written with solid state storage in mind. That's the flash storage chips inside Apple Watch, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, and high-end Mac desktops.

What Apple means by this is that APFS writes in a way optimized for solid state, and supports the TRIM command which is helpful for people who delete a lot of files and like to keep a lot of space free.

Snapshots and clones... What about the snapshots and clones?

Two of the most high-profile features of APFS are snapshots and clones.

Snapshots create a read-only copy of the system at that single point in time. It's initially more space-efficient, because it doesn't duplicate any data until changes begin to be made. It also means changes can be reverted.

Clones are copies of "files" (both real files and the Mac's bundled folders-as-files). They're similarly more space-efficient at first, also not duplicating data until changes are made.

This makes creating both snapshots and clones far faster and more efficient than making traditional copies.

Will APFS help with storage space

For macOS users who employ partitions, AFS fixes a long-standing limitation. Basically, APFS sidesteps the issue of one partition running out of space when there's free space elsewhere on the drive by creating a container around all the partitions. If a partition needs more space it can claim it from the container, regardless of whether or not that space is physically adjacent to the partition.

Questions remain about how APFS will handle recovering storage from deleted files that have been cloned, though, since space can't be reclaimed as long as a single clone still exists.

APFS also supports sparse files, so storage is only allocated when it's really needed.

What about data integrity and crash protection?

APFS has atomic-level save state. That has to do with how it handles committing writes for files — they're either verified as completed or it appears as though they never happened at all. In other words, files use copy-on-write so a new version is created and the old version only released when the save is successful.

There are also checksums on metadata, though not on user-data.

APFS is better for encryption, though, right?

Apple makes security and privacy first-class, public facing, top-down features for their products and APFS is no different. Unlike current implementations, where macOS has disk-level encryption and iOS has file-level encryption, thanks to differences in implementation and hardware capabilities, APFS has a more consistent single-key and multi-key implementations for system-level, file level, and even specific data and metadata.

The type of encryption can vary between AES-XTS and AES-CBC depending on hardware.

Is APFS missing anything?

APFS is in its first generation, and that means not everything is included yet. Things like compression aren't yet available, which feels like an obvious next step. Likewise checksums on data. (Though Apple seems to believe Error Correction Code — ECC — on modern flash storage currently handles that well enough.)

It also doesn't currently support Fusion Drives or mechanical hard drives.

Will APFS be open sourced?

APFS is not currently open source. Over the years, Apple has either kept open and continued to contribute to, or themselves open sourced, the Mach Kernel, WebKit, LLVM, and Swift, among other projects.

Whether that will eventually include APFS we'll have to wait and see.

Should you use APFS?

If you've updated to iOS 10.3, you're on APFS. iOS is well contained and controlled environment, so it makes sense for Apple to start there. No transition is 100% safe, but iOS is as safe as they come.

If you're on the macOS Sierra beta, you can play around with APFS but the limitations listed above make it a relatively small playground. Just don't trust any important data to any APFS volumes until it's out of beta and into release.

Where can you learn more about APFS?

For more on the Apple File System, check out these resources:

• WWDC 2016 APFS introduction
• Apple APFS documentation
• APFS from a ZFS developer's point of view

In iOS 10.3, Apple added a new prompt for App Store ratings and reviews. Where before the prompt would kick you over to the App Store to leave a review, iOS 10.3 added in-app prompts. Come iOS 11, you can actually toggle those in-app prompts off. The new system will also limit the number of review prompts a user receives to three per year. My colleague Rene Ritchie has more information on the App Store review process, which you can find here:

• This is how developers will be able to respond to App Store reviews

How to use in-app ratings and reviews

In-app ratings and reviews will work a lot like the current rating and review process; you just don't have to leave the app!

• When an app prompts you for a rating, you simply tap the star that corresponds to your rating (5 is best; 1 is worst) and tap Submit.
• When an app prompts you for a review, you provide a rating and then type out your thoughts and feels. When you're done you'll tap Submit.
• If you'd rather not leave a rating or review, you can tap Dismiss to dismiss the prompt. After dismissing the prompt three times, you shouldn't see another app review prompt for a year.

These ratings and reviews happen entirely within the app that prompts you for a review — you should be able to complete everything without having to go to the App Store.

How to turn off in-app ratings and reviews in iOS 11

If you'd rather not see in-app ratings and reviews, you can disable the feature in the iOS Settings app.

Note: This setting only enables and disables Apple's new rating and review prompt. If a developer has a custom in-app prompt (that kicks you over to the App Store), you'll still see it. Apple will eventually require all developers to use its new prompt, so the setting will eventually work for all rating and review prompts.

1. Launch Settings on your iOS device.
2. Scroll down and tap iTunes & App Store.
3. Tap to toggle In-App Ratings & Reviews.

Questions?

Run into trouble getting in-app reviews turned on or off? Struggling to leave a review or rating within an app? Give us a shout in the comments and we'll try to troubleshoot!

As iOS 11 rolls out to the public today, 32-bit apps will not work in iOS 11. What does this mean for you? Well, it could mean nothing. You may not use any apps that are still 32-bit, meaning the developers have kept their apps updated to Apple's newest specs. If you're concerned that an app you love or use often may be affected and you want to make sure you know what you're getting into before downloading iOS 11, you can quickly check if the apps on your phone are 32-bit or not.

How to check which applications are still 32-bit on iPhone and iPad

The steps below will only work if you have iOS 10.3 installed.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.

3. Tap About.
4. Tap Applications.

Here you will be given a list of the applications that are still 32-bit. These are the apps that aren't compatible with iOS 11.

NOTE: If you tap on Applications, and no list of apps shows up, it means you don't have any apps that are 32-bit.

What can I do if an app I love is 32-bit currently?

Unfortunately, not a whole lot. It's really up to the developers to maintain and update their apps, so there is nothing you can do directly to fix the issue.

That being said, look at the App Store description of the app and see when the last update was made available. If you notice an update hasn't been pushed in a fairly long time (a year or more let's say), it may be an indication that the developers have decided to stop supporting that particular app. Of course, nothing is for certain, but I would encourage you to pay attention to any news coming from the developers to see if they plan on addressing your concerns.

Which games won't work in iOS 11?

If you play a lot of games on your iPhone or iPad you're probably concerned that some of your favorite games may not work in iOS 11, and I don't blame you. As it stands right now, there are plenty of popular games that have not been updated to function in the newest iOS including games like Call of Duty: Zombies, Midway Arcade, LEGO Batman: DC Super Heroes, Blazing Star, and Doom Classic.

If you're looking for a more comprehensive list of games that won't work in iOS 11, you can head over to Modojo and see their list. Even though Modojo claims that list is every game that won't work, remember that they are hundreds of thousands of games on the App Store, it is entirely possible they have missed a few. Keep reading below to find out how to check if any game or app on your phone is still 32-bit!

Any other questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

Updated September 2017: Updated for the launch of iOS 11.

Since its introduction, Touch ID has been an excellent feature that allows you to quickly unlock your iPhone or iPad while still maintaining a reasonable level of security. As it's evolved, it's only gotten better and faster. However, some opined that the feature worked too quickly, leaving them without time to read their notifications before unlocking their devices.

With iOS 10, Apple brought a new default behavior for opening an iPhone or iPad: you'd need to press the Home button in order to unlock the device. While this allows you to view notifications without worrying about opening your iPhone, you might also feel that it slows you down. Not to worry, however, because Apple has included a setting that allows you to simply rest your finger on the Home button in order to unlock you iPhone if you use the raise to wake feature or the on/off switch to turn on your iPhone's screen.

Here's how you can turn off "Press home to open" on your iPhone and iPad on both iOS 10 and iOS 11.

How to turn off 'Press home to open' on your iPhone and iPad

1. Open Settings from the home screen.
2. Scroll down and tap on General.
3. Tap on Accessibility.

4. Scroll down and tap on Home Button.
5. Enable Rest Finger to Open.

That's it! Now using the home button to turn on the iPhone will also unlock the phone. The only downside? You may miss those beautiful new notifications on the lock screen, but you can still easily get to them by activating the Notification Center.

Update September, 2017: Added new screenshots for iOS 11, spruced up the language in the introduction to reflect the feature's existence in iOS 11.

iOS 10.3.3 is coming down the road with a number of new features — features that need real-world testing before the software officially launches. As such, Apple is letting interested users check out iOS 10.3.3 and provide feedback before it goes into wide release.

If you're one of those interested users, however, you will have to go through the public beta download and install process. While it's not complicated, it is different. So, we're going to walk you through it and give you a place to ask questions if you need extra help.

Apple occasionally offers updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS as closed developer previews or public betas. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That's why we strongly recommend staying away from developer previews unless you need them for software development, and using the public betas with caution. If you depend on your devices, wait for the final release.

• How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad
• How to register your device with the iOS 10.3.3 public beta
• How to enroll your iPhone or iPad in the iOS 10.3.3 public beta
• How to install the iOS 10.3.2 public beta
• How to get started with the iOS 10.3.2 beta

How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad

Before you begin, make sure you back up your iPhone or iPad. While the beta process is fairly straight forward, any time you make any significant change to your device you risk problems. And with your personal data, it's always — always! — better to be safe than sorry. Even if you back up every night, you'll want to make sure it's absolutely up-to-date.

1. Plug iPhone or iPad into your Mac or Windows PC.
2. Launch iTunes.
3. Click on the iPhone or iPad icon in the menu bar when it appears.
4. Make sure backup is set to This Computer. (And enable Encrypted backup — it's worth it!)
5. Click on Back Up Now. (Click on Encrypt Backup and add a password — you want the security.)
6. Back up Apps, if asked.
   
   
   

7. Press Command, to open Preferences. (Or go to iTunes in the menu bar and click on Preferences.
8. Click on the Devices tab.
9. Option-click on your Backup and choose Archive.
   
   
   

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iOS 10 backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to register your account for the iOS 10.3.2 public beta

If you've already joined an Apple public beta in the past, you shouldn't need to register again for iOS 10.3.2; simply sign in with the same Apple ID. If you've never joined a public beta before, you'll start by signing up with your Apple ID.

1. Go to beta.apple.com on the iPhone or iPad you want to enroll in the beta.
2. Tap on Sign up to get started. (If you've already signed up for a previous public beta, tap on Sign in and skip to our "How to enroll your device" section below.)
3. Enter you Apple ID email address and password.
4. Tap Sign in.
5. Tap Accept to agree to the terms and conditions.

Once you're signed up and signed in, it's time to start downloading.

How to enroll your iPhone or iPad in the iOS 10.3.2 public beta

Unlike regular iOS updates, where you just tap and start downloading, Apple is using configuration profiles to validate devices for the iOS 10.2.1 public beta. Here's how to install it.

Note: If you've been on a previous iOS public beta, you may need to remove the previous beta profile before installing the iOS 10 version. You can do so by going to Settings > General > Profile, selecting the iOS Beta Software Profile, and pressing Delete Profile.

1. Go to beta.apple.com, if you're not there already.
2. Tap the iOS tab, if it's not highlighted already.
3. Tap on Download profile.
4. Tap on Install in the upper right corner.
5. Enter your Passcode.
6. Tap on Install, this time to consent to the beta agreement. (Read it: There are risks to any beta.)
7. Tap on Install at the bottom to confirm. (Yes, you need to be really sure.)
8. Tap on Restart to reboot your device.

Once your iPhone or iPad has finished rebooting, it should start to download iOS 10.3.2 automatically. From this point on, the process is the same as any other iOS update.

How to install the iOS 10.3.2 public beta

To install the iOS 10.3.2 beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen, tap on General, then tap on Software Update.
2. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
3. Enter your Passcode.

4. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
5. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPhone or iPad will reboot to install iOS 10.3.2. There will be a couple progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish.

How to get started with iOS 10.3.2 public beta

Once your iPhone or iPad reboots, it'll be running iOS 10.3.2. There's a brief bit of setup you'll need to go through, however, as the system will have changed enough that it'll need your login to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock iOS 10.3.2

What if I want to go back to iOS 10.3?

Note that iOS 10.3 brings with it Apple's new file system, APFS, and as such downgrading to an earlier version of the OS will be highly difficult, if not outright impossible.

What's new in iOS 10.3?

So much! We've written a bunch about the new operating system, including a detailed FAQ and sections on its new user interface, Lock screen, Messages app, and lots more.

Update July 5, 2017: Apple has released iOS 10.3.3 public beta 6 for members of the Beta Software Program. If you already have a version of the iOS 10 public beta installed, proceed to Settings > General > Software Updates and download away. If you've been waiting for beta 6 to get started on the public beta train keep reading and we'll walk you through the setup!

iOS 10.3.3 is on its way with new features, several that require lots of third-party developer input. As such, the company is releasing developer betas so that software engineers can get a head start on making great software for you.

• How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad
• How to register your device with the iOS 10.3 developer beta
• How to install the iOS 10.3.3 developer beta
• How to get started with the iOS 10.3 beta

How to make an archived backup of your iPhone or iPad

Before you begin, make sure you back up your iPhone or iPad. While the beta process is fairly straight forward, any time you make any significant change to your device you risk problems. And with your personal data, it's always — always! — better to be safe than sorry. Even if you back up every night, you'll want to make sure it's absolutely up-to-date.

1. Plug iPhone or iPad into your Mac or Windows PC.
2. Launch iTunes.
3. Click on the iPhone or iPad icon in the menu bar when it appears.
4. Make sure backup is set to This Computer. (And enable Encrypted backup — it's worth it!)
5. Click on Back Up Now. (Click on Encrypt Backup and add a password — you want the security.)
6. Back up Apps, if asked.
   
   
   

7. Press Command, to open Preferences. (Or go to iTunes in the menu bar and click on Preferences.
8. Click on the Devices tab.
9. Option-click on your Backup and choose Archive.
   
   
   

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iOS 10 backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to register your account for the iOS 10.3 beta

Before you do anything else, make sure you have a developer account with Apple — without a paid account, you won't be able to download any non-Xcode betas.

Thanks to Apple's configuration profile, you can download iOS betas directly on your iPhone or iPad, no Mac required! (You can still install iOS 10 on your iPhone or iPad by connecting your device to iTunes, but you'll need to be running the Xcode beta first. The method listed below is generally a lot faster, with fewer wires.)

1. Go to developer.apple.com on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Click on the "Download New Betas" tab.
3. Log in with your developer account's username and password.
4. Go to the iOS 10.3 beta section and tap download. This will begin the process of installing the beta software profile onto your iPhone.
5. The Beta software profile will appear on your phone. Tap Install. You may need to enter your Passcode.
6. Agree to the Consent form and press Install once in the upper right corner, and once at the bottom of the screen.
7. Press Restart to apply the changes to your iPhone.

How to install the iOS 10.3 beta

To install the iOS 10.3 beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPhone or iPad.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen, tap on General, then tap on Software Update.
2. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
3. Enter your Passcode.

4. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
5. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPhone or iPad will reboot to install iOS 10.3. There will be a couple progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish.

How to get started with iOS 10.3 beta

Once your iPhone or iPad reboots, it'll be running iOS 10.3. There's a brief bit of setup you'll need to go through, however, as the system will have changed enough that it'll need your login to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock iOS 10.

What if I want to go back to iOS 10.2.1?

iOS 10.3 beta 1 updates your device's file system to the new Apple File System (APFS). As such, you won't be able to downgrade once the update is complete.

What's new in iOS 10?

So much! We've written a bunch about the new operating system, including a detailed FAQ and sections on its new user interface, Lock screen, Messages app, and lots more.

Update July 5, 2017: Apple has just released iOS 10.3.3 beta 6 for developers. If you have a previous iOS 10 beta installed, you can head to Settings > General > Software Updates and get started downloading. If you were waiting for beta 6 to get started with iOS 10.3.3, keep reading and we'll help you get set up.

With iOS 10.3, Apple is hoping to start analyzing user data to improve iCloud. Typically, large internet companies like Google and Facebook want to vacuum all our data up into the cloud so they can feed their search indexes, social graphs, and artificial intelligence projects. They claim to anonymize some of it by stripping off personal identifiers but, data at sufficient volume still paints precise enough patterns that identity can be sometimes still be determined.

Apple's trying to do it in a way that maintains effective anonymity for their users. And one of the ways they're doing that is with a technique called "differential privacy".

Here's what Apple says about it:

How does differential privacy work?

Unveiled at WWDC 2016, differential privacy works by adding a level of noise to data at the point of collection — like when you add a new word to the auto-predict dictionary in the QuickType keyboard.

Once large amounts of data from large volumes of users is collected, statistical analysis is then used to "see" the patterns through the noise. It's impossible to tell who was the source of any particular piece of data, but the frequency, popularity, and other meta-information about that data becomes usable by Apple to improve services.

That's... obscure. Example, please!

Let's say Apple wanted to know whether to suggest "Wars" or "Trek" more often as an auto-complete for "Star", but they want to make sure not to start any family feuds — because sci-fan fans are passionate!

With differential privacy, when collecting the data, Apple flips a virtual coin and then every time the coin comes up "heads", records the answer incorrectly. In other words, it records a "lie". So, when recording a million answers, half of them would be "lies", and it would be impossible to know if any individual answer was the truth or a "lie".

By collecting enough responses from enough people, and using statistical analysis to figure out how many lies there were, Apple could get really close to the proper answer, again, without ever knowing exactly which individuals answered which way.

Less noise could be added for areas of less popularity and frequency, more noise for areas with higher popularity and frequency. The system could automatically opt-out anyone who was contributing too much data to protect their privacy.

That's just one example of how noise and statistics can be added to protect privacy but still provide useful data. Apple wants to start using to it improve the quality of Siri responses and related services as well.

Privacy different

For end users, the benefits of crowd sourcing are tangible. If millions of people started typing or saying "shway" for "cool", Apple could quickly add it to dictionaries, without ever needing, or caring, to know whether you typed or said it or not.

In other words, differential privacy lets Apple provide most of the crowd-sourced, artificially intelligent services we want, but without the intrusive data collection practices that creep us out.

If done right, it'll be a real win/win for everyone.

In iOS 10.3, you now have the ability to see every device connected to your iCloud account, thanks to everything iCloud being in one spot in your Settings. You can remove old devices you don't use anymore (or devices that shouldn't be there), make sure the devices you want connected are connected, and more.

Here's how.

• How to check if your device is connected
• How to enable/disable Find My iPhone and iCloud Backup
• How to check your device's model, serial number, IMEI, and OS version
• How to remove cards from Apple Pay
• How to remove a device

How to check if your device is connected

If you want to see what's connected to your iCloud account or you want to make sure a particular device is connected, you can now do so in iOS 10.3.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your Apple ID (your name) at the top.

All devices connected to your iCloud account will appear, including Apple TVs and Macs/MacBooks. This will even include past phones that might not even exist anymore.

How to enable/disable Find My iPhone and iCloud Backup

You can remotely enable and disable Find My iPhone and iCloud Backup.

Note that for iCloud Backup, the device must be on and connected to the internet.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your Apple ID (your name) at the top.
3. Scroll down and tap a device (an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch).
4. Enter your iCloud password if prompted and tap OK.
5. Answer security questions if prompted and tap Verify.
6. Tap Find My iPhone or iCloud Backup.

7. Tap the switch to enable or disable the feature.
8. Enter your Apple ID password if prompted.
9. Tap Turn Off for Find My iPhone or OK for iCloud Backup.

Note that if the device is still signed in and connected to the internet, it'll re-appear.

How to check your device's model, serial number, IMEI, and OS version

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your Apple ID (your name) at the top.
3. Tap a device.
4. Enter your iCloud password if promopted.
5. Enter the answers to security questions if prompted.

All of the device's information will appear under Device Info.

How to remove cards from Apple Pay

If you have old devices with credit cards on them or just want to remove expired cards from your current iPhone, you can do so easily, thanks to that new user banner.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your Apple ID (your name) at the top.
3. Tap a device.
4. Enter your iCloud password if promopted.
5. Enter the answers to security questions if prompted.

6. Tap Remove Card under Apple Pay.
7. Tap Remove in the pop-up.

How to remove a device

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap your Apple ID (your name) at the top.
3. Scroll down and tap a device (an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch).
4. Enter your iCloud password if promopted.
5. Enter the answers to security questions if prompted.

6. Tap Remove From Account.
7. Tap Remove in the pop-up.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

With iOS 10.2, Apple has introduced some substantial additions to the iPhone and iPad experience. Among these changes are the new TV app, brand new emoji, and a new screen effect for iMessage. There are also a number of smaller, but still important, tweaks that make the overall experience better.

Once you download and install iOS 10.2, these are the notable additions and changes to be aware of.

Tune in to TV

Just as tvOS 10.1 has done with the Apple TV, iOS 10.2 has added the new TV application, which is now a central hub for the shows and movies you watch on your iPhone and iPad. Your media apps like Hulu, NBC, and ABC, if they've been updated, will send your viewing data to the app, allowing you to pick up where you've left off.

• How to use the TV app on iPhone and iPad

New emoji!

iOS 10.2 brings new emoji that were created as part of Unicode 9.0. The new emoji include Clown, Bacon, and Selfie, and more than 70 additional characters, giving you a variety of new ways to express yourself.

Celebrate with Messages

Messages now features a couple of new screen effects for your iMessage conversations. You can now send your messages with the Celebration effect, in which sparks shoot out across your screen. There's also the new Love effect, which sends a Heart balloon as part of your message.

The little things

There are some smaller changes that come with iOS 10.2 that many will find very useful.

Among these new changes are the Preserve Camera Settings options, which will keep your most recent settings for camera mode, photo filter, and Live Photos the same in the Camera app. Previously, you'd have to reset the Camera app every time you opened it. Find this new feature under Settings > Photos & Camera > Preserve settings.

The Music app has made a couple of tweaks to its user experience that should make everything more enjoyable overall. First, the Shuffle and Repeat buttons are now substantially larger, and are now just a short swipe down on the Now Playing screen. Second, star ratings have returned, so just head to Settings > Music and flip the switch next to Show Star Ratings, and press firmly on a track to view and change its star rating.

While the TV app is the new central hub for TV shows and movies on your iPhone and iPad, that doesn't mean that the Videos app has been abandoned. The app now has a widget, which you can use to continue your binge of a TV show or pick up where you left off with a movie.

Apple's SOS feature, previously introduced on the Apple Watch, is also now available for iPhone owners in India.

Any questions?

If you've got any questions about the new features in iOS 10.2, don't hesitate to post them in the comments.

Last night I awoke, to find out to my surprise, I had died. Well, not really — but what a great opening sentence! What did happen was, in a crowded room celebrating the Bar Mitzvah of a close friend's son, I fainted. A minute later there was someone giving me CPR, another oxygen. Some bystanders said I stopped breathing, another said I had no pulse. So technically perhaps I was dead. No matter.

Dead like Mike

In the confusion, someone asked if they had my medical history, medications etc. My amazing wife pulled out my iPhone from my jacket, went to the emergency screen, and pulled up my Medical ID. There it was, any information an EMT or doctor. could want in an emergency setting.

I really was OK, just tired and, and dehydrated, but chatting with the EMT folks on the ambulance ride they thought that was an amazing feature. One said his phone didn't do that. (I'm on my way to the hospital, in an ambulance, and these folks are having a smartphone debate...)

Anyhow, great story right? There's just a little detail I left out. It just so happened that the day before, I had shown my wife how to access my medical information without the need to unlock my phone.

If I hadn't given her that little lesson, the EMTs, assorted doctors (and one guy named Irving Doktor who leaped to the scene) would have had all my medical info, literally at their fingertips, and not even know it was there.

If nobody knows about a feature, does it really exist?

iOS is amazing. But this amazing, potentially lifesaving feature is totally not discoverable. Every person I asked in the last day could not find the hidden information while we played "let's pretend Michael is having a stroke". In short, I'd have been dead long before anyone could figure it out. Not one person thought pressing the emergency button on a dialer screen would bring up a Medical ID. Not one.

As iOS has become more feature laden, it's also become much more complex. While adding functionality and keeping the interface simple, Apple has made it hard for users to discover the wonderful features inside. It's one thing if you don't realize turning your phone landscape in messaging lets you send "ink". It's quite another when a fantastic, literally lifesaving feature is built in, and no one either knows about or even if they knew it existed, they couldn't find it.

I'm not going to tell Apple how to best implement Medical ID. I am going to say in its current form, unless you give friends and, loved ones a course in how to use it, it might as well not exist.

And absent knowledge of those amazing features, the iPhone loses a lot of its potential value.

With iOS 10, a number of different apps from select categories can now tap into Apple's voice-powered digital assistant, Siri. Using nothing but your voice, you can request a ride from Uber, make a call on Skype, or even send that friend of yours the $10 you owe them.

Note: The Siri update to some of these apps may not be available just yet.

At launch, Siri on iOS 10 works with apps in the following categories:

• Ride booking
• Calls
• Messaging
• Payments
• Photo search
• Workouts

Ride booking

You can now use Siri to book car rides through services like Uber and Lyft. Just let Siri know where you need to go and what service you'd like to use, and it'll find your ride for you.

• Uber - Download Now
• Lyft - Download Now

Calls

You can now initiate calls from third-party apps using Siri. With these new capabilities, calling your friends on Skype or contacting a colleague using Vonage Essentials is just as easy as placing a normal phone call, and with Siri integration, it's just a matter of giving your phone a shout.

• Skype - Download Now
• Vonage Essentials - Download Now
• Cisco Spark - Download Now

Send Messages

Just like calls, you can now send messages through third-party apps with Siri. Now you can stay in touch with friends, family, and colleagues without a single keystroke.

• WhatsApp - Download Now
• LinkedIn - Download Now
• Confide - Download Now
• Convo - Download Now
• Telegram - Download Now

Payments

Whether you owe a friend money or are owed money by a friend, services like Square Cash and Venmo offer quick options for moving money. Using Siri, you can send or request a payment without needing to open an app.

• Square Cash - Download Now
• Venmo - Download Now
• Discover Mobile - Download Now
• PayPal - Download Now

Photo searching

While you could previously use Siri to look up images in your photo library, you can now perform photo searches in third-party apps as well. You can use this new ability to, for instance, search for specific types of pins in Pinterest, or check out the latest fashions with Vogue Runway.

• Pinterest - Download Now
• Vogue Runway - Download Now
• The Roll - Download Now

Workouts

Siri can now help you get into shape with the ability to start workouts. Apps like Zova and Runtastic use Siri integration to let you start your next session, be it a run, walk, or stretch.

• Zova - Download Now
• Runtastic - Download Now
• Map My Run - Download Now
• Blast Baseball 360 - Download Now
• Seven - Download Now
• Nike+ Run Club - Download Now

Be sure to bookmark this page, which we'll continually update as more apps add support for Siri's new capabilities.

If you've ever wondered what goes into making a sticker pack for iOS, you've got to check out Graham Spencer's guide over at MacStories. It's loaded with screenshots, tips, and comprehensive instructions for every step of the sticker-making process.

MacStories Guide: Design and Launch Your Own iMessage Sticker Pack on the App Store

I've put together a couple sticker packs for iOS; here's a live shot of me during that process:

And here's a shot of me if I'd had Graham's guide at the time:

If you want to design and launch a sticker pack, save yourself the headache (and potential tears) and check out Graham's guide!

Stickers?

I'm curious: If you could design and launch a sticker pack of your very own, what would it look like? Gimme a shout in the comments or on Twitter!

Many websites (iMore included) have turned to Google AMP for displaying certain mobile pages. There are a number of reasons for this: It's often a faster (and ad-light!) way to display articles when you're browsing on your phone, and Google prioritizes AMP-based pages in mobile search. But just because it's sometimes convenient for publishers and viewers doesn't mean it's always the best way to view a website.

If you want to switch from an AMP-based page on your iPhone to the full website, here's how to go about it.

How to switch from Google AMP to the desktop version of a website

1. Click on a Google AMP page in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button in the bottom center of the screen.
3. Swipe left along the bottom row until you see the Request Desktop Site button, and select it.

4. The website will reload as its desktop version.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments.

Apple's App Store{.nofollow} version tracker now lists iOS 10 as having 54% adoption. That's following launch on September 16. 54% is slightly lower than the 57% recorded by iOS 9 by the this time last year, but iOS 9 kept the same device compatibility as iOS 8, while iOS 10 removed compatibility for a number of popular devices, including the 2011 iPhone 4s and iPad 2. What's more, unlike previous years, there weren't any popups or bright red badges prompting people to update until well after the first-week early-adopter surge wound down. That helped make sure the servers could take the initial load.

iOS 10 still shipped to every model of iPhone and iPad released since late 2012, on every carrier, in every region, all on the same day. That includes iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5 as well as iPad Pro 12.9, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPad 4, iPad mini 4, iPad mini 3, and iPad mini 2.

That's monumental when you consider Samsung's 2012 Galaxy S III can only run up to Android 4.4 Kit Kat, which was released in late 2014. Even Google's own 2012 Nexus 4, can only be officially updated to Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.

The latest version is Android 7.0, Nougat, announced earlier this year, but due to how Android works, has yet to reach a measurable number of devices. (Last year's Android 6.0 Marshmallow is currently sitting at just under 19%, according to Google Play.)

Imagine if iPhone 5 was stuck on iOS 5 or iOS 7, and iOS 10 hadn't reached 1% of iPhones or iPads yet? Or iPhone 7 owners were worried Verizon wouldn't okay the same updates?

Now, comparing iOS updates to Android updates isn't apples to oranges. There are a variety of reasons why an operating system created by Google but deployed by a wide range of vendors across hundreds of carries will never equal the penetration rate of an integrated, determined company like Apple.

But that's not the customer's problem. Updates, especially security updates, represent not only significant ongoing value, but table stakes. And that's what Apple is delivering.

When it comes to editing or selecting text on an iPad, there's nothing simpler than the tap-to-select feature. It's been around since the second iOS release (back when it was still "iPhone OS"), and although somewhat rudimentary, it gets the job done.

But external keyboards and iOS have spoiled us: On an external keyboard, you can move your cursor with the arrow keys, and select text by holding down Shift while doing so. iOS, meanwhile, allows you to put two fingers on the iPad's digital keyboard (or 3D Touch with one finger on the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus) to move your cursor, trackpad style.

But who says you have to choose? Thanks to the way this feature is built in, you can use the two-finger gesture even if you have an external keyboard attached.

How to enable trackpad mode on your iPad without the virtual keyboard

1. Open a text document and make sure you're in Edit mode, or tap in any text field.
2. Place two fingers anywhere inside the text field to activate Trackpad mode.
3. Move your fingers to move the cursor where you'd like it to be positioned.
4. To highlight a word, position your cursor over the word, release your fingers, then tap once with two fingers. To highlight a paragraph, tap twice with two fingers.

This trick works whether or not you have an external keyboard attached. It's a great way to easily highlight words and paragraphs, though it won't bring up the traditional text pop-over menu; to do that, you'll need to one-finger tap the area currently selected.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments.

Have you ever tried to delete a giant paragraph of text you just typed on your iPhone or iPad? Good news: You don't have to hold backspace and watch all the letters and words disappear, one by one. You can simply shake your iPhone. Shake to Undo can save precious time and simply gets rid of what you just wrote, so you can start fresh with a blank slate.

• How to use Shake to Undo on iPhone and iPad
• How to Shake to Redo text on iPhone and iPad
• How to turn off Shake to Undo on iPhone and iPad

How to use Shake to Undo in iPhone and iPad.

Shake to Undo works with almost all apps that you can type in, but in order to show you exactly how everything works, I will demonstrate it in Notes.

1. Type anything.
2. Physically shake your iPhone or iPad.
3. Tap Undo.

This will delete all the text you wrote since the last change you made, meaning that, if you made a spelling mistake and corrected it (either via autocorrect or by deleting and retyping it), it will take you back to that point. You can keep shaking your iPhone or iPad to undo multiple times.

How to Shake to Redo text on iPhone and iPad

If you ever accidentally undo something, you can easily redo your last step.

1. Type anything.
2. Physically shake your iPhone or iPad.
3. Tap Undo.

4. Physically shake your iPhone or iPad.
5. Tap Redo Typing.

You can also keep shaking your iPhone or iPad to redo text multiple times if you need.

How to turn off Shake to Undo on iPhone and iPad

If you find that the Shake to Undo is triggering too often when it's unwanted, you can turn it off in Settings.

1. Launch the Settings app from your Home screen.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Accessibility.

4. Tap on Shake to Undo.
5. Tap the switch so that it appears gray.

Questions?

Let us know in the comments below!

Some folks are having trouble viewing our images inside the iMore app. We're working to fix this problem, but in the meantime, we suggest visiting our website for the full version.

When the iPhone 7 Plus and its dual-camera system launched, it did so missing a key feature: Portrait mode, which uses the Plus's two cameras to create a faux depth-of-field effect with a gaussian blur, simulating the look of higher-end cameras like DSLRs and mirrorless models. On stage, Apple SVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller even jokingly compared the iPhone's photos to a "DSLR photo" — before revealing the image had, in fact, been taken with an iPhone 7 Plus and a beta of Portrait mode.

• Review: The iPhone 7 Plus and Portrait mode

Portrait mode is now available to everyone with iOS 10.1, and we figured a perfect test of this mode was to actually compare it to an entry-level DSLR — namely, Canon's T4i — with a 40mm f/2.8 lens, just a little bit shallower than the iPhone 7 Plus's second 56mm-equivalent lens.

We ran these tests with a beta of Portrait mode in late September, so I wasn't expecting miracles or for the iPhone 7 Plus to "beat" the Canon (spoiler: it doesn't). But what I do find fascinating is just how close the iPhone comes in certain circumstances to replicating — or, in some case, exceeding — the DSLR look without the heft or the cost of a pro camera setup.

How we tested

Like my other camera tests, the goal for these was to simulate the way an average user might snap images with their iPhone or entry-level DSLR. Both cameras were shot freehand, and though I shot with the DSLR in Manual mode, that was primarily to get a similar ISO and shutter speed to the iPhone's telephoto lens, and I kept the Canon's white balance on auto. Both recorded to JPEG, with no post-processing.

For the DSLR comparison, I used my Canon Rebel T4i with Canon's 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens to match the iPhone 7 Plus's telephoto lens setup as much as possible.

NOTE: Though many (myself included) have argued that this system is closer in comparison to a normal or portrait lens than a true telephoto, I understand Apple's intentions here: Because they're marketing the lens in conjunction with a 2x feature, it may seem more appropriate to call it "tele" than "normal" or "portrait" to the average user — especially considering that Apple has a planned "Portrait" feature coming out that utilizes both lenses later this year. For that reason, I'm referring to the lens as Apple names it — tele, or telephoto — even though I don't necessarily agree with that branding.

People

The iPhone 7 Plus's Portrait mode is designed around taking snapshots of people — it has face and body detection built in to aid with the effect — so it's only fair that its first test actually involve human subjects.

When it comes to shooting outdoors, the two cameras have almost identical picture quality, and the trees are nicely blurred out in the background. Portrait mode seems to struggle a bit right now with getting smooth cuts for faces and bodies against highly blurred backgrounds, however; it's most obvious against my hair in the first shot, and my male subject's face and body when shooting backlit.

The iPhone tends to try and grab more information about the background than the Canon, and as such, the background is a lot darker and has more definition in the trees than the DSLR shots, which blow out the light between the trees for a more stylized effect. (Don't make me call it bokeh.)

Indoors, the Canon's superior sensor offers a lot more detail than the iPhone, which resorts to smoothing pixels a bit to keep the image clear. The depth of field effect is gorgeous on the smartphone, however, providing a nice mid-level blur as well as blurring out the Enceladus poster in the background.

Pets

I tricked a few people on Twitter with the photos below, and for good reason: The iPhone loves outdoor subjects with clear focal areas to measure.

Though the iPhone continues to process images with a slightly warmer coloration and sharpness than the Canon, the depth maps on these images are quite similar. The Canon benefits from some foreground blur, but the iPhone smartly uses the dog's feet in this photo to create a midpoint blur and taper between that and the full background blur, and it looks beautiful. Even with the dog in motion, the iPhone identifies differing blur points and tapers down, though it's not as smooth as the Canon.

I wasn't supposed to be able to get this photo: When I first tried to grab it, Portrait mode insisted I was too close to my subject, and I probably was — I only managed to snap this after moving away, then pushing back in. But boy, am I glad I did. Even in relatively low-light conditions, I got a lot of the detail in our dog's face, and the multi-layered blur separates her paws and ears from the rest of the scene.

Products

I take a lot (a lot) of technology product shots, largely with my DSLR; in the past, the iPhone's lack of depth (save for macro modes) has made it difficult to get good spotlight shots. But I've been toying with shooting iMore heroes on the iPhone 7 Plus, and Portrait mode makes it surprisingly easy — as long as there's good light.

Though I can't get quite as close as I'd like to when shooting in Portrait mode with the iPhone 7 (the 56mm-equivalent lens has a minimum focus distance of 19 inches), it still nicely highlights the iPhone and blurs out the background, though not with as much light diffusion as the Canon.

Where the iPhone unfortunately falls flat is low-light snaps: Because the iPhone 7 Plus's 56mm-equivalent lens has no optical image stabilization and a smaller sensor, it has real trouble capturing low-light images — especially low-light images that are close up. I went back and forth between the "not enough light" and "back up" error messages for at least two minutes before eventually deciding to just take the snap as-is, without the Portrait mode. It still has some depth of focus to it, but the image isn't nearly as clear or as tapered as the Canon.

This poor Lego.

I really pushed Portrait mode to the limit here, giving it a tiny subject to work with against a grained background, all while trying to shoot as close as humanly possible. The result: A very grainy photo on the iPhone 7 Plus side without a ton of nuance to the background blur, and a closer shot that confused the head of the Stormtrooper for the background. Whoops.

Flowers

Like the Lego example above, flowers are entirely outside Portrait mode's current scope, and given how well you can get decent depth of field shooting macro with the wide-angle, I don't know if I'd use Portrait for this stuff very often.

The flowers and leaves are a bit more blown out than the Canon image, in part due to this snap being in the shade and close to evening time. While there's a nice variegated blur going on at the top of the image with the ferns, the middle of the image (between the flowers) didn't get a blur applied at all, and the wall looks strangely in focus.

Were I going to shoot nature closeups with this mode, I'd probably do something closer to this shot: Macro leaves with the rest of the background out of focus. The only real clue between these two shots, besides the color temperature, is the slight foreground blur on the Canon image.

Drinks

Taking artsy drink shots is a time-honored Instagram tradition, but I'm skeptical as to how well the iPhone's telephoto lens will snap them unless you're outdoors or in a brightly lit area.

Admittedly, I gave the iPhone a stiff challenge in this photo of a whiskey bottle: glass bottle, dark kitchen, mirrored surface, onion in the background. And while it didn't exactly fail this challenge, there's no question about which image looks better. The iPhone struggled with blur areas, getting a nice foreground blur but missing parts of the reflective table and accidentally blurring out words on the bottle. And when it comes to macro, of course, the telephoto can't focus on the bottle at all, ceding the competition to the Canon.

Bottom line

Portrait is getting its start in beta as a fun experiment and a bit of a gimmick — one I have no doubt will take over Instagram as readily as vignetting and tilt-shift did. But I have high hopes for the feature: The iPhone is always going to struggle against something as full-featured as a DSLR given its limited room for sensors and lenses, but the device still puts together an awfully strong showing — and does so without the need of carrying a pro camera setup or fiddling with manual controls.

In some cases during our tests, I was able to get a very similar shot to my DSLR without taking the time to check the exposure meter and adjust my shutter speed accordingly; I needed only to lift the iPhone up to my subject and snap the photo.

The iPhone's Image Signal Processor is working overtime when you snap these shots, which is why you won't see extra bells and whistles just yet — no Flash or low-light images, no zoom, and no official support for snapping photos of objects. But I have no doubt this feature will evolve and transform as more users get their hands on the Public Beta and Apple continues to refine its controls.

For now, it's a fascinatingly fun feature to play with, and I can't wait to give it a more thorough run through its paces over the next few days.

Do you have an iPhone 7 Plus and Portrait mode? Let us know what you think.

With iOS 10, you can have even greater control over your mobile photography thanks to Apple's new RAW shooting and editing features. With the RAW APIs, you can now shoot, edit, and process your RAW photos using third-party apps on your iPhone or iPad. Here's everything you need to know about shooting RAW.

Why do I want to shoot RAW?

RAW is a file format that contains the raw data directly from a camera sensor. This raw data is unprocessed and uncompressed; it's the "purest" form of the image. RAW files tend to appear quite flat in coloration and depth initially as a result, but it allows users to really bring them to life in post-production.

When you shoot RAW, you can pull down highlights or boost shadows to bring out new detail in the image. It's a huge win for photographing high-contrast scenes, and it's why most professional photographers generally opt to shoot RAW. You may put more work in when doing post-production tasks, but the benefits are huge.

Best manual camera apps for shooting RAW

Whether you just want to take more stunning shots in general, or need to focus on something more specific, like long exposure, full manual control, or advanced editing, the App Store has several amazing camera apps that'll help you do just that. No matter what your iPhone photography needs are, there's something for everyone. Here are our current favorites.

Best manual camera apps for shooting RAW on your iPhone or iPad

How to shoot RAW on your iPhone or iPad

You can get great images straight from the iPhone and iPad's stock Camera app and share them with your friends and family. But if you're interested in using your iPhone for more pro-level photography experiments, there's a new tool for you in iOS 10: shooting RAW. As with Apple's manual camera controls, you can only shoot RAW in third-party apps that support the feature.

How to shoot RAW photos on your iPhone or iPad

How to import and edit RAW photos on your iPhone or iPad

The iPhone and iPad's cameras are impressive for portable devices — especially so if you've just picked up the new iPhone 7 or 7 Plus. But if you love shooting with your DSLR or other professional camera, too, you can have the best of both worlds: Snap RAW images on your primary camera, then transfer them to your iPhone for editing and publishing with Apple's Lightning to SD card reader or Lightning to USB cable. Here's how to go about it.

How to import and edit RAW photos on your iPhone or iPad

How to edit RAW files in the Photos app for iPhone and iPad

As of iOS 10, iCloud Photo Library will sync your RAW files. Any RAW images you snap in a third-party camera app on your iPhone will show up as RAW on your iPad and Mac, and better yet — you can now import RAW images from your DSLR or other pro camera to your iPhone or iPad and have them sync properly.

You can also process and edit those RAW files directly on your iPhone or iPad using an external editor like Lightroom, and even through the Photos app. But be aware: If you want to edit a RAW file with Photos for iPhone, you're going to want to create a duplicate of it first.

How to edit RAW files in the Photos app for iPhone and iPad

Questions about shooting and editing RAW files?

Let us know below.

September 2019: Updated for iOS 13 and iPhone 11 devices.

Photographers rejoice: As of iOS 10, iCloud Photo Library will sync your RAW files. That means the full image data is pulled right off the camera sensor. Any RAW images you snap in a third-party camera app on your iPhone will show up as RAW on your iPad and Mac, but better yet — you can now import RAW images from your DSLR or other pro camera to your iPhone or iPad and have them sync properly to your Mac.

You can also process and edit those RAW files directly on your iPhone or iPad using an external editor like Lightroom, and even through the Photos app. But be aware: If you want to edit a RAW file with Photos for iPhone, you're going to want to create a duplicate of it first.

How RAW processing works on iPhone and iPad

When you process a RAW file, you're never editing the raw data — instead, you're essentially working with a small sidecar file that tells the RAW file how to process light, saturation, and the like. RAW files are huge compared to web-friendly-but-highly-compressed formats like JPG — 11MB or more — and as such, when you go to save your edits, you'll want to export it into something more manageable.

In Photos for iPhone and iPad, when you press the Edit button on one of your RAW files, you're editing that sidecar data. But when you finish editing, Photos automatically presents you with a converted, compressed file to use elsewhere.

This isn't unusual for image editing programs to do — after all, you can't really export an edited RAW file. The issue, however, is with formatting: Most apps let you choose between exporting a small format like JPG, which uses "lossy" compression, and a much larger format like TIFF or PSD, which uses "lossless" compression. ("Lossy" because it saves space by throwing away data science says our eyes can't easily notice.) Photos for iPhone and iPad, however, automatically exports to JPG without asking the end-user what they'd like to do.

This is largely because Photos assumes that, after editing, you're going to share this photo online — and thus, want a nicely-formatted image to use. The original RAW file is still there thanks to iOS's non-destructive editing, however, and you can restore it by going back into the editing screen and reverting changes to the original file.

Unfortunately, even with non-destructive editing, iOS can't differentiate as to which file it should send a third-party app: It treats a sharing app (like Twitter) identically to a photo editing app (like Lightroom).

So, if you used the Crop tool in Photos before bringing an image into Lightroom, you'd only see the cropped JPG when you went to import and not the original RAW file.

As such, if you plan on editing a file in Photos but also want the original RAW file available for third-party apps, there's a simple way to avoid this stress — duplicate your original file.

How to duplicate a RAW file in Photos for iPhone and iPad

1. Choose the RAW image you wish to duplicate in the Photos app.
2. Tap the Share button.
3. Scroll along the bottom section of the Share Sheet until you find the Duplicate button, then tap it.

Once you've duplicated your file, you can leave one in Photos as the original RAW file, and feel free to edit the other in-app.

Questions?

Any questions about RAW, editing on iPhone and iPad, and the like? Let us know below.

iOS 10 has given iPhone users a ton of new innovative features, but if you're a huge fan of snapping photos and editing your iPhoneography masterpieces, then Markup has probably been a favorite tool of yours.

Markup can be used for a ton of things, including adding text and callouts to photos, but one thing that Markup can also do is turn your hand-drawn shapes into clean-cut art for your photos!

Here's how to draw specific shapes in the Markup editor for iPhone and iPad!

How to draw specific shapes in the Markup editor

There are several different types of shapes you can draw in the Markup editor that will be recognized, including a square, speech bubble, thinking bubble, circle, heart, triangle, transparent arrow, filled-in arrow, start, and some polygon shapes.

1. Launch Photos from your Home screen.
2. Tap the photo you would like to edit.
3. Tap the edit button. It looks like a hamburger menu along the bottom of your screen.

4. Tap the More (...) button.
5. Tap Markup.
6. Select the color you want your shape to be.

7. Draw your shape with your finger. Make sure to draw your shape in its entirety without lifting your finger off the screen. If you list your finger, Markup will not register the shape.
8. Tap the shape suggestion that appears on screen to change your shape into a clean-cut star, heart, arrow, etc.
9. Pinch and adjust the shape until you are happy with how it looks.
10. Tap done in the upper right corner when you are finished.

What do you think?

What types of shapes have you discovered in the Markup editor for iPhone and iPad? Let's see if we can find them all!

Update: Apple has just released iOS 10.1, an update that brings the long-awaited portrait mode to iPhone 7 Plus, fixes issues with reduced motion and iMessage effects, cleans up the iMessage app drawer, and more. I've updated the review below to reflect the major changes.

iOS 7 was a redesign, wiping away rich textures and putting physics-based interactions in their place. iOS 8 was a re-architecture, decoupling actions from apps and letting them extend into other interfaces and continue across devices. iOS 9 was a rewiring, setting up intelligence and proactivity, but in a way that respected privacy and security.

Now, iOS 10 takes all those things and pushes them forward. The design is getting cleaner and more consistent. The architecture is becoming more open and convenient. The wiring, much smarter and even more secure. It's taken time — and pain — getting the physics, extensibility, and intelligence to this point. Now Apple gets to — and has to — pay it all off.

That starts with new app integrations for Messages, Maps, and Siri. Messages has also become much more interactive, emotive, and filled with laser slamming sticker fun. There's a new, bigger, bolder, more brilliant interface for Music and News, and for the new Home app, which, finally, collects all your connected accessories in one place. There's also a new Control Center with multiple cards, including new ones for Now Playing and Home. There's a new widget space and Notification Center look, and 3D Touch is more prevalent and powerful. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are significantly amped-up on-device and obscured by differential privacy when sent to the cloud. That includes face and object recognition for Photos.

Some of the new interactions might cause confusion or become the subjects of strongly differing options. That's nothing new. Balancing an operating system that's meant to be both convenient and secure, accessible to the mainstream yet productive enough for power users, is a problem that only gets harder every year.

So, how well does Apple solve for that in iOS 10?

iOS 10 Video review

Song by Jonathan Mann, video by Mikah Sargent, concept by Serenity Caldwell.

iOS 10 evolution

Version	iPhone OS 2	iPhone OS 3	iOS 4	iOS 5	iOS 6	iOS 7	iOS 8	iOS 9	iOS 10
Year	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Name	Big Bear	Kirkwood	Apex	Telluride	Sundance	Innsbruck	Okemo	Monarch	Whitetail
Features	App Store Enterprise enhancements iPhone SDK Microsoft Exchange	Accessories access Calendar enhancements Cut, copy, and paste Embedded Maps In app purchase Landscape MMS Peer-to-peer connectivity Push notifications (redux) Spotlight search Stocks enhancements Voice Memos	Enterprise enhancements Folders Game Center iAd iBooks for iPhone Mail enhancements Multitasking	Camera enhancements Game Center iCloud iMessage Newsstand Notification Center PC free Photo enhancements Reminders Safari enhancements Twitter integration	Accessibility enhancements Apple maps Chinese enhancements Facebook integration FaceTime over cellular Mail enhancements Passbook Phone enhancements Safari enhancements Shared Photo Streams Siri enhancements	Airdrop Camera enhancements Control Center iOS in the Car iTunes Radio iWork for iCloud Multitasking enhancements Notification Center enhancements Photos enhancements Safari enhancements Siri enhancements	Continuity Extensibility Family Sharing Health HomeKit iCloud Drive Interactive Notifications Messages enhancements Photos enhancements QuickType Spotlight enhancements	Siri intelligence Search (new) Apple Pay enhancements Notes (new) Maps (transit) News Multi-app (iPad)	New Lock/Home experience Siri enhancements Intelligence enhancements Photos enhancements Maps enhancements Music enhancements News enhancements Home app Phone enhancements iMessage enhancements
Extras	Contact search Languages Mail enhancements MobileMe Parental controls Quick look enhancements Scientific calculator	Open GL ES 2.0 Video Recording Voice Control	720p FaceTime	1080p Siri	Panorama mode	120fps Slow motion Burst mode FaceTime Audio Open GL ES 3.0 Touch ID	240fps Slow motion Adaptive UI Apple Pay	3D Touch Live Photos 4K video	Camera zoom AirPods/W1 integration

Each new version of iOS expands upon, refines, and ultimately advances all the versions that have come before. For details on existing features, please see my previous reviews:

• iOS 9 review
• iOS 8 review
• iOS 7 review
• iOS 6 review
• iOS 5 review
• iOS 4 review
• iPhone OS 3.0 review
• iPhone OS 2.0 review

iOS 10 Compatibility

Apple didn't go so far as to exclude all 32-bit devices from iOS 10 compatibility, but they did drop several older models from the list, including all non-Retina display devices. Still, you can download and install iOS 10 on any iPhone or iPad going back to the fall of 2012.

• iPhone 7
• iPhone 7 Plus
• iPhone SE
• iPhone 6s
• iPhone 6s Plus
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone 5s
• iPhone 5c
• iPhone 5
• iPad Pro 9.7-inches
• iPad Pro 12.9-inches
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad 4
• iPad mini 4
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2
• iPod touch 6

iOS 10 Lock screen

When Steve Jobs first showed off the Lock screen in 2007, it had wallpaper, the date and time, and let you "Slide to unlock" your iPhone. Over the years, Apple added notifications and Notification Center, Control Center, fast camera access, Siri, suggested apps, fast Apple Pay access, and more.

Already a system divided against itself — designed to keep your stuff safe from others but rapidly accessible to you — it began to get, if not overloaded, then certainly fussy.

With iOS 10, Apple is cleaning things up and making them simpler and more coherent. At least in theory...

How to use Lock Screen on iOS 10: The ultimate guide

You can now "raise to wake" your iPhone simply by picking it up. It's identical to the raise-to-wake feature Apple Watch launched with over a year ago, using the accelerometer to switch on the screen when you lift it into the normal viewing position. It works really well, especially to glance at the date or time or to check Lock screen notifications. It's so convenient, I wish Apple had implemented it years ago.

It was done now, though, to solve the "problem" of the second generation Touch ID sensor. It's so fast people would click the home button to glance at Lock screen notifications and end up blowing right past them and onto the Home screen.

Some re-habituated themselves to only wake up the phone with the power button or with a finger not registered with Touch ID. But not everyone.

You could argue that on a device with only two main buttons, it's inefficient for them both to be used to wake the device. You could also argue that, on a device that sleeps, the first act of any button should be to wake it.

Apple's solving that knot by cutting it — it's inefficient for any button to have to wake the device, so wake it immediately on raise. And once you get used to it, any device that doesn't do it seems broken.

There's still one area where Apple Watch is ahead, though: You can also tap the screen to wake it. I wish that worked on iPhone as well. Tapping my iPhone as it sits on a table, so I can quickly glance at notifications without even having to raise it would be perfect.

The basic layout of the Lock screen has gotten simpler in iOS 10. The main Lock screen is still front and center, and you can still swipe down Notification Center from the top and swipe up Control Center from the bottom. Gone from the left, though, is Passcode, and in its place, Today view widgets. (Passcode now takes over the main screen when and if it has to). New to the right is fast camera access. (It was previously an icon, bottom right.)

Today view replaces the "minus one" Home screen, to the left of the main Home screen as well (previously occupied by Siri suggestions). It's also still accessible to the left of Notification Center. That makes getting to it much more convenient and consistent. Well, almost. If you go to the minus one Today view, then pull down Notification Center, then try to go left into Today view again, you can't. Allowing it would be a silly loop, but since people won't always remember how they got somewhere, consistency should beat logic.

Having fast camera access take up the full right swipe is much more reliable and robust. Grabbing a tiny icon was sometimes hit and miss. This new layout is touch and shoot.

Today view hasn't just taken over the "minus one" screen; it's been redesigned. Information density has gone down, but legibility has gone up. I'm still mixed on it. I think tighter corners and a little more density would have been a better compromise.

As it is, the aggressive corner radius combined with the background no longer dimming behind the widgets and notifications makes things distracting for me when I scroll. The wallpaper ends up creating a flicker or strobe effect, and I really wish it wouldn't.

You can customize which Today view widgets you want to see, just like before. Tap one, and you go to straight to its app. Tap on "Show More", though, and you get an expanded widget view. That includes animation and even live video, right in the widget, which is outstanding.

I'm not sure why both of those things aren't handled by 3D Touch, though, given how well peek and pop are handled through the rest of the system. As it is, I find myself pressing firmly all the time anyway, expecting something to happen and getting only the silent laughter of the widget in response.

Where widgets do use 3D Touch is on the Home screen. Press an app firmly and, if it has a widget, it'll pop right up atop the Home screen shortcuts. It fits beautifully with the overall theme of 3D Touch being a time saver — if you just need a little bit of data, there's no need to pop into the app – simply peek at the widget.

Notification Center and notification space has gotten a similar redesign. It's also become persistent. So, now, you can carry on a short conversation without having to bounce back and forth between what you're doing and what you're saying or jump to another app and then have to jump back.

I wish I could toss notifications away when I'm done, because their card-like shape and position on top of the screen makes you feel like you should be able to, but there's an X to close them or, like watchOS, you can swipe down to dismiss.

A longstanding pain point has also been addressed in iOS 10: You can 3D Touch the clear button to delete all notifications, just like Apple Watch.

How to use 3D Touch on iOS 10: The ultimate guide

Control Center has gotten one of the most significant redesigns in iOS 10. It too sacrifices density for legibility. In this case, though, the tradeoff takes some getting used to. Instead of a single card there are now three cards: one for control, one for now playing, and one for Home.

I'm still not settled on the new design. I love the new functionality, but I'm not yet sold on the implementation. Control Center's strength was that you could swipe it up from anywhere, do what you needed to do, then swipe it away. Now with three cards, there's often at least one additional swipe needed to get to where you want to go, maybe two. (For example, if you land in control but want home, or vice versa.

If Apple let the Control Center cards wrap around so that you could keep swiping either way and continue to cycle through the cards, it'd be perceptibly faster — and you wouldn't have to carry the cognitive load of remembering which card lived in which direction.

Also, because there are gaps between cards, switching between the cards looks slow. Notification Center, which lets you swipe between Today view and Notification view but does it in place, looks much faster, at least to my eyes.

The cards also introduce gesture collision. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to change brightness on the control card and ended up on the now playing card or wanted to change volume on the now playing card and ended up on control or home. The touch targets have gotten better over time and might get better still, but there's only so much space and so many gestures, and layering swipes is never going to be ideal.

The same goes for Control Center in the new results card in the Maps app. Swipe up hastily and you're just as likely to get one as the other, which means half the time it's not what you want. And touch interfaces need to be way, way less fussy than that.

On the positive side, the addition of 3D Touch shortcuts really expands the functionality. You still can't swap out the settings or change the tools, which would be nice, but you can get to specific and additional functions faster, like different intensities for the flashlight or common timer lengths. It's useful enough; I hope Apple builds it out further in the future.

Last year some insisted on calling 3D Touch a "gimmick". It was really an experiment. Flat, single column multitouch interfaces impose very real interface constraints. 3D Touch sought to literally add a trans-dimensional tunnel through them: press your way from one view or app into another.

Since 3D Touch isn't ubiquitous across devices, though, it can't be mandatory and so it's harder to make it a habit. That's why I'm not sure iOS 10 will change many hearts, even if the new functionality does make it even more attractive to try.

How to use Control Center on iOS 10: The ultimate guide

One of the biggest changes to the Lock screen in iOS 10 is how you open it — "Slide to unlock", a gesture that helped define the original iPhone experience, is gone.

In its place is "Press home to unlock" — or "Press home to open" if you've authenticated with Touch ID. You can actually put your finger on the sensor and not press down and see a wonderful little glyph-by-glyph animation of the lock indicator at the top of the screen opening and the words "unlocked" sliding into place.

That you touch to unlock and then press to open, instead of pressing to open and then keeping your finger in place to unlock, is a little confusing at first. If you don't nail the timing, get frustrated, and start pressing wildly, you can end up bouncing between passcode, Apple Pay, and even Siri screens. You can always switch on "rest finger to open" in Settings > General > Accessibility if you want or need to. If you give it a chance, though, once you do nail it, it makes a lot of sense.

Pressing home has always taken you home, and now it does just that from the Lock screen as well.

iOS 10 Siri

Since Siri was first introduced in 2011, developers and customers alike have been clamoring for a way to use Apple's natural language, sequential inference-driven virtual assistant to control all the apps on iPhone and iPad. Hey Siri, call me an Uber! Hey Siri, Skype Serenity! Hey Siri, send Lory $10 for dinner! It was nothing more than a beautiful dream — until now.

With iOS 10, Apple has introduced Siri apps. It's not a fully open API, at least not yet, but it will let six types of apps integrate with Siri in a fully fleshed out way:

• Ride booking
• Messaging
• Photo and video
• Payment apps
• VoIP calling
• Workouts

CarPlay will also be getting Siri integration for VoIP and Messaging apps.

So, no, Siri won't be able to catch Pokémon for you, but the reason for the limitation, according to Apple, is a desire for quality over quantity. Apple wants to make really robust integrations that don't force you to speak in a certain way, construct sentences in a specific order, or constrain yourself to highly specific words. They want you to speak the way you naturally speak.

• "Skype Georgia I'll be there in ten minutes."
• "Message Georgia via Skype that I'll be there in ten minutes."
• "Tell Georgia I'll be there in ten minutes with Skype."

To get that to work, Apple had to build out complex vocabularies — called domains — for each type of integration and cover every potential way of addressing them imaginable. Siri app integration also works with the idea of intents. Apps that fit in one of the applicable categories can describe a set of "intents", or things that they can do, and Siri takes care of the rest. So, developers neither have to re-invent the wheel nor introduce inconsistent implementations that make the system harder to use.

Because of the overhead, Apple was only able to get those six and CarPlay done and polished for iOS 10.0 but says more will be coming with future updates.

The best part? So long as you're using one of the six types of apps mentioned above, they'll reply to Siri with the same kind of information-rich cards as the built-in features enjoy. That means you can ask any question and issue any command right in the Siri interface, just like you're used to.

I didn't have access to Siri apps during the beta, so I couldn't test them for this review. I'll be doing that soon and updating this section accordingly. In the meantime, Apple provided some examples from developers who had early access to the functionality:

• Pinterest: Find specific ideas you've saved: "Hey Siri, find women's fashion Pins on Pinterest."
• Vogue Runway: Find collections from past runway debuts: "Hey Siri, ask Vogue Runway to show me photos of the Hermès 2016 collection."
• Looklive: Find a "look" you've been crushing on: "Siri, show me photos of what Drake was wearing at the MTV Music Awards in Looklive."
• Pikazo Pull up your favorite creations: "Hey Siri, show me a photo of my godson in the style of Monet on Pikazo."
• The Roll: Find photos organized by artificial intelligence into keywords: "Hey Siri, show me my best photos of idyllic sunsets taken last summer using The Roll."
• Square Cash Send money to a friend, to split the dinner bill or pay the rent: "Hey Siri, send Lauren $20 with Square Cash."
• Monzo: Send payments you can authenticate with Touch ID: "Hey Siri, send Andy $10 for lunch."
• WhatsApp Send messages to family and friends with the power of your voice: "Hey Siri, using WhatsApp, send a message to Georgia saying I'll be there in 15 minutes."
• LinkedIn: Message to anyone in your network: "Hey Siri, send a LinkedIn message to Phil that says, 'Great meeting today.'"

As with the rest of iOS, Siri apps are private and secure. That means app developers get to handle the questions you ask, but they don't get your personal data or any other data along with it. Apple does all the parsing and passes the intents on to the apps.

It's a huge step forward for Siri, especially given the competition on the market. Apple already handles multi-region and multi-language as well, if not better than anyone. Siri also goes with you everywhere; it's not bound to a single multi-mic system in your house: Oh, damn, I'm going to be late getting home but that order's coming...! I better yell really loud!

You don't really notice how important that is until you leave your home, switch from phone to tablet, travel internationally, or simply speak without having to worry about putting the right word in the right place. Then it's everything.

If Apple can nail the integrations — if they work and they work well — then the combination of ubiquity, convenience, and extensibility will be killer.

iOS 10 QuickType

Data detection and prediction have both been taken to the next level in the updated QuickType keyboard. Apple's branding it as "Siri intelligence", the way they did Spotlight last year. I equate Siri with the personality-driven assistant, not the inference engine, so it doesn't quite jibe for me, but either way it works.

In order to be able to make better predictions, in wider contexts, over longer periods of time, Apple is using an aspect of neural networking called long short-term memory (LSTM). With it, everything from location, to calendar, to contact information, to the latest buzzwords are offered right up, so you can enter them without having to hunt them down and copy them out from other apps.

For prediction, it can figure out the difference when you're typing about a movie playing and your pets playing and provide the proper suggestions for each. For responses, if you're asked for a mutual friend's phone number, it can offer it right up. All told, the current implementation supports:

• Intelligent suggestions
• Intelligent scheduling
• Calendar availability
• Current location
• Contact information
• Recent addresses
• Point of interest lookup
• Multilingual typing

The latter especially has been on a lot of wish lists.

In most cases it's sublime, but it's got one major drawback — just like with location sharing in the details screen, it's too easy to share where you are. Absent a confirmation dialog, you're always only one missed touch away from sending your location to someone you're trying to brush off, actively avoid, or are in some disagreement or distress with.

Location, and perhaps all personal information sharing, should require confirmation always. I hope Apple adds that option soon.

Where Apple continues to get it absolutely right is in keeping local information local and private. Anything that's from your device stays on your device. Anything from the cloud comes down and gets analyzed on your device. Apple's not harvesting any personal data in exchange for these conveniences.

Apple is striving to prove we don't need to make that exchange. And they're taking it a step further in iOS 10 as well. Using something called "differential privacy", Apple is adding a level of noise to any data it does want to pick up — like new words to add to the dictionary — and then filtering it out, so it's completely anonymous on the other end.

For example, if it wanted to know whether to suggest "Wars" or "Trek" more often as an auto-complete for "Star", Apple could use differential privacy to ensure no one ever found out which individual preferred which series, thus preventing family and friendship feuds.

When collecting the data, Apple could flip a virtual coin and then have a percentage of the people "lie" about their answer. That way it would be impossible to know if any individual told the truth or lied, and thus impossible to know what their real answer was. By collecting enough responses from enough people, and using statistical analysis to figure out how many lies there were, Apple could get really close to the proper answer, again, without ever knowing exactly which individuals answered which way.

Less noise could be added for areas of less popularity and frequency, more noise for areas with higher popularity and frequency, and the system could automatically opt-out anyone who was contributing too much data and overriding the privacy system.

In the same way, if millions of people started typing "shway" for "cool", Apple could quickly add it to autocomplete, without ever needing, or caring, to know whether you typed it or not.

How to use the QuickType keyboard in iOS 10: The ultimate guide

iOS 10 Photos

Photos was the app that really showed off the "wow" factor of multitouch on the original iPhone. Since then, it's had its ups and downs. Now, though, it feels like Apple is getting Photos for iPhone and iPad back on track. This year cracks "finally!" territory with the addition of Places — which feels like it's come and gone a few times over the years — and Faces, and introduces competition in the hyperbolic "artificial intelligence" and "machine learning" space with a much more advanced, object- and scene-filled search.

It's not just about finding what you want, though. Photos in iOS 10 is also about surfacing what you forgot you had. It does this through next-generation slide shows that pull from time and place for your viewing, and reminiscing, pleasure.

Available on the Mac forever, Faces and Places helps you quickly find the locations and people that mean the most to you. Faces in specific uses "advanced machine vision" to scan your library and incoming photos and tries to figure out who's who. In keeping with Apple's stance on privacy, this is all done locally, right on your device, instead of being uploaded to some search engine or social server cloud, where the service is performed only in exchange for the data you provide.

Apple's gambling their significant lead in silicon — the chipsets inside the iPhone and iPad — will let them analyze and organize photos fast and well enough that we won't need or want to use online services anymore. And it's a big gamble.

Many people don't care about privacy. Unlike the cash you see coming out of your wallet or account, or the time you see clicking off the clock, data feels like it's free. We never have to look at the contents of our personal messages, emails, financial information, health data, and photos as leaving our control and being sucked up onto someone else's server. We just see free stuff with killer convenience, and the actual cost is abstracted away completely.

Still, Apple has to provide a compelling alternative in order to get a significant group of people to stop using the easy, powerful services of Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and use the on-device apps of iPhone and iPad instead.

In my tests so far, Faces has been okay but not outstanding. Lots of the same people have been split out into separate sets of photos, and I have to tap to merge them. And to label them. It's more work than I'd like. I feel like some of it should work better, for example, comparing Faces to profile pictures in contacts to guess who's who before I label them. I'm a writer, not a neural network or privacy architect, so I don't know the complexity, I just know how I want it to work.

Faces and Places are also surfaced right in the main photo view as well. Pick a photo, scroll down, and you see the people in it, the place it was taken, and related photo clusters. (See Memories, below.)

Apple isn't stopping with faces, either. Even without sucking up our data, they managed to figure out what rivers and mountains, coffee and steaks, cars and bicycles, and thousands of other objects look like, and Photos search can quickly pull them, and thousands of categories like them, out for you now as well.

This part has worked for me far better than Faces. Well enough that I haven't even considered switching to an online service since, even though I expect Google's especially would be better. A little less functionality for a lot more privacy is a price I'm not only willing but eager to pay.

I wanted to find a specific car I'd seen the other day, so I typed in "cars" and "Cupertino" — you can do hybrid searches, no problem — and it popped right up. That's indistinguishable from magic.

How to use Photos on iOS 10: The ultimate guide

Search lets you find what you're looking for. Memories hopes to show you what you've forgotten. Using the same time of machine vision, Memories clusters together events like trips, times like last weekend or year, and other major confluences of people, places, and themes, and then edits them into slideshow-style presentations, set to music, and intended to help you relive cherished moments.

Tap the new Memories tab at the bottom of the Photos app and you'll get a set of custom-generated shows, both for today and those generated in the past. You can play the Memory immediately or scroll down to see all the photos, as well as sections on the people and places contained within them. Related Memories are at the bottom, in case you want more from where they came.

When you play a Memory, it has to download any photos that aren't already on your iPhone or iPad from iCloud, which can take a while. Once it starts, it plays through, though you can pause it and edit the photos, as well as the duration from short to medium to long, and the mood. Each one comes with its own typeface for the titles and music.

• Happy
• Uplifting
• Epic
• Club
• Extreme
• Dreamy
• Sentimental
• Gentle
• Chill

You can also tap the edit button and separately tweak the titles, music, duration, and included photos. You can save the videos that delight you and expunge any photos that bring back any pain or embarrassment.

I seldom remember to go to the Memories tab in Photos, but I stumble upon them all the time in the related content section of photos — once you can scroll, I can't help but scroll! Almost every time I'm reminded of something that brings at least a small smile to my face. Sometimes, a massive smile.

I don't know if Memories will have any longevity, but photo and video pins lost in album and storage haystacks are very real problems of the digital age. Previously, Apple offered slideshows in iPhoto, and systematically made iMovie and Final Cut Pro more intuitive for quick video cuts. But the first wasn't smart enough and the second still not fast enough.

Memories is both smarter and faster; what remains to be seen is whether it clicks with customers or gets forgotten about just like the photos it's meant to surface.

How to use Memories in Photos for iOS 10

Crossing off another wish list item, Apple has added support for their markup extension to Photos. Previously, and vexingly, only available in Mail, markup lets you quickly and easily add text, callouts, and sketches and otherwise add visualizations — or vandalization — to your Photos.

It's a great way to add quick captions to personal photos, feedback to design comps, explanations to interface bug reports, or wackiness to any image you want to send or return.

How to use Markup in Photos for iOS 10

iOS 10 Camera

Yin to the Photos app's yang, Camera is Apple's simple, elegant capture app for pictures and video. In that regard, Camera hasn't changed much from last year, but there is one welcome change, some amazing under-the-hood improvements, and a few new features... for iPhone 7.

The camera switch button — A.K.A. the selfie switch — has moved from the top to the bottom and kicked the filters button up top to make room. Since I, and I suspect most people, take selfies more often than live filtered photos, it means the more common task is now easier to reach, even on the bigger phones.

In a welcome fix, launching the Camera doesn't kill audio anymore. So, you can pause on your run to take a photo without killing your podcast or playlist. Thanks, Apple.

On iPad, the Camera app redesign is even more extensive, with controls placed where they make more sense for the bigger screen. It's iPhone 7, though, that gets most of the new magic.

How to use Camera for iOS 10: The ultimate guide

Last fall Apple upgraded the iMac with 5K Retina display to DCI-P3, which is a cinematic standard for wide gamut color. It technically means more accurate, lifelike representation of magentas, reds, oranges, and the like. It effectively means photos POP more than ever before. Last spring Apple brought DCI-P3 to the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and this fall, to iPhone 7.

Bigger news, though, is that Apple has added full support for DCI-P3 — and the next-generation standard, 2020 — to iOS. That means, on devices like iPhone 7 that support it, you can capture and display wide gamut images. Better still, Apple is managing that color across their entire product line, so what you shoot on iPhone 7 will look exactly as its supposed to on iPad Pro and iMac.

It's a step towards the magnificent future of deep, high-dynamic color, but an important one.

JPG, the photo format typically captured and stored by Apple products, is "lossy". It's designed to throw away data your eye doesn't really notice in order to save massive amounts of storage space. Higher end cameras, including DLSRs, can also capture RAW, which keeps as much data off the sensor as possible, at the cost of much higher file sizes.

With iOS 10, Apple is opening up RAW support to App Store apps. Just like with manual mode a couple of years ago, Apple's own Camera app is avoiding RAW in the name of simplicity. That's their vision for everyday photography. Other apps, and photographers who want much more control in post, will be all over it.

iPhone 7 Plus includes a dual-lens system, one 28mm wide-angle, one 56mm telephoto. Apple presents them as a single, fused, camera system, though, that allows for up to 2x optical and 10x digital zoom. The feature is controlled by a new zoom interface designed for easy one-handed use. Tap the 1x button and you jump to 2x. Hold it down and move your finger around, and you arc through the other magnifications until you hit 10.

Because it's designed to work as a single camera system, it's easy to get confused about which lens is being used at which time, and when they're being used simultaneously. For example, some people cover the telephoto lens, go to 2x, and don't understand why the camera preview isn't blocked by their finger.

The answer is the Camera app, and how it's abstracting away all the implementation details and presents a single, coherent interface. So, for example, if the light isn't good enough for the f/2.8 telephoto lens to render a great preview, you'll get a simulated preview off the f/1.4 wide-angle.

In other words, don't worry about or geek out over the mechanics — there's are App Store photography apps for that! — just take pictures and let the Camera app figure it out.

When Apple showed off the iPhone 7 Plus, one of the big features they demonstrated was Portrait Mode. It used the two cameras to capture a both the subject and depth information about the scene, build a multi-layer depth map, then use a custom disk blur to simulate a depth-of-field, or bokeh, effect around the subject.

In beta for over a month following the launch of iPhone 7 Plus, it shipped to the public with iOS 10.1. I've been using it since the beta, and I'm really pleased with it. Though it's designed for portraits, as the names implies, and uses face detection as part of the process, the real world range is much wider.

It works great on pets, of course — my colleague, Serenity Caldwell, has dubbed it Pet-rait Mode — but also for nature photography, still life, product shots, food picks, and more. The only place where it has real trouble is highly reflective surfaces, which makes taking pictures of bottles, glasses, and — haha! — iPhone 7 in Jet Black difficult, since it'll mistake the reflections for areas that need blurring.

Apple has also made a lot of really smart choices with the software. For example, because Portrait Mode needs a lot of light to properly engage the f/2.8 telephoto lens, lower light portraits will be noisy. Instead of just leaving them noisy, Apple tweaked the software to make that noise reminiscent of old-style film grain.

The result is something almost better felt than seen. There's an emotional content to the Portrait Mode photographs that I've not experience on camera phones before.

The Camera app interface is great as well. Since getting a Portrait Mode shot requires specific distance and lighting, the app coaches you through the process. It'll tell you to get closer or further away, and when you need more light.

When you take the picture, you also get both the regular and the Portrait Mode version, just like you do with HDR, so you can pick the one your prefer. The Portrait Mode version is labeled "Depth Effect", though, which is an odd choice given Apple specifically called the feature "Portrait Mode". The latter is a better, more mainstream friendly choice, but I'd like to see it reflected in the photo labeling as well for consistency's sake.

Even though it's not what Portrait Mode was optimized for, I also like the product shots enough that I haven't shot with my Canon 5D Mark II since getting iOS 10.1. I do have to be more careful about light and angles, but I can now shoot anywhere, at any time, without lugging a DSLR with me.

And for people, pets, pictures of iPhones and coffee, and everything else, that's exactly what I wanted from Portrait Mode. About the only thing I'd love to see improved is the ability to use it in lower light one day.

Read our complete Portrait Mode review

iOS 10 Maps

Someone, somewhere in Apple's services division had the grand idea to redesign their core apps, including Maps, to be bigger, bolder, and brilliant. I liked it at first sight, but not at first use. There's a simple but profound reversal to the way Maps works that confused me for a while. I've become accustomed to it now, though. I still don't find it intuitive, but I'm slowly starting to think it's a better fit overall.

The previous version of Maps had become muscle memory for me, and I was used to tapping locations, getting popups right at the locations, and sliding between screens to get more generic or more specific information, depending on what I needed. Now, all of that has changed. You don't move between screens any more. Instead, you stay centered, and everything you need slides up to you in a brand new, all-containing card.

The centerpiece in the new Maps design is the card that slides up from the bottom of the screen. It holds everything, from search suggestions to nearby location information. And it manages to be both the best and most vexing part of the new Maps. The card has three states:

1. A tab at the very bottom that obstructs the map as little as possible.
2. A short, Control Center-like card that gives you the most pertinent options or information.
3. An almost full-screen view, complete with keyboard and nearby filters.

You can swipe it up or down between those states, most of the time without triggering Control Center from the bottom or Notification Center from the top. But not always. There are, after all, only so many gestures you can layer without getting collisions.

That's my biggest gripe about the gesture overloading iOS is beginning to adopt: It forces precision where, previously, the lack of need for precision was a competitive advantage.

The default state for the card is a search box and proactive suggestions. They include places you go to frequently, have been to recently, are on your calendar, or Apple's data detectors and machine learning algorithms otherwise think you'll find valuable.

Additional information, like traffic conditions and estimated time to destination, are also provided for your convenience.

If you want to find a place, simply type it into the search box. That used to be hit-and-miss in Maps, with little or no local prioritization, nearest neighbor, or search widening present. Now it's working well. Well enough, at least, that I can incorrectly spell the name of a Montreal bar while browsing San Francisco, and still get the correct local result. Cheers, Maps team!

Tapping into the search box will also bring up the nearby points of interest filters for your current location. If you want to see nearby points of interest for other locations, search first, get results, then clear the search box, tap into it, and you'll be good to filter.

Better still, there's now a sliding filter at the bottom as well. So, if you chose popular restaurants and want to narrow down the type of cuisine, you don't have to go back and tap the extra filter, you can simply dial it in.

Navigation gets a similar bigger, cleaner, and easier to follow design. The most welcome change, though, is that it will not only automatically zoom in and out to fit the scale of your current route, but let you pan around as well to see whatever it is you need to see.

There's also traffic en route and, when navigating, the card fills with arrival time, remaining time and distance, and can expand to show nearby points of interest for the route, including gas stations and restaurants, as well as options for an overview, detail view, and audio controls.

It's a much better, more usable interface while driving, especially for people who mount their iPhones on their dashboards in place of a built-in navigation system or Apple's CarPlay system

The biggest news for Maps this year, though, is apps. Just like Siri, apps can live right within the maps app. The value of app integration in Maps might not be obvious at first. Once you book a ride or reservation from within Maps, without having to jump around between apps, it becomes absolutely clear.

The human brain is horrible at context changes. Switch apps and, more often than not, you forget why. "Oh, new tweet from @settern? Let me just—whoa, I can't believe the New York times wrote this! Wait, what was I doing? Right, @settern... I'll just launch Tweebot again and—Wow, new Star Wars trailer...!"

If you stay where you are, though, and the functionality comes to you, then you never lose context. With Maps extensions, you can be traveling, see where you are, find a nearby restaurant, book a table, arrange for a car, pay for the ride, and never switch apps once. It's more efficient, more convenient, and just plain better.

Like with Siri apps, I'll have to wait until Maps extensions hit the App Store and I get a few days and weeks use out of them to see how they really perform. At that point, I'll update this section of the review.

I'm guessing it'll be a slam dunk, though. It's the same principal that made sharing and action extensions so powerful in the Share Sheet, and editing and effects extensions so convenient in the Photos app. It's as simple and profound as the transition from pull to push interface, and I want it everywhere.

iOS 10 Music

My Apple Music workflow remains incredibly simple: I ask Siri to play me whatever I want to listen to, whenever I want to listen to it, and then I spend a moment realizing the future is now. Then, when I don't know what I want to listen to, I tune into Beats 1 and occasionally poke around For You.

All this to say I have no business reviewing Apple Music as a service. I'll leave that for my colleague, Serenity Caldwell, and her follow-up Apple Music review.

Purely from the design-side, though, the Music app in iOS 10 is lightyears head of where it was before. It's simpler now and more coherent. It's still trying to do to much and cater to too many workflows, I think, but music is the one area where Apple enjoys an almost Microsoft Windows-level of legacy debt. So, baby steps.

The language is in the same bigger, bolder, more brilliant style as the rest of the services apps, and it fits Music well. Everything is easier to see and interact with. Even the "more" buttons, which were everywhere in the previous version, have been minimized as much as possible. On recent iPhones, 3D Touch picks up the task of bringing up all the options. And it's a much better fit.

In terms of organization, Library — your library, your music — is right up front now, and makes it easy to get to all your stuff. There are big, bold sections to make specific content easier to find, and a download tab so you always no what's available on your device, should you go offline.

When you find what you want and start to listen to it, now playing comes up using a card interface almost identical to the one in Maps. It suffers from the same gesture collisions as the Maps card as well — I often pull down notification center when I mean to pull down now playing.

It's cleaner, though, and introduces Apple's new buttons for like and dislike: a heart and a slashed out heart.

Built-in is lyrics, if available, which let you sing along with what you're listening to. It feels like Apple's been toying with lyrics — and our collective emotions along with them — for years, so hopefully they stick.

For You now houses the My New Music Mix, which includes personal song recommendations just "for you" and new daily playlists to help get you going. Connect has also been relegated here.

It feels like for Connect to have ever been successful, Apple would have to have hired hundreds of marketing assistants to literally walk behind artists posting on their behalf. Absent that, the old tab was a ghost town. The new section, a partially inhabited dwelling. In either case, it's hard to see Connect going much further, even in its update form.

Browse lets you see what's hot and happening in the Apple Music world, with top songs, featured albums and events, the new music for the week, and the current chart toppers.

Radio houses Beats 1, including what's live, upcoming shows, and featured shows. As well as all of the other, genre-specific radio stations.

It's hard to frame how much of an improvement the new Music app is. Last year I wrote that the then-new Music had been given an impossible job — to support new, modern use cases without being allowed to abandon the old ones. Now the new-new Music app does the impossible by balancing out those use cases in an almost elegant way.

I still think Apple will eventually need to make some hard choices about the past and future of music, but I no longer think they have to be made today.

Apple News

Apple News debuted at the same time as the new Music app and now, a year later, it's getting the same big, bold, brilliant redesign. News wasn't anywhere nearly as controversial as Music at launch, nor as complex, but it still benefits greatly from the new look and structure.

How to use Apple News: The ultimate guide

Notably, For You is now broken up into clean, clear sections. There's top stories, trending, topical stories based on what you follow, and featured stories curated by the News team. Individual stories pick up the same heart/slashed-heart icons as Apple Music for like and dislike, which is great for consistency. There are also action buttons – tiny on list pages, full size on article pages – that let you access the Share Sheet from just about everywhere. Super convenient.

Sadly, News is still region-limited to the U.S., U.K., and Australia, which is an incredibly small segment of Apple's customer base, never mind the world. There are signs that this may be changing, but a year out, there's no way to spin the lack of growth as anything other than disappointing, especially when contrasted with Apple Music's 100-country launch.

On the bright side, News has gotten closer to the system-level service I've been dreaming up. Last year, internal secrecy led to News being launched as an app, but an entirely separate and nowhere nearly as personalized news feed getting included in the "minus one" Home screen's Siri suggestions.

Now that everything is all nice and public, those two hands have shaken, and the widget for News proper is properly on that page. All that's left is for Safari Reading List and Shared Links to get integrated...

Meanwhile, News has added a couple of new features. The first is notifications, so you can get alerted to breaking stories from the publications you follow. The second is...

With iOS 10, Apple has given publications the ability to charge for subscriptions right inside News. It was something that was previously available to apps as part of the old Newsstand category and something that's now available to all app categories, but in News, you don't need to have or maintain an app.

It's Apple's hope that subscriptions make it viable for magazines and newspapers to fully commit to News and for customers to get all their periodicals, all in one place.

That Apple keeps trying to do for News what iTunes has done for media is noble, and I really hope this helps them succeed. I didn't have access to News subscriptions in time to test them for this review, nor do I suspect they'll be available where I live for a while still. But we'll get someone on the team to test them as soon as possible.

iOS 10 Home and HomeKit

When Apple's HomeKit home automation framework first shipped, it did so without an app. Imagine HealthKit absent the Health app, and you get the idea. It created a fragmentary experience where different accessory vendors tried to handle setup and management on their own, often less than exemplary, apps. Well, they had their chance, and now Apple is doing it the way only Apple can, with a slick interface and deep integration.

How to use Home for iOS 10

Home uses the new big, bright, and beautiful design language seen in Music and News, but in a way that's specific to where you live. You can add wallpapers to make your rooms immediately and personally identifiable. You can see all your favorite accessories in your home at a glance. You can dive into individual rooms. You can even quickly and easily set up automations based on location change, time of day, the state of other accessories changing, or sensors detecting activity of some kind.

It's not perfect, of course. What looks like the tracking button in Maps is used in Home to open in-app settings. The button is actually labeled "Show Locations", but the similarity is visually confusing (to me at least). Accessories on the Home screen also start drooped two-thirds of the way down, which is nice for showing off your wallpaper, should you choose to customize it, but requires an extra swipe before you can access most of your devices.

If you have an Apple TV or an iPad you leave around the house, you can also use Home remotely. Being able to make sure the lights are off, even when you're about to board an airplane, is terrific. So is tracking the thermostat, locks, room sensors, and more — including, new for iOS 10, air conditioners, cameras, doorbells, air purifiers, and humidifiers.

There's even a new home card in control center. So, you don't have to go to the app to get to your favorite accessories. You can swipe up, toggle them, and change things like lighting intensity and color, for example, from anywhere, at any time.

That includes from the Lock screen — with one major exception. You need to authenticate with Touch ID or Passcode before you can control any lock, garage door, or similar accessory. Again, if you drop your phone and someone can turn your fan on or off, it's annoying. If you drop your phone and someone can use it to get into your house, it's dangerous. HomeKit, no matter its many new conveniences, remains security-first.

What's next is even more exciting. Builders are starting to integrate HomeKit into new construction projects. Just like wiring the home for ethernet or fiber used to be the cutting edge of construction, now that HomeKit compatibility badge is being seen as a competitive advantage. If you're looking for a new place to buy or to rent, why not look for one that's designed to work with the phone in your pocket or the tablet on your table?

It's just part of what makes it feel like the future is here for us today.

iOS 10 iMessage

Messages, the most popular app for iOS, has been significantly updated for iOS 10. Quick selfies have moved from a touch-and-hold button to a live view in the photo picker. Digital Touch — sketches, heartbeats, and taps — has been brought over from the Apple Watch, and you can layer them on top of images and videos now as well. It makes Digital Touch available to an exponentially larger potential user base, but I'm not sure how many people will actually use it beyond some initial experimentation.

Not so with the new emoji. They're going to be big. Literally. So are bubble effects and maybe screen effects as well. Biggest of all, though, will be iMessage apps. They'll let you do everything from making payments to slapping down stickers. Yeah, stickers.

The only thing missing is iMessage Stories. For now.

Up to three emoji will now be displayed at three-times normal size, which sounds silly but looks great. Texting is tough. Facial expressions and body language are as vital to communication as words. Absent emotional content, a quick reply can seem curt and a question can be read as a critique. Tell someone you're running late and they may be upset. Send a silly emoji indicating the same thing, and they may chuckle instead.

For longer messages, emoji will be suggested alongside words. And, if you tap the emoji button, iOS will highlight any words that can be converted into emoji — emojified — and you can tap your way through to make the conversions.

There are even "tapback" emoji reactions now as well, so if you don't need to write out a reply, you can touch-and-hold and then drop down a heart, thumbs up or down, question or exclamation marks, and even a haha.

I love all of it. It's humanizing, which is something all messaging and social networking could use more of.

How to use emoji in iMessage for iOS 10

Digital touch debuted as part of the friends hub in watchOS 1 and proved so popular that Apple has made it almost impossible to find in watchOS 3. Confession: I loved being able to quickly send doodles, but I seldom, if ever, got any in return. The novelty of sending heartbeats, in my experience, wore out even faster.

If Apple had made digital touch available as part of iOS 9 on iPhone and iPad, maybe it would have subsisted slightly longer. Slightly. Instead, just as Apple buried Digital touch inside the messaging app on watchOS, they also surfaced it in Messages for iOS 10.

And it's a clever implementation. Tap the show more button, tap the Digital touch button, and you have access to a canvas where you can sketch, send taps, or send heartbeats. You can expand the canvas to make it full screen, and do tricks like swiping down to break the heartbeat you send. So. Tragic.

Even better, you can take a selfie or shoot a video and add digital touch to it, sketching or dropping mad heartbeats before you send. It's snap-chatty but in a good, fun way.

How to use digital touch in iMessage for iOS 10

Although not strictly part of digital touch, handwriting also allows for new and more expressive messaging. It's frustrating to find if you don't know where to look — you need to rotate to landscape, invoke the keyboard, then tap the compose handwritten message key at the bottom right — but fun to use.

Write what you want to say with your finger, iOS does some magic to make it look like ink, and then you can send it as though it were an image. Unlike the new scribble feature in watchOS 3, though, you can't use it to recognize handwriting and convert it to text. I really wish you could.

There are a few handwritten snippets included when you first launch the handwriting feature, and it'll store what you write as well in case you want to reuse some of your classics.

I like that this feature exists and the concept behind it far, far more than the current, awkward implementation. It's one of those things that you just know will get better with time and updates.

How to use handwriting in iMessage for iOS 10

iMessage was born in the age of text and picture messaging, where grossly abridged phrasing and or sexting were about as extreme as it got. Now we're in the age of Snapchat where, sure, nudies are still a thing, but so are lenses and filters that add motion-tracked crowns to your head and geo-located labels to your shots. In other words, the attention getting has gone to 11.

To bring iMessage into this world, or at least to try to, Apple is adding message effects, both bubble and screen.

Bubble effects add a physical animation to the word bubbles containing the iMessage. Slam smashes down and ripples the screen; Loud bubbles up over everything, Gentle creeps into place, and the outlier, Invisible Ink, hides the message under noise until you wipe it clear.

Note: Since bubble effects use motion effects, turning off motion in the accessibility settings also turns off bubbles.

Screen effects fill the background with balloons, confetti, unce-unce-unce lasers, fireworks, or a the-more-you-know shooting star. Some of them are automatic: Text "happy birthday" and balloons just happen, likewise, confetti for "congratulations" and fireworks for "happy new year".

I love the bubble effects and like some of the screen effects, but like digital touch scribbles on the Apple Watch, I fear I'll be in the minority. Send someone lasers once and they laugh. Third or fourth time and, in my experience, they want to end you.

It's possible effects are meant for occasional use only, but that's not how things work in the age of Snapchat. Those effects get used a lot, but what keeps them from getting overly annoying is that they change up a lot. Weekly, at least.

I could well be proven wrong on this, but I don't think Apple will be cycling out lasers and cycling in waterfalls on a weekly basis, or giving LOUD a rest while introducing SpLaSh. And they really should.

To be fun you have to be fun. To be more like Snapchat you have to be more like Snapchat. And that includes the pace of refresh.

How to use bubble and screen effects in iOS 10

With iOS 10.1, if you missed a bubble or screen effect, you can get a repeat performance by hitting the tiny Replay button beneath the message with the effect.

So, if you really want to see that Luke Cage Fist Bump, or enjoy those Unce Unce Unce Lasers just one more time, you can!

Like Siri and Maps, Apple is opening iMessage to apps. They're taking it even one step further, though, and embedding an App Store right inside messages. That way you can get apps without having to leave iMessage, which is not only more convenient, but more conducive to the viral way things spread in the messaging and social worlds.

To access apps, you tap the app icon next to the camera and digital touch icons, beside the text field. Then you can swipe your way through tabs containing all of the apps you have installed, or call up the app drawer to see them at a glance.

I'm not sure how well this interface will scale, though. I tested a fair number of apps over the last few weeks, and after a dozen the tabs started to get onerous. After two dozen or three dozen, I think I'll start heading straight for the app drawer. There is a recents tab that helps, but not enough — especially not with stickers (see below).

Update: iOS 10.1 cleans up the iMessage app drawer, removing the interface collisions and providing a more coherent experience.

The types of iMessage apps available include:

• Payments
• Image search and insertion
• Food ordering
• Encrypted messaging
• Games
• Stickers

And much, much more. The dynamism is amazing. You can not only customize what you do, but often collaborate with others as well. So, you can stick your friend's head on a dancing gnome, or place a group order for pizza, with everyone's favorite toppings specified and tallied.

Messaging apps have evolved enormously since the days of SMS/MMS, IRC, and ICQ. They're now platforms in their own rights, and the major players command and consume enormous amounts of our attention. Making iMessage both more fun and more flexible was imperative not just for Apple, but for the people like myself who use it day in and day out.

It's going to be huge.

How to use apps in iMessage for iOS 10

Stickers are a special kind of iMessage app. They're also a huge deal in messaging. Line, Facebook Messenger, and other monstrously popular apps have been offering them for a long time already. That's because they're even more fun than emoji, and in some cases can be immensely profitable as well. Studios and artists can release promotional packs around hot new releases to drive viral marketing and awareness, and famous brands can charge a buck or several for famous character packs they know fans will gobble up.

For that reason, Apple could have done stickers as a partnership play, where only a carefully negotiated few got into iMessage. Instead, Apple has made stickers open to everyone. (Which, by the way, completely sidesteps the staleness problem I anticipate screen effects will suffer from.)

You still need to be a registered App Store developer to create a sticker pack but, unlike full iMessage apps, you don't need to know how to code. Instead, you create your static or animated stickers, package them in Xcode, and upload them to your iTunes Connect account along with all the promotional assets and metadata, and that's it.

Apple has had a few of their own, including the animated emoji faces, hands, and hearts that shipped with the original Apple Watch, as well as a set of classic Mac stickers, in the store since WWDC as a way to test the new features with, and they work well.

To use a sticker, you buy or download the sticker pack from the built-in iMessage App Store and it shows up in the apps section of iMessage. Then, you go to the sticker pack you want, find the sticker you want, and touch and drag it to where you want it in the iMessage timeline.

The only rough spot here is scaling. The iMessage app interface works great at first. It shows a single sample app or sticker so it's fast and structurally sound. Then you get to a half dozen sticker packs... a dozen sticker packs... two dozen... And it starts to look like maybe the interface needs to be built to scale better. Given how popular sticker packs will be, no doubt that'll happen quickly. :

You can send stickers as their own messages, or you can attach them to previous messages — yours or anyone else's in the timeline. Stickers can even be made collaborative, where everyone in the timeline can add to or change the sticker creations.

One bit of mischief I stumbled on early: Because you can slap stickers down on top of other people's iMessages, you can slap emoji stickers down on top of other people's emoji messages. That means you can effectively hijack their emotional state. It's especially true with Apple's 3x emoji and Apple's animated emoji packs because they're exactly the same size. They send you a smiley face, you slap a sad face down on top of it, or vice versa.

Depending on the person, they either laugh or become upset, which is something both the interface designers at Apple and anyone using stickers should keep in mind.

That aside, iMessage stickers are fantastic and really breathe new life into Apple's messaging system.

How to use stickers in iMessage for iOS 10

iOS 10 Miscellany

Apple calls iOS 10 the biggest update ever. Some would argue the advent of the App Store or extensibility better deserves that moniker, but there's no denying that making Siri, Maps, and Messages accessible to apps is a big deal.

There are a lot of smaller improvements in iOS 10 as well. Things that don't warrant a keynote slide or review header but combine together to make iPhone and iPad significantly more usable and enjoyable.

You can now hide many of Apple's built-in iOS apps. You can't really delete them, because they take up very little space and are inexorably intertwined with the underpinnings of the operating system, but hiding them is the next best thing.

In order to make it easier to understand and manage, Apple uses the same dynamic to hide built-in apps as it does to delete App Store apps. Hold down until the app jiggles, then tap the X button to send it back to the bit-hell from which it came. If you decided you acted hastily and want a built-in app back, just go to the App Store and search for it. Un-hiding, you see, is disguised as re-downloading.

The Home screen has also gotten improved 3D Touch support. Now, when you press firmly on an app, you'll also get any widget that's bundled with it. Also, when you press firmly on a folder, you'll see actions associated with the apps inside, including unread message counts. Apps, meanwhile, all get a handy "Share" action so you can tell your friends about them.

Some no doubt find the Home screen boring and wish Apple would do something to make it exciting again. The Home screen has never been a destination, though. It's always been a portal. Its job is to help you find and launch apps, and with 3D Touch, actions. That's it.

My guess is Home screen will change by the process of abandonment: As iOS navigation, inter-app operability, and voice control improves, we'll need to go there less and less, until we forget it's even there.

How to use Home screen: The ultimate guide

New to iOS accessibility is a magnifier tool that lets you use the camera to zoom in on objects in the real world. You can alter the color profile of the magnifier, if you want to, for white/blue, yellow/blue, grayscale, yellow/black, or red/black, and invert any of those options.

You can also control the level of magnification, turn on the flashlight, lock the screen, and freeze the frame (by taking a photo).

For iPhone 7, you can also adjust the amount of feedback for the new Force Touch home button from light to medium to heavy.

Apple's commitment to accessibility remains second to none, and this is my yearly thanks for that.

New to iOS 10 and macOS Sierra is a continuity-based cut and paste feature called universal clipboard. Continuity is Apple's framework for seamlessly transitioning activities from one device to another using a combination of Bluetooth LE, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, and iCloud authentication. With universal clipboard, it lets you copy text from your iPhone or iPad and paste it on your Mac, or vice-versa.

It's a tricky problem to solve, since iPhones, iPads, and Macs all have their own pasteboards and you don't want to override them at the wrong time. So, Apple applies — wait for it! — science!

When you copy something on one device, in very close proximity to another device, it temporarily overrides the clipboard for a few seconds so you can paste the copied text into the other device. After a few seconds, the clipboard reverts to back to the local copy.

It does take a few seconds for the data to transfer, especially if big blobs like images are included in the pasteboard, but once you get used to it, it works great.

iPad doesn't fare as well in iOS 10 as it did in iOS 9. It gets almost all the same updates as iPhone, but it doesn't get much in the way of iPad-specific updates. What we did get is Split View for Safari tabs.

You enter Split View via long press or dragging a tab to the edge of the screen. Once in split view, you can switch tabs from side to side, or merge them all back into a single window. You can still go into multi-app Split View from Safari Split View. It'll collapse Safari back down to a single window but come right back to where you left it when you return.

You can also quickly close all tabs now by long pressing on the tabs button — which is good because you can accumulate way more tabs than ever before as well.

It works great and is incredibly useful; I wrote a lot of this review in Split View on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

Whether the lack of new features, like the much lusted-after drag and drop between views, aren't on the current agenda, or are simply pushed out to a point release later down the line, we'll have to wait and see.

Apple has recently begun marketing iPad Pro as a computer, and while it should never lose its incredible approachability, a computer is what iPad Pro is. To worry about it becoming too much like the Mac misses the point — it needs to be the best computer it can be, as though the Mac doesn't exist.

• How to use iPad multitasking: The ultimate guide
• How to use Safari: The ultimate guide

There is one other new iPad-specific feature times with the release of iOS 10 that is absolutely monumental: the new Swift Playground app, available from the App Store. The potential for both the app and the ecosystem is so tremendous, my guess is its announcement will go down as one of the most important moments in programming for the next generation.

Swift Playgrounds preview

iPhone brought computers to the pocket and demoted actual phone calls to an app. Some of us may barely, if ever, use the old-fashioned phone anymore, but for others it's still critically important. That's why Apple is not only improving the app, but opening up the phone screen to other apps.

First, visual voice mail will now offer transcriptions. The service is launching in beta, but with iOS 10 you'll not only be able to replay your missed messages, you'll be able to read them. Since the text also serves as a preview, you can use it as a way to decide if you even need to replay it. Very nice.

Apple's also adding extensions, so third party services can help flag spam voicemail. It's a huge problem in countries like China, and Tencent and others are working to help prevent it.

The biggest news, though, is the new VoIP application programming interface. With the new API, apps that offer calling services can effectively take over the iPhone's phone screen. That means Skype, Slack, WhatsApp, and a host of other services can look and act just like the native Phone app, offering a much better experience than a simple notification and custom call screens can provide.

They also get access to favorites and recents, and iOS will remember which specific apps you use to contact which specific people, so you can easily Skype mom, Slack your club-mate, or WhatsApp that new friend with just a tap. You can also use office phone systems in a fully integrated way, making iPhone even better for enterprise.

It's the kind of carrier disintermediation we haven't seen from Apple since iMessage, and hopefully one more push towards the dumb-pipe future we've all been dreaming of.

Clock

The Clock app has a new dark theme — would that that had shipped for all of iOS! It also has a new Bedtime tab.

There are several keys to a good life: Breathe, eat right, exercise, and sleep. Apple introduced Activity last year to help with exercise, and this year they're bringing Breathe to watchOS to help with centering and relaxation. Now Bedtime in Clock is here to address sleep.

With it, you answer some questions about your sleep hygiene — or lack thereof — and then Bedtime will both remind you to go to sleep consistently, and set an alarm to wake you up at the same time every day.

You might be tempted to ignore it at first, but once you build healthy sleep habits, you'll be telling everyone to use it.

How to use Bedtime in Clock for iOS 10

Mail

Mail gets a great new threaded view that makes it easier to see the context surrounding your conversation. There's also a filter button at the bottom so you can quickly switch to seeing unread messages only. Since my inbox currently contains over 12,000 unread messages — blame all the fall reviews — it doesn't help me much. I imagine it'll be a boom to those far more responsible about their email than I, though.

There are also smart suggestions for moving email between folders, so if you always file those letters from the Legion of Doom under null, that's what iOS will offer you when next you select one of their emails. Or, if you prefer to simply unsubscribe, iOS data detectors will now find and surface that option right at the top of the message. Then you can just tap your annoyances away.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro even gets a unique, 3-column layout to better take advantage of its screen size. I run Mail on the Mac in three column mode, and I like it just as much on the Pro.

Bottom line

iOS 10 will no doubt be called iterative. Whether that's intended as a compliment or not, it should be taken as one. Iteration is important, critical even, to improving experience and functionality both. By pushing design, architecture, and intelligence forward, Apple is taking an almost decade-old operating system and making it fresh, fun, and futuristic again.

There are still silos — I yearn for universal VIP. There are still gaps — handoff for media can't come fast enough. There's still stability that has to be proven and proven again with every update.

Yet iOS 10 is a more consistent, coherent, clever experience that's making not just my day-to-day, but moment-to-moment interactions more efficient and more enjoyable. I like the direction it's going, even and especially where it's been opened up in new and surprising ways.

As new apps and updates hit, iOS 10 will evolve along with them. So, keep this review bookmarked and check back soon. The story of iOS 10 has just begun.

iOS 10 is now available on supported iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. As with all new major operating system updates, there are issues with iOS 10. If you don't see your issue on this list, please let us know and we'll do what we can to figure out how to troubleshoot it.

• I was trying to download iOS 10 and it "bricked" my iPhone! Help!
• I hate iOS 10. I want iOS 9 back!
• I just hate having to press the Home button to unlock my iPhone
• OMG! The battery drain in iOS 10 is killing my iPhone!
• Why can't my friend see my slam animation on his iPhone?
• I'm on iOS 10 but I can't see the Bubble effects?

I was trying to download iOS 10 and it "bricked" my iPhone! Help!

Technically, your iPhone or iPad isn't bricked. As long as it can eventually be recovered in some way, it's just temporarily out of commission. But, when you can't figure out how to get it working again, it sure does feel like a brick. A $749 brick. Ouch.

Lucky for you, I went through that exact problem when I tried installing iOS 10 on my iPad. After a few tries, I got it working again. I didn't even have to restore it to the Factory settings.

• What to do if iOS 10 bricks your device

I hate iOS 10. I want iOS 9 back!

There is always going to be a few people that just can't live with the changes in a major software update. Whether Apple removed a feature that you loved or you just don't like the new bigger, bolder design, you can always return to an archived backup that you've saved (you did save an archived backup, didn't you?).

• How to downgrade your iPhone or iPad from iOS 10 back to iOS 9.3

I just hate having to press the Home button to unlock my iPhone

I don't know about you, but I got used to not having to press down on the Home button to open my iPhone in iOS 9. Sure, Touch ID worked so fast that I would sometimes miss notifications, but I didn't have to press the Home button to unlock my iPhone like an animal. In iOS 10, Apple added an extra step to get into your iPhone. Why??!! If you want that zippy unlock back, you can have your way.

• Fed up with the iOS 10 lock screen? Find zen with this quick Settings change

OMG! The battery drain in iOS 10 is killing my iPhone!

Did you notice by the end of the day that your iPhone's battery was sucked dry? Believe it, or not, that is not unusual when you install a major update to iOS. It has to do with your iPhone needing to index all of the new goodies. Typically, the battery drain issue will go away after a few days. Typically.

• How to fix iPhone battery life problems after updating to iOS 10

Why can't my friend see my slam animation on his iPhone?

The first thing I tried after updating to iOS 10 was sending an animated messages to my friend. I "Slammed" a greeting. The effect was lost on him, though. He hadn't updated to iOS 10 yet.

Things look a little different for those still on an older version of iOS or OS X. They will get a weird notification when you use something that they can't see yet, like "sent with Slam Effect."

• How the new Messages effects work on older iPhones, iPads, and Macs

I'm on iOS 10 but I can't see the Bubble effects?

Did your buddy send you a Bubble effect, but it doesn't look like anything on your iPhone? That might be because you have Reduce Motion enabled. The accessibility feature uses the same physics engine that Bubble effects in Messages does.

• Can't see the new iMessage bubble effects in iOS 10? Here's the fix

What else?

Are you dealing with iOS 10 woes? Rest your head on our shoulders and let us find a fix for you. Tell us your problems in the comments section.

Siri has been updated with more brainpower, making it a better personal assistant than ever before. With a better API, you can speak to Siri more naturally than ever. Siri now understands context, so you don't have to be so direct when talking to it. You can say something like "shoot a text to my mom"

Siri now talks to apps

Apple made Siri available to developers through SiriKit. So, third-party apps can make services available within a variety of apps. For example, you can ask Siri to order you a car from Lyft or Uber, search for pictures on Pinterest, or send money to someone using Square Cash. At launch, Siri will be able to work with six category of apps, including ride booking, messaging, photo and video, payment, VoIP calling, and workouts.

• Here's what you can do with Siri and apps in iOS 10

Siri can make you more comfortable while you drive

Siri is also more deeply integrated with CarPlay to help you adjust your car's temperature or radio settings. So, you can make it cooler or turn down the tunes without having to look away from the road for even a second.

Now that Siri is compatible with VoIP services, you can ask the digital personal assistant to make a call for you via Skype or another related service.

• How to use Siri with CarPlay

Siri is working in the background via Proactive Suggestions

You and I won't really notice Siri's hard work in the background, but Apple has added some serious Siri smarts to the iOS keyboard and other built-in apps to make it easier for us to get things done the right way.

• Contextual predictions in QuickType - When you type using the built-in keyboard, you'll see QuickType suggestions for contacts, recent addresses, and more based on what you are writing about. For example, if you want to tell someone where today's meeting is, the contextual predictions will call up the address for the meeting if it is in your calendar.
• Suggested apps in the keyboard - When you are typing with the built-in keyboard, you might get suggestions for apps that you can quickly jump to in QuickType.
• Suggested locations - Developers can send location information from their apps to the Maps app so that, when you open it, you'll automatically get a suggestion for that address.
• Suggested content between apps - When switching between apps, you can carry over content from one to the other. Ride-sharing apps in the app switcher - Apple is opening up ride-sharing apps in the app switcher, which can be designed to pop up when you are likely to call for a ride.
• Intelligent scheduling - Siri can automatically create a calendar event based on information exchanged in iMessage and email.
• Calendar availability - When a date or time is sent to you via iMessage or email, you can tap the information to see whether you are free to schedule the new event.
• Multilingual language - You can now type in multiple languages within the same sentence without having to switch to a different keyboard language.
• QuickType Keyboard: Ultimate guide

What do you think?

Are you having fun with all the new features in iOS 10? What do you like the most about Siri's smarter brain?

If you haven't been paying attention to Apple this week, there's just a teensy bit about the company's upcoming operating systems you might have missed. New versions of watchOS, tvOS, iOS, and macOS (RIP OS X). New apps. New services. If you're a developer, there's an incredible number of new resources and SDKs to play with.

But this week, I haven't been attending developer sessions at WWDC; I've instead been listening to the wonderful presenters at Layers, Jessie Char and Elaine Pow's design conference. And while I've spent my fair share of time this week poring over developer documentation, I've also been looking at the new operating systems from a design point of view.

Bold steps

Apple's iPhone OS began with healthy ties to skeumorphic design, and for good reason: The company had to convince users that a flat pane of capacitative glass and circuitry could comfortably replace their telephone, calculator, calendar, and more. As the iPhone grew in popularity, its need to prove a relationship to real-world items lessened, and users' general unease with skeumorphic design grew; after a few additional iterations, including apps with wood-grain paneling and more green felt than a casino, enough was enough.

The company stripped iOS's design language to its core, ditching the bubbly icons and rich Corinthian leather. The seventh version of the iOS operating system introduced flat backgrounds, minimalistic font faces, bold highlight colors, soft blurs, and at-times slightly unsettling animations.

The redesign was a necessity: iOS 6 had become encumbered by its design language, and Apple needed a strong step forward to set the tone for the next ten years of its software. And iOS 7 did that — it was a bold move into a less skeumorphic space.

Bold moves are rarely perfect ones. The new operating system's animations made people motion sick and fonts were too thin to read for most human beings over the age of 30. But Apple has taken to heart customer feedback over the last three years and iterated. Shadows and font weights have returned. Animations have become less jarring.

iOS 10 builds off the design language iOS 7 introduced, but it takes a bold step of its own, meshing the best of the old iOS design with the current style to create something entirely new.

Fixing the visual map

The iPhone and iPad have used slider trays and pop-overs for years to display additional information, but they've been limited and inconsistent. A great example: You can pull up from the bottom to display Control Center, but pulling up from the bottom right would instead trigger the Camera. And sliding left to right would send the Lock screen away in favor of a Passcode for unlocking your device — something that has nothing to do with additional information.

In this older model, I can't build a conceptual map of where these features exist. Notification Center and Control Center theoretically live on top of the Lock screen, but the Camera lives... underneath it? And the rest of the phone OS lives... to the left? But don't the Camera and all other apps exist on top when I launch them from the Home screen?

This likely isn't something the average user thinks about very often, but poor virtual mapping indirectly affects someone's ability to discover features and use them consistently. (I can't count the number of times I've had to walk my parents through the difference between pulling from the middle of the Home screen for search versus from the top of the screen for Notification Center.)

The good news: iOS 10 aims to both refine this concept and make discovery easier. Gone is the awkward mix of swiping: Instead, the Lock screen as displayed takes advantage of content in each direction; swipe from the top for Notification Center, right for the Widgets screen, left for the Camera app, or bottom for Control Center. Along the bottom of the Lock screen are page indicators like those on the Home screen — another indicator that more content hides out of reach on each side.

iOS 10 also fundamentally alters one of the core features of the iPhone and iPad: Slide to Unlock, the first multitouch gesture Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated on stage, is no more. By moving this interaction to the Home button — and passcode or Touch ID authentication to a floating layer, rather than a side-screen — it provides a consistent experience for the new Lock screen; when you swipe on any edge, you'll be able to access quick and necessary app content without unlocking your iPhone.

Thinking with layers

With these changes, iOS 10 paints a much clearer visual map for users, built in layers: On the top layer, you have Actions: Notification cards, Widgets, Control Center, and 3D Touch options; on the bottom layer, you have the Home screen; and the middle layer holds your Lock screen (if locked) or other app-related content (if unlocked).

iOS 10's new card-based system for Widgets, Notifications, 3D Touch, and Control Center follows and further crystallizes that design paradigm: The opaque, rounded interface puts each individual notification, widget, and control card in its own environment; it can then "float" above the App or Lock screen layer at the bottom (Control Center), middle (Notification, 3D Touch action, or Widget), or top (Banner) of the screen.

By making each bit of iOS UI its own distinct layer, this also opens up greater horizontal interactions, as with Control Center. As seen in the keynote, Control Center now lives inside a hovering bubble layer, with a Music widget and Home widget just a left swipe away. Not only is this an interesting way to keep Control Center's buttons comfortable and organized, but it also potentially sets up the stage in future releases of iOS to move certain third-party Widget content to that area. (Swipe up and to the left for a third-party calculator, anyone?)

Big and beautiful

As part of iOS 7, Apple bet big on thinner font faces legible at small sizes; with iOS 10, the company is re-embracing font size and weight.

SF UI Text and SF UI Display are iOS 10's two primary system fonts: The former covers all font sizes under 19pt, while the latter focuses on 20pt+ sizes. UI Text is thicker at those smaller sizes to preserve legibility, but still captures the style of the original San Francisco and Helvetica Neue. UI Display also has thin weights, but in Apple's redesigned apps, they've been smartly combined with bold weights for headers.

If iOS 10's new and redesigned apps are any indication, "Big. Bold. Beautiful." is not only a snappy tagline — it's the company's design mission. In Music, Maps, Health, and Home, the mix of thicker, large headliners and thinner sub-headers provides for a rich, textured experience previously unseen in this era of iOS.

The Music app is the best example of Apple's reinvented minimalist style: The app has ditched colored and shaded backgrounds for a white, sleek background, instead using big, bold headers and images to build each section. "Bigger" images and text were indeed part of the rumor mill around Music's redesign, but I don't believe anyone guessed just how well those elements would integrate.

In part, the bigger font faces provide for readable, tappable touch targets: In the future, instead of stabbing furiously at the tiny mini-player on the bottom of the iOS 9 app, I can look forward to tapping an element double in size, with clearly demarcated play/pause buttons and no More (...) button in sight. (The endless list from iOS 9 is still there, but smartly hidden inside a 3D Touch gesture.)

I mentioned this on the iMore Show, but this move to bigger tap targets is especially smart in apps that might be used in conjunction with other tasks. In its Human Interface Guide, Apple asks developers to maintain a "minimum tappable area of 44pt x 44pt" for all controls, and notes "Larger items are also easier to tap, which is especially important when an app is used in distracting surroundings, such as in the kitchen or a gym."

Not mentioned here (for good reason) is driving, but as much as Apple encourages its users to talk to Siri or purchase a CarPlay vehicle, there remain many drivers who navigate or select songs on their iPhone. In an ideal world, you should never use your device in the car, but if you insist on doing so, the company can at least make the apps slightly safer to use while distracted.

Color, too, is being used in a smart and relatable way. In Health, Apple uses bright colors to demarcate between activities and brighten up icons for discoverability. In Music, the company is letting the album artwork speak for itself, using the fuchsia highlight color for solely text-based links and call-outs. Home, in contrast, plays with a dark navigation bar, orange highlight color, and full-color photographic background for each room. Though at first glance it may not seem to fit in with the style of the other two apps, this textured color approach helps highlight scenes and accessories, set the style of the home, and ties into Apple's design schema with big, bold headers.

Growing up

From an accessibility and user experience standpoint, Apple's design changes have given new cues to users on how to use the operating system. Those bigger touch targets should also provide a more comfortable experience — especially for those on smaller iPhone models.

On a personal level, I'm intrigued by the company's design moves in iOS 10 (and its companion operating systems). Apple has long shied away from bold faces and big font sizes — outside of accessibility options —  and bringing them into the primary operating system gives the company room to experiment with the kind of texture it previously needed skeumorphic art to accomplish. It's not always a success, and there are definitely aspects of the Music app's design that I'm not in love with just yet. But it's early days yet.

Based on the keynote and assorted public documentation, we've only really seen four apps take advantage of this new style — if iOS 7 was a seedling, iOS 10 has just started to sprout limbs; we have yet to see how it will grow as the iPhone and iPad further evolve. Remember, the operating system is still in development: Someone at Apple might throw out the whole concept before it ships in the Fall.

But I hope they don't. I'm ready for some big, bold, and beautiful in my life.

If you want to cut down on the apps you don't use in order to keep your iPhone organized, Apple has a solution for you: In iOS 10, you can easily remove unwanted pre-installed apps. Here's how.

• Which stock Apple apps can I delete from my iPhone and iPad?
• How to remove a pre-installed Apple app
• How to re-install a deleted Apple app

Which pre-installed Apple apps can I delete from my iPhone and iPad?

• Calculator
• Calendar
• Compass
• Contacts (iPhone only, contact information is retained in the Phone app)
• FaceTime
• Find My Friends
• Home
• iBooks
• iCloud Drive
• iTunes Store
• Mail
• Maps
• Music (if removed, you won't be able to use it with CarPlay)
• News
• Notes
• Podcasts
• Reminders
• Stocks
• Tips
• Videos
• Voice Memos
• Watch app (you'll have to unpair your Apple Watch before deleting it)
• Weather

How to delete a pre-installed Apple app

Deleting a pre-installed Apple app is as easy as removing any other app on your home screen. Here's how.

1. Open a folder or locate an Apple app you want to delete.
2. Push down lightly on the app icon until it starts to dance.
3. Tap the small x icon that appears on the top left.
4. Tap Remove.

After removing the app, its icon will disappear from the folder or home screen.

One note on removing pre-installed apps: Don't do this if you need to free up some storage space on your iPhone or iPad. Because stock apps are part of the system bundle — some of them are deeply integrated with Siri, in fact — when you delete them, they aren't actually removed — they're just being hidden from the home screen. (It's very similar to the toggle for Apple's iCloud Drive app in iOS 9.)

How to re-install a hidden Apple app

1. Launch the App Store from your Home screen.
2. Tap the Search tab on the lower portion of screen.
3. Enter the name of the app into the search bar. If that doesn't work, you can also search for Apple, then select the developer's page to see a list of all pre-installed apps.
4. Tap Search in the bottom right corner.
5. Tap the download button next to the result from Apple. It looks like a cloud with a downward arrow inside it.

That's it! Right now, it's a bit difficult to find Apple's first-party apps through search, but that should get easier after iOS 10 has been released to the public. In the meantime, searching for a well-known Apple app like the Apple Store app and getting the company's listings through there is the easiest way.

Questions?

Can't find an app you uninstalled? Having problems with the process? Let us know in the comments!

We're not going to take you through a comprehensive tour of iOS 10 here — that's the review's job. Instead, I want to highlight some of my favorite lesser-known features arriving with iOS 10. Some are big, some are small, but they've all been invaluable over my past few months testing the operating system.

System

Don't like the new Lock screen behavior in iOS 10? You can change it right back in the Settings app.

Trash five days' worth of Instagram notifications by force pressing (or long pressing) on the X on your notifications screen to bring up an alert to clear all notifications.

Don't want to wake your partner, but need to find your keys on the nightstand? Force press on the Flashlight icon in Control Center to access three new options: Low Light, Medium Light, or Bright Light.

If you've ever wanted to use your iPhone as a magnifying glass, the Accessibility options in iOS 10 will make your day: The new Magnifier setting in Accessibility turns your iPhone camera into a giant magnifying glass with a super-zoom, flashlight, brightness and contrast filter, and more.

Messages

After you've peeled a sticker off and are getting ready to send it on its merry way, you can add a second finger to pinch-to-zoom in or out on the sticker — this will make it bigger or smaller on your message.

More of a troll than a true hidden feature, you can place stickers atop almost anything — including images and emoji! It's a pretty hilarious way to spruce up a Messages conversation.

(And don't forget this handy trick to remove stickers, if you've been pranked.)

If you're in a group chat full of file transfers or you simply want to separate the GIFs from the ZIPs, you can tap the Info button in a Messages conversation and scroll down; your images and attachments are sorted into two different categories.

If you want more fine-grained control than "Everyone can see when I've looked at their messages," you're in luck with iOS 10. The Send Read Receipts button is hidden behind the Info button in any Messages conversation.

All those animated stickers and wayward GIFs can bulk up your iMessage archive in a hurry. To save your poor iPhone from stuffing itself full of images, you can turn on Low Quality Image mode in Settings > Messages to reduce sent and received image sizes.

Siri

Did Siri mishear your dictation to your significant other as "I need a hammer witch" when you meant "I need a ham sandwich?" Rather than manually typing out your correction, you can tap on your spoken phrase in the Siri interface and Siri will automatically provide several alternative guesses as to what it thought you said. This has the added benefit of training Siri to better understand your voice — though you can still always enter manual text correction if your assistant is way off base.

Ask Siri to take a selfie, and you'll be instantly whisked away to the front-facing camera. Whee!

Maps

If your car has Bluetooth or CarPlay, Maps can automatically display it on a map, along with when you last turned the car off and space for notes and a photo of your garage level, if you're the kind who forgets such things. (I am.)

You can also ask Siri "Where's my car?" if you want a quick and precise location, and even get directions to it.

If you frequently use public transportation but would prefer Maps didn't show you options you never take, you can customize Transit to ignore routes on buses, trains, ferries, or commuter rail.

You can send friends your whereabouts faster than a speeding bullet by either pressing firmly on the Maps icon to trigger 3D Touch or by tapping on your GPS locator inside Maps itself. (Tapping on the blue GPS locator is also handy if you need your current longitude and latitude for any geocaching hunts.)

Mail

If you have the Move option selected as your Swipe Left gesture in Settings > Mail, you'll get an additional shortcut thanks to iOS 10's machine learning: After filing a few messages, Mail will start to offer suggestions on where you should file the message (i.e. "Coupons and Bills") rather than making you select the same option repeatedly.

Mail has had message threads for awhile, but iOS 10 brings a Settings option for Complete Threads: It lets you view every message in the thread — your sent emails included — and you can even sort by newest at the top or bottom, to your personal preference.

As part of its proactive suggestions, iOS 10 attempts to identify subscription emails, and will present you with a banner that you can tap to automatically unsubscribe from that list if you'd rather not be on it any longer. Sayonara, searching through fine print!

Safari

Want to clear everything currently open in your browser in a hurry? Tap and hold on the Pages button in Safari, and you'll get an option to close all your tabs at once. (Note that this won't clear your history — you'll have to go into the Bookmarks section for that.)

Want to get rid of a specific tracking cookie or bit of web data? If you poke into Settings > Safari > Advanced, you can view and delete individual website data groupings.

Camera & Photos

For professional photographers or people who like post-processing their images, this is a big deal. I'll let Ben Rice McCarthy explain further.

The Photos app now supports Mail's Markup extension, allowing you to draw on your screenshots or images, add callouts, and more. And it's all non-destructive, so if you don't like what you've done, you can erase it and start from scratch.

Music

With iOS 10 and Apple Music, Apple has introduced a customized weekly playlist of new music, based on what you listen to and enjoy. Your Favorites Mix is updated every Friday and (in my experience) contains a wide variety of styles and artists, all of which flow together very nicely. You can even save the playlist to your local collection if you enjoy it.

Lyrics are new to Music in iOS 10, while Up Next has moved into a more prominent spot, but both can be hard to discover naturally. With the miniplayer fully open, just swipe up to view (or hide) lyrics, along with your upcoming song queue.

Previous to iOS 10, Apple would automatically try to manage the size of your local music collection to prevent you from stuffing your iPhone — sometimes with disastrous consequences, if you ended up in a place that lacked the internet.

iOS 10 has changed all that, making Optimize Storage a conscious choice on the user's part: You can either let Apple manage your local collection, or you can keep everything you download and manage it yourself. Your choice.

Miscellaneous

Whether you've gotten valuable information in your voicemail or just want to replay a sweet message from a family member, iOS 10 will let you save your voicemail messages via the Share button.

Short of coming into your house and forcing you to go to bed at a certain hour – Apple can't magically solve your sleep problems – but the company can at least try to aid in your effort to get better sleep. Clock's new Bedtime feature coordinates your normal alarm wakeup time with helpful alerts and reminders pre-bedtime to get you to unwind and go to sleep on time.

iPad improvements

If you have a Smart Connector or Bluetooth keyboard connected to your iPad, you can trigger Spotlight (Command-Space) from anywhere — even when you're in Split View! As such, it lets you launch any app into the left pane, even if it's not in your recently used apps (Command-Tab).

Autocorrect and auto-capitalization is great when you're typing on a software keyboard, but can turn into a huge pain when you're using something more reliable. With iOS 10, though, you can choose different settings for each keyboard option — no more random capitalized words for your Bluetooth or Smart Connector keyboard!

Your favorites?

What's your favorite hidden iOS 10 tip? Let me know!

Apple has some big changes coming in iOS 10, including a complete remodel of the Messages app, an all-new design of the News app, Memories in the Photo app, and much more.

iOS 10 is also polishing up a few apps with features that may not seem like much on the surface but really make a difference where it counts.

The Mail app is getting one such polishing. Nothing major is changing, but the few features that have been added are going to make your daily email activities much better.

Filter inboxes all the live-long day

Apple added an inbox filter feature that allows you to quickly filter any inbox by Unread, Flagged, emails to you, emails CC'd with you, only emails with attachments, or only emails from VIPs. You can also filter your inboxes by different accounts. So, for example, if you have two work email accounts and one personal, you could filter your inbox so that you only see unread emails from your work accounts.

Get those email threads under control

In iOS 10, you can organize emails within a conversation thread without having to perform the same action on all emails. When you select a conversation thread, you will have access to a thread edit button that will allow you to mark, move, or trash one or more selected emails.

Stop searching for the right mailbox, it's right here!

The Mail app will start offering suggestions when you want to move certain emails to a specific mailbox. This will only work if you've set your Swipe Options to Move and if the selected email comes from a recipient that you have frequently moved emails for in the past. It's so much nicer than scrolling through dozens of folders until you find the right one.

Let 'em know where you're at

Whether you're starting a new email or reading something from a week ago, you can share your location with any email contact (that is also on iOS) for a specific amount of time or indefinitely. So, you can email your co-worker about your lunch meeting and share your location for an hour, or email your best friend from high school and share your location for as long as you have your iPhone. It's up to you.

Why email when you can Message or FaceTime?

Apple is making iOS smarter – Siri-level smarter – by integrating some useful communication features that even include third-party apps like Skype or WeChat. In the Mail app, when you tap on a contact to view a person's information, you'll have the opportunity to switch from the email you were about to send to simply call, text, or video chat with him or her instead.

Stop sending me junk!

Probably my favorite feature in the Mail app for iOS 10 is the ability to unsubscribe to mailing lists. This feature is available in Microsoft's Outlook email app for iPhone and its one of the main reasons I don't use the built-in Mail app nearly as often. When you receive an email that is part of a mailing list, you'll get a notification at the top of the screen. If you tap the "Unsubscribe" link, Mail will send an email on your behalf to unsubscribe to the mailing list. No more scrolling to the bottom, looking for the Unsubscribe button or tapping through a half dozen questions asking why you are leaving. Just two taps from inside the Mail app and you're done.

What do you think?

Are you excited about the new features in iOS 10? If you weren't already using the built-in Mail app before, are these features enough to make you switch?

Apple has announced iOS 10, the tenth version of its mobile operating system for iPhone and iPad. As always, there are a few big, new tentpole features, and a ton of smaller changes, additions, and updates. It's available for developers now, public beta testers soon, and everyone later this fall. It's iOS 10, and here's everything you need to know about it.

What, when, and how to get iOS 10

What, exactly, is iOS 10? When can you get it? And what do you need to know about it, really? We've got the deets.

iOS 10 is the tenth generation of what Apple calls the most advanced operating system in the world. It runs on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and handles everything from setup to apps.

Just iOS 10. Apple uses ski resorts for the iOS code names but for the publicly marketed version, the company sticks to the numbers.

iOS 10 is available for developers and on public beta program right now. For everyone else, the release version will be available Sept. 13, just a few days before the next iPhone ships.

Come release, you'll get a notification and it'll show up in Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You'll be able to download and install it from there over your Wi-Fi network.

If you're a traditionalist and prefer cables, you'll also be able to check for and install the update using iTunes on your Mac or Windows PC.

Apple has announced that iOS 10 will run on the following iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices:

• iPhone 6s
• iPhone 6s Plus
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone SE
• iPhone 5s
• iPhone 5c
• iPhone 5
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Air
• iPad 4th generation
• iPad mini 4
• iPad mini 3
• iPad mini 2
• iPod touch 6th generation

Very likely! Since last year, Apple has been working hard to make iOS updates smaller and easier to download and install. While iOS 8 was over 4.5 GB in size, iOS 9 was just 1.3 GB. If you're almost at your storage limit, you might have to remove some apps or media. Most people, though, should be fine.

Betas are betas. There can be all sorts of bugs and code that affect performance. If you're at all worried, stay away from the betas. As for the release version, Apple has been working hard to make sure iOS 10 works great on all compatible devices. Still, we'll have to wait for the fall and test it when it ships.

Right! iOS 10 is a free update for all iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad owners with compatible devices.

Big. Bold. Beautiful.

Apple has completely redesigned its Messages app for iOS 10. The biggest features include animated responses, app extensions, and plenty of changes that make iMessages a lot more fun to play with.

• New formatting - Messages got a minor redesign that will put a picture of the person or people you are messaging with in a bubble at the top of the screen.
• Rich links - Now, when you share a link in Messages, you'll see pictures, videos, and more right inline.
• Camera and Photos - When accessing the Camera or Photos in Messages, you see a new layout with quicker access to each feature.
• 3X Emoji - Emojis just got bigger. Three times bigger.
• Message bubble animations + full-screen animations - When you send a message, you can choose an animation to go with your bubble response. Different bubble types produce different animations, like a jiggling bubble or one that shakes the whole screen. You can also send full screen animations, like fireworks, confetti or floating balloons, that take over the entire screen for a few seconds within a message.
• Handwriting animation in realtime - Similar to the way Digital Touch sketching works, you ca handwrite small notes that appear, just as you wrote it, to the recipient.
• Invisible Ink for photos and messages - You can choose to hide a message from the recipient that they have to reveal by swiping across it. So, if you want to surprise someone with big news, send a message with Invisible Ink to keep it a secret right up until the moment they are ready to read it. Similarly, you can obscure a photo that has to be physically revealed by the recipient.
• Tapback - If you just want to send a quick response to someone's comment in Messages, you can now send a "Tapback." Tap a comment to call up the six different Tapback responses, including heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, Ha Ha, exclamation point, and question mark.
• Digital touch - Messages now has the same sketching features as Apple Watch. You can send fireballs, heartbeats, sketches, and can draw over videos and audio.
• App Store for iMessage - Similar to the way Facebook Messenger has a sticker store where you can download new and adorable illustrations to share, Apple has an app store specifically for iMessage filled with lots of adorable cartoons and sayings. You can send a sticker as a response, or you can even "peel" one off and stick it on a previously sent response by dragging and dropping the illustration where you want it to go.
• Emojification - You can turn text into emojis by opening the emoji keyboard in Messages and then tapping the words that are highlighted. When you tap a word, it will automagically transform into an emoji.
• Sticker pack app extension - You can send stickers in the Messages app, and even "peel" them off and place them on others' messages by dragging and dropping the sticker where you want it.
• iMessage app extensions - With app extensions for iMessage, developers can create extensions are accessible right inside the app, like making funny videos in Jib Jab or sending money in Square Cash. Oh, and Giphy.

Apple is making it easier for developers to help you use their apps more conveniently, like with access to the QuickType keyboard feature, location suggestions for Maps and CarPlay, and content suggestions between apps.

• Contextual predictions in QuickType When you type using the built-in keyboard, you'll see QuickType suggestions for contacts, recent addresses, and more based on what you are writing about. For example, if you want to tell someone where today's meeting is, the contextual predictions will call up the address for the meeting if it is in your calendar.
• Suggested apps in the keyboard - When you are typing with the built-in keyboard, you might get suggestions for apps that you can quickly jump to in QuickType.
• Suggested locations - Developers can send location information from their apps to the Maps app so that, when you open it, you'll automatically get a suggestion for that address.
• Suggested content between apps - When switching between apps, you can carry over content from one to the other.
• Ride-sharing apps in the app switcher - Apple is opening up ride-sharing apps in the app switcher, which can be designed to pop up when you are likely to call for a ride.

Siri is getting some serious love in iOS 10. The personal assistant is accessible within third-party apps, can search within apps, and more.

• Third-party app integration - Siri works with third-party apps for such things as getting a car from Uber or Lyft, searching for pictures in Pinterest or Instagram, or sending money to someone using Square Cash.
• SiriKit - Siri is now open to developers to make services available inside the Messages app. At launch, it works with services that provide audio or video calling, messaging, sending and receiving payments, searching photos, booking rides, and managing workouts.
• CarPlay apps Siri can control CarPlay apps and access certain features of your car, like temperature and radio settings. You can also use VoIP calls in CarPlay via Siri.

Apple has updated the built-in Maps app with plenty of new useful features, like suggestions for places you could stop while you are on your route, search results in a better place, and a few more things.

• New interface - Apple has redesigned the look of the Maps app to be more intuitive using a bold interface for arrival, total minutes, and total miles. It is easier to access controls and details of locations. On CarPlay, turn-by-turn navigation is available right in the instrumentation cluster of your car.
• Dynamic view - When you are using turn-by-turn navigation, the map zooms in and out depending on short turns or long straightaways. Plus, you can manual zoom in and out to check the traffic ahead while on your route.
• Quick controls - When using turn-by-turn navigation, you can see details on restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses you might want to stop at on your trip. Maps also tells you how much longer it will take if you make a detour. Search filters - You can filter searches based on categories. For example, if you searched for restaurants, you could then select "Breakfast" and will only see places that serve breakfast on the map.
• App extensions - With MapKit, developers can create app extensions that are accessible right inside the Maps app. For example, if you searched inside Maps for a restaurant, you could make reservations using OpenTable. When you tap to get directions, you'll also be given the option to book a ride.
• More proactive - When you slide up from the bottom, you'll automatically see suggestions. It recognizes what time you normally leave for work, or can look up a calendar event and show you locations based on that information. If there is a faster route while you are driving, Maps will suggest the new route and tell you how much time you will save.

The biggest news in HomeKit is that Apple is finally launching a dedicated Home app. But, that's not the only thing we have to look forward to for the connected home in iOS 10.

• New categories - HomeKit now supports new types of accessories, like cameras, door locks, air conditioners, doorbells, air purifiers, and humidifiers.
• Home app - Apple now has an app for iOS that brings together all of your connected home accessories under one user-friendly interface that has the bold design of the rest of iOS 10. The Home app supports scene creations, favorite accessories, Siri integration, Control Center, Lock screen notifications, and more.
• Apple TV support - Integrates with Apple TV for remote access so you can turn on lights, even when you are not at home. It also supports automated geofencing so you can trigger connected gadgets as you pull up to your house.
• Apple Watch support - the Home app comes with built-in home control support for Apple Watch so you can do such things as tap your wrist to lock the front door.

Apple heard our pleas for a more intuitive user interface and has "burned it to the ground" and rebuilt Apple Music's look with clearer sections, new discovery features, and a better way to Connect artists and fans.

• New look - Apple Music has a new, bolder design with brighter graphics and bigger features. The Now Playing window has a more minimalist look with some interesting shadow effects.
• Sections - The Music app is now distinctly divided into different sections for the Library, For You, Browse, Radio, and Search. At the top of each section, you can quickly filter your search for content by playlists, artists, albums, and songs. There is also a new filter section called Downloaded Music, where all music that you've downloaded onto your device can be found.
• Lyrics - Every song that has lyrics in the digital coding is available right in the Music app under the Now Playing window.
• Connect - Apple Music's social networking feature has been moved into the For You section.
• New For You features - in the For You section of Apple Music, you can find tunes to rock out to by using the new Discovery Mix, My Favorites Mix, and Daily Playlist features.

If your iPhone has 3D Touch capabilities, you can take advantage of some great new features on the Home screen and in Notification Center.

• Redesign - Instead of swiping up from the bottom of the Lock screen, you can slide to the right. Widgets are now accessible from the Lock screen by sliding to the left.
• Rich notifications - when you get notifications on your Lock screen, you can see live info, like calendar events, responding to messages, and more. You can also see live videos and get real-time scores from sporting apps like ESPN.
• New Control Center panel - There is now a secondary Now Playing panel in Control Center that you can swipe over to access.
• Raise to wake for notifications - Lets you see what's on your Lock screen without ever having to touch a button.
• Expanded notifications for 3D Touch - You can use 3D touch to clear all notifications at once.
• 3D Touch on Home screen - You can use 3D Touch on apps to get more access to useful information. Adding widgets from the 3D Touch Peek to the Today View adds real-time updates for apps.

If you are a News reader, you get some new features to help you find what you are looking for easier. Plus, you can access your news and magazine subscriptions right inside News.

• Redesign - The News app has been redesigned with the same, bold look that Apple is implementing with its built-in apps. The bolder interface makes it easier for readers to find content they want to read.
• For You - The daily rundown has been separated into four sections under the For You page. The sections are called Top Stories, Trending Stories, your chosen topics and new topics based on what you read, and Featured Stories.
• Subscriptions - You can subscribe to magazines and newspapers inside the News app and access them alongside the other News content that you read.
• Breaking news notifications - You can add breaking news articles to your lock screen via Notification Center.

Photos

There are a few big additions to the Photos app for iOS. The Photos update will also be available on Mac and viewable on Apple TV.

• Facial recognition - Photos on the iPhone and iPad support the same facial recognition technology available in Photos on the Mac. People will be sorted into "people albums" for you. You can filter the people albums by favorites.
• Object and scene recognition - The same deep learning technology has been implemented for detecting objects, like horses, and scenes, like mountain ranges.
• Memories - You'll be able to view photos based on locations, people involved, scenes, dates, and more. Memories are automatically clustered into slideshow style memory movies, complete with video clips and themed soundtracks.You can reedit your memory movie by size (short, medium, long) or mood (dreamy, uplifting, epic, etc.).

• When you copy anything on your iPhone, you can immediately paste it into something on your iPad or Mac thanks to a Continuity update.

Phone

Thanks to third-party APIs, we get some pretty cool extensions to use with phone calls and VOIP apps.

• Voicemail transcripts - You can get your voicemails transcribed so you don't have to stop what you are doing to listen to messages left from a phone call.
• VoIP extension - Third-party calling apps, like WhatsApp and Skype look more like regular phone calls. They can be integrated into your Lock screen, Phone recents, and Phone favorites. The Contacts app also features additional ways to connect with your friends and family with quick access to the way you typically contact them.
• Spam extensions - Phone numbers will automatically be scanned for possible spam from Tencent Security.

At WWDC, Apple took a moment to speak on its security and privacy policies.

• Privacy - Built-in apps like FaceTime, Messages, and Home all use end-to-end encryption.
• Deep Learning - Built-in services that use deep learning, like Photos object recognition and QuickType proactive suggestions are on-device only intelligence. No information is sent to Apple.
• Profiling - When you perform searches in built-in apps like Maps and Spotlight, Apple does not build a user profile.
• Differential privacy - Differential privacy is, in a nutshell, a way to learn about a group about typical activities while trying to avoid learning anything at all about the individual. -- Apple Pay on the web

APIs

Apple is releasing developer tools for deeper integration on iOS.

• Speech recognition API - Transcription of both real-time and recorded audio. Access requires user permission.
• User notifications - Developers can customize the appearance of notifications that appear on devices.
• Wide Color - System-wide graphics frameworks support extended-range pixel formats and wide-gamut color spaces.
• True Tone adapting - Developers can use the True Tone framework to adapt their apps to shifting lighting conditions.
• App search - Siri can make searches while you are in apps (using Core Spotlight APIs). search continuation (start searching in Spotlight, switch to Yelp, search continues), crowdsourcing deep link popularity with differential privacy, visualization of validation results
• Differential privacy and deep linking - The differential privacy data collection lets Apple count frequency without associating users with links.

Barely mentioned features

There wasn't enough time to get through everything, so Apple quickly ran down a list of a few more big features that we can look forward to this fall, when iOS 10 hits.

• Notes collaborations - You can work live with others in the same note.
• Conversation view for Mail - You can scroll from message to message in a single thread.
• Live Photos - Your Live Photos now have Digital video image stability and full editing.
• Split view in Safari (iPad only) - You can have two Safari windows open side-by-side.

The bottom line

We'll be updating this FAQ as Apple announces more information about iOS 10. Bookmark, save, and share it, and check back often for more.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions, ask away in the comments and we'll answer as best as we can!

Every time you receive a call, text, email, or calendar notification your iPhone or iPad will make a sound. All these sounds have defaults and most of them are different so you can tell them apart; however, you can customize all the sounds your iPhone and iPad makes each time a notification is received or an action — such as sending an email or making a Facebook post — is performed.

• How to change your ringtone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your text tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your voicemail tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your mail tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your sent mail tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your Tweet tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your Facebook post tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your Calendar alert tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your Reminder alert tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to change your AirDrop tone on iPhone and iPad
• How to disable Keyboard clicks on iPhone and iPad
• How to disable the Lock sound on iPhone and iPad

How to change your ringtone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Ringtone.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your text tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Text Tone.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your voicemail tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap New Voicemail.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your mail tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap New Mail.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your sent mail tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Sent Mail.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your tweet tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Tweet.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your Facebook post tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Facebook Post.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your Calendar alerts tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Calendar Alerts.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your Reminder alerts tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap Reminder Alerts.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to change your AirDrop tone on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap AirDrop.
4. Tap the sound you want. Tapping on the sound will also play the sound so you can hear it.

How to disable keyboard clicks on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap the On/Off switch next to Keyboard Clicks. If the switch is green that means the clicks are on, if it's gray the sound has been disabled.

If you ever want to turn the keyboard clicks back on, just follow these same steps.

How to disable the lock sound on iPhone and iPad.

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Sounds.
3. Tap the On/Off switch next to Lock Sound. If the switch is green that means the clicks are on, if it's gray the sound has been disabled.

If you ever want to turn the lock sound back on, just follow these same steps.

Chances are when you first setup your iPhone or iPad, the date, time, and timezone, were all configured automatically. On top of that, you have probably noticed when traveling your iPhone and iPad will automatically change time zones for you. You may never need to change your time manually in your life; however, if you are traveling somewhere that's in a different timezone and you are unable to get any service (Wi-Fi or cellular), you could be stuck backward or forward in time — so to speak.

• How to enable manual date and time entry on iPhone and iPad
• How to manually change the date and time on your iPhone and iPad
• How to change time zones on iPhone and iPad
• How to enable 24-hour time on iPhone and iPad

How to enable manual date and time entry on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Date & Time.
4. Tap on the On/Off switch next to Set Automatically.

How to manually change the date and time on your iPhone and iPad

Before you can manually change the date and time, you need to disable the set automatically feature.

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Date & Time.

4. Tap on the date.
5. Adjust the picker to your desired date and time.

How to change time zones on your iPhone and iPad

Before you can manually change the date and time, you need to disable the set automatically feature.

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Date & Time.

4. Tap Time Zone.
5. Enter the name of the city of the time zone you desire.
6. Tap the city from the list below that you want. If the city you are looking for isn't listed, you'll need to choose a city within the time time zone you're looking for. Most major cities should be available.

How to enable 24-hour time on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Date & Time.
4. Tap on the On/Off switch next to 24-Hour Time.

This might deserve a "finally": Google Docs and Sheets now support Split View, a mere 10 months and 30 days after the iOS 9 feature appeared for iPad users.

I wrote about Google's second-class app citizenry back in January of 2016, citing the lack of Google updates as one of the big issues holding me back from committing to the iPad Pro to write full-time; while the company has made strides forward in improving its iOS apps, it was still missing a key component of true iPad multitasking: Split View.

That nightmare is now over, though officially only for users of iOS 9 — both apps' developer notes include the phrase "support on iPads running iOS 9", but I've been able to get devices both on the latest public beta and developer beta seed working with Split Screen. (After, it should be noted, a full iPad restart.)

There's still a lot I'd like to see from these apps — there's still no way to highlight multiple cells with keyboard commands, for example — but Split View is a huge step forward for the apps, and a step much appreciated by iPad users around the globe.

• Google Docs
• Google Sheets

Restrictions — often referred to as Parental Controls, let you manage which features, apps, and content your kids can and can't access on the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. That includes in-app purchases (IAP). Originally designed to enable extra content like additional levels in games or new issues of magazines, IAP are now routinely used in a casino-like manner — to feed addiction through ego and instant gratification.

Classic examples include free games that lets you spend money to pass levels faster or build a better dingus than your friends and rivals. Farmville, Smurf Village, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, and Pokémon Go have all made their fair share of money using this model. It can be hard enough for adults who know better to avoid the trap, never mind kids. Luckily, parental controls let you lock out in-app purchases completely. That way, your kids are free to play but won't be able to buy any Pokéballs or lucky eggs, saving you from a nasty credit card bill.

How to block in-app purchases on iPhone or iPad

1. Launch the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad you want to block in-app purchases on.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Restrictions.

4. Tap on Enable Restrictions if you don't already have them on. If you do, skip to step 6.
5. Choose a passcode that only you will know — it should not be the same as the Lock screen passcode and be sure you never give it to your child.
6. Tap on the On/Off switch beside In-App Purchases. If the switch is green that means in-app purchases will be allowed, if the switch is grey that means in-app-purchases are disabled.

How to unblock in-app purchases on iPhone and iPad

1. Launch the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad you want to block in-app purchases on.
2. Tap on General.
3. Tap on Restrictions.

4. Enter your Restrictions Passcode.
5. Tap on the On/Off switch beside In-App Purchases. If the switch is green that means the is allowed, if the switch is grey, in-app-purchases are disabled.

Apple Music is just over a year old, and like many Apple products, it's about to receive its first major update. Come the fall, we'll see an interface refresh, a rethink of For You, better control of your music library, and more. But don't take my intro's word for it: Here's what you can expect from Apple Music later this year.

After a year of running the service, Apple Music has grown tremendously — but it's not without its growing pains. Apple is well-aware of those complaints and grumbles, and the company is addressing many of them in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra with a redesigned Apple Music experience that simplifies a lot of the insanity without taking away the features users love.

Apple Music has now been consolidated into three tabs: For You, Browse, and Radio. Your Library lives to the left of those tabs; on the Mac, you get a link to the iTunes Store, while iPhone and iPad users will have a tab for search.

Gone are the top-level tabs and weird drop-downs, and though the More button still exists, it's a lot more organized.

On the design side, Apple Music has made everything bigger, bolder, and white, with side-scrollable areas and vibrant section headers offsetting a pure white background. The mini-player also gets this redesign, replacing tiny buttons with larger play/pause and forward buttons.

For one thing, it's all in one place! The My Music tab is now Library, and it provides an easy-to-tap list for your playlists, artists, albums, songs, Home Sharing libraries, and any and all downloaded tracks. Below the main navigation is a collection of your recently-added songs and playlists, viewable in album art form.

The Downloads button will be a welcome addition to anyone who flies regularly, but better still are the behind-the-scenes settings for your music, which will let you specify whether you want to optimize your storage or manually control which songs stay on your devices or not. There's also a new setting to restrict Apple Music tracks from your library if you add them to playlists; as a result, you can add hundreds of subscription tracks to an "Apple Music" playlist without worrying about them cluttering up your main library.

Jury's still out. There are some nice additions coming — see the aforementioned switch that limits Apple Music tracks to your playlists, as well as being able to delete tracks from iCloud directly from your iPhone — but my big problems with iCloud Music Library remain. You still can't force tracks to upload rather than match to the Apple Music (or iTunes, if you use iTunes Match) catalog, and the process remains exceedingly confusing for the average user.

There's also the question of whether Apple Music will borrow iTunes Match's algorithm, using both metadata and track signature to match tracks, rather than just matching via metadata.

In a word: Greatly. Rather than just give you an assortment of playlists and albums, For You now offers several side-scrollable sections tailored to your taste. Come the fall, you'll have your very own Spotify-style Discovery playlist, along with six daily playlist recommendations; a recently played section that tracks playlists you may have enjoyed but not saved; a grouping of playlists you listen to frequently; daily album recommendations; playlists spotlighting specific artists; and new releases recommendations.

The tab, yes. Connect itself is being folded into For You; after your new releases recommendations, you can endlessly scroll through your timeline of followed artists and DJs. It's a change I'd been hoping for since Apple Music's release, and one that will hopefully make Connect feel more relevant, rather than a tab doomed to isolation.

New has become Browse; while it still highlights new artist releases and holds the entire Apple Music catalog and playlist rotation, it's now been reconfigured to more accurately reflect its contents. You can browse the week's new albums or look at specific genres; scan through playlists; view top charts; play video; and more.

Sadly, not that we've heard about just yet. There are several new Beats 1 show anchors, however, including Jehnny Beth, Mary J Blige, Martin Garrix, Corey Taylor, Matt Wilkinson, and deadmau5.

You'll see it appear alongside iOS 10, macOS Sierra, and tvOS 10 sometime this fall — we'd guess around the third week of September.

Other questions?

Let us know in the comments.

Since Apple first announced HomeKit back in 2014, anyone and everyone who's gone all- or even partially in on smart home products has wanted Apple to create an app for controlling those products.

And it's finally coming. When iOS 10 ships this fall, it'll feature an app made by Apple called Home that can control your HomeKit-enabled smart home products. As it stands, however, it'll only be available on iOS devices and Apple Watch. Sorry boutcha, Apple TV.

The future of TV is apps … and Siri

When you think about it, the Apple TV seems like the perfect smart home hub: It's stationary, it's — in theory — always on, and it's likely set up in your home. One could argue it's the perfect device for controlling your internet-connected gadgets and gizmos while you're home and while you're away.

And that's probably why Apple's touting the Apple TV's upcoming ability to control your HomeKit-enabled smart home devices using Siri. You'll be able to — much like you would on iOS — ask Siri to turn down the lights or adjust the thermostat, and Siri will happily oblige. But if you're looking for granular, nuanced control, like what you'd find in a HomeKit app (including Apple's upcoming Home app), you won't find it in the next version of tvOS.

Apple TV: We swear it's not a hobby anymore.

When you look at all of Apple's software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS — tvOS stands out: The software has a long way to go and a lot of catching up to do. Apple continues to weave webs of interconnectivity between iOS, macOS, and watchOS, leaving tvOS feeling a little hobby-ish.

While your Apple Watch authenticates with your Mac, giving you access to your computer without needing to type in a password, and your iPhone effortlessly sends files to your friend's iPad over AirDrop, your Apple TV looks on sadly, wondering why the hell it can't even open a link to an App Store app.

Apple TV and tvOS are still works in progress, and right now, Apple TV is very much a secondary device. Much like Apple Watch, it's an extension of the Apple ecosystem — not home base. Your iPhone, on the other hand, is the logical starter-home for Apple's Home app: It's a primary device you're likely to have with you wherever you go.

Home is where the hub is

Regardless of where I'll be able to access it, I'm thrilled to have an Apple-designed HomeKit app, period. Deeper integration within iOS will likely mean more reliability, more powerful features, and an all-around better experience when controlling my smart home gadgets.

That said, I can't help but think Apple's missed a great place to give people nuanced control of their HomeKit devices: On a giant screen in the heart of one's home.

Do you use any HomeKit-enabled tech? Do you think Apple's upcoming Home app should be on Apple TV? Sound off below or on social!

I don't remember taking it, but I do remember the result: My mother said that we received a letter declaring that I was color blind. Even as a little kid, my reaction was to laugh it off as ridiculous — I could see colors, all of them. What a stupid test.

But in college a friend complimented my sweater by saying she liked its shade of green — my blue sweater. A girlfriend's gray socks (probably needing a little bleach?) were actually light pink. That letter was right: I am a mild deutan, with a deficiency of red-green sight (deuteranomaly) that I share with roughly five percent of the male population.

Out of sight, out of mind

While I've appreciated the work Apple does to make its products accessible — I've learned a lot from the writing of Steven Aquino on this subject — I've never really considered myself someone in need of accessibility or accommodation. But the fact is, I do see the world in a different way from 95 percent of the population, and every now and then that matters.

There are a few video games that I'm unable to play because they require quick sorting of colors that I have difficulty differentiating. Some of them have special modes for people like me; others just never think about it. The developers of Destiny did a lot of work to update the game's controls and heads-up display in order to make it more usable by people who can't perceive colors the way most people do.

The design of Apple's MagSafe chargers are a case in point: They contain a clever design to indicate your charging status at a glance — green means charged, amber means charging, and no light means that there's no power or connection.

Except, well... I can't really tell the difference between the green and the amber lights at a glance. For a long time, I didn't even realize the light on the MagSafe connector changed color. (Apple is far from alone here — lots of electronics use subtle color shifts of an LED to indicate things in a way that I simply can't digest.)

Designers, especially of user interfaces, need to be aware that their work shouldn't assume good color vision. Photoshop offers color-blindness filters that can give you a view into how other people see the world. There's nothing funnier than showing someone two images side by side — one unchanged, one filtered as I would see it — and seeing their reaction. To me, they look exactly the same, but apparently that is not the case for everyone else. It's not a joke I get to be in on.

In software, the right thing to do is either design around color blindness or offer an alternative, whether it's a separate color scheme (like Destiny) or even the addition of shapes or symbols to the party. But what if that doesn't happen? Is there something that a platform developer like Apple could do to make their devices more usable by people who aren't great at some colors?

Deuteranopia-colored glasses

Apparently there is. In the iOS 10 beta, Apple's introduced a new settings section under General > Accessibility called Display Accommodations. This section includes the option to invert colors and a Reduce White Point setting that reduces the intensity of bright colors. But the section that fascinates me is a sub-menu called Color Filters. "Color filters can be used to differentiate colors by users who are color blind and aid to users who have difficulty reading text on the display," reads some text below the Color Filters sub-menu in the first iOS 10 developer beta. (Inner editor's note: That sentence could use some punctuation.)

In iOS 10, Apple will let users filter their entire display, whether that's applying grayscale, red/green filters for both protanopia and deuteranopia color blindness, and a blue/yellow filter for a very different form of color blindness called tritanopia. There's also an option to just overlay a color tint of any hue or intensity.

Now, I'm not quite sure what these filters are supposed to do. As far as I can tell, they don't do what I'd like as a color blind person, which is to amplify and shift colors so that they're easier for me to differentiate. Right now the filters seem to wash out colors or turn them into different colors, which seems bananas to me. But it's an early beta; hopefully over this summer Apple will explain the reasoning behind these settings, or tweak them to be more useful to people who have issues with color. They make sunglasses that combat color blindness by shifting and enhancing color; I'd love my iOS devices to do that, too.

Expanding the color horizon

As Craig Hockenberry has written, the future of iOS is color managed. Apple is embracing this technology in new ways, with new Mac and iOS displays offering wider color gamuts than have been previously available on mainstream displays. And, it seems, one of the side effects of features like the True Tone Display and the DCI(P3) color gamut is support for people like me who see the world a little less vibrantly than the rest of you. It's not an accommodation I ever thought I'd need, but it's welcome just the same.

Every year we get to see the new version of iOS twice. Once at WWDC where we see all the big new features, and a second time in the fall where we get to see the new iPhone-specific features. Sometimes the former even hints at the latter. For example, size-classes at WWDC hinting at the big 4.7-inch and bigger 5.5-inch iPhones in 2014. So, what, if anything, could iOS 10 hint at when it comes to this year's iPhone 7?

More like NOled

For years OLED (organic light-emitting diode), and its variant, AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) had too many compromises — hello pentile! — for Apple to consider using them at iPhone scale. Last year, though, the Apple Watch launched with an LG OLED display and an energy-saving dark mode to match.

Apple didn't announce a dark mode for iOS 10 — no matter how often we've extolled its virtue — though fragments of one have been found in the beta for a variety of apps.

The advantage of OLED technology is that it doesn't require an LED backlight the way LCD does, and can be more energy efficient, especially when combined with a dark mode. So, those fragments could portend a switch to AMOLED this fall, and the unveiling of a system-wide dark mode to complement it. But there are a few gotchas:

• 3D Touch on the iPhones 6s currently uses the LED backlight to detect pressure. So, if the iPhone switches to OLED, Apple would likely have to find some other way to enable pressure sensitivity.
• iPhone 7 is rumored to be based on Apple's iPhone 6 platform, which generally means it'll use the same general types of technology. (Which is why, for example iPhone SE, built on the iPhone 5 platform, doesn't have 3D Touch.)
• Other display technologies, like Quantum Dot are maturing quickly, so OLED could be a next step, or a skipped step, depending on how roadmaps line up.

Wider and truer

iOS 10, like all of Apples platform updates, supports wide gamut color. That means DCI-P3 currently, and rec 2020 in the future.

Both the 2015 iMac with 5K Retina display and 2016 iPad Pro with 9.7-inch display can show DCI-P3 color gamut. It's hard to describe the benefits of wider color gamut and higher dynamic range (HDR).

It's hard to describe the advantage, but when you show people 1080p HDR, it often looks better than 4K. So think about it that way.

We're not all the way there yet with Apple devices, but we're making progress. With the system-wide support, it's not hard to imagine the same DCI-P3 color space coming to iPhone 7.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro also has True Tone, which uses ambient light sensors to detect and match the color temperature of the area you're in. If you've ever seen a photo where a white device looks yellow and the screen looks blue, this helps eliminate that.

In other words, it makes the screen more like paper. It looks and works great on the iPad, so getting it on the iPhone would likewise be great.

Getting RAW

Up until now, we've only had processed image support on the iPhone. Take a picture, the Apple A-series processor goes to work, and gives you something that's generally really great. But in JPG form, which contains much less data than what comes off the camera sensor, and limits editing options.

iOS 10 adds RAW support, which is something higher-end camera owners have enjoyed for years. With it, you get almost all the data captured by the sensor and so, much greater editing options.

It'll be available to all devices that have the most recent 12 megapixel camera, which includes the iPhones 6s, iPhone SE, and 9.7-inch iPad Pro. And, of course, it'll include future devices. Devices that could capture even more data and make even better use of RAW.

Due to file sizes and workflows, RAW probably won't be a mainstream feature any time soon, but getting DSLR-quality photos from an iPhone has been a long-term goal, and we could well get the next step towards that goal.

Several more things

Apple typically shows off new versions of iOS twice: First in the summer, covering all the new software features, and again in the fall, covering new hardware-specific features. In the past, those have included Siri, Touch ID, and 3D Touch, as well as a variety of new camera options and modes.

It's always possible we'll get more hints as the iOS 10 betas continue coming out, and the public beta launches this July. We'll only ever know for sure, of course, when Apple announces the new iPhone this fall.

• iOS 10 FAQ: Everything you need to know
• iPhone 7: What we're expecting this fall

A few new details have emerged about how Apple's differential privacy feature will work for customers in iOS 10. The feature will allow Apple to collect a lot of data without compromising user privacy and will apparently require people to opt-in to it in order for data to be collected. Additionally, according to this new report, Apple will be focused on collecting data from a small number of areas at first.

From Recode:

A more conservative rollout for differential privacy, focusing on a few key areas, isn't surprising. Apple is taking a similar stance as it opens Siri to third-party developers. That feature is limited to a handful of different app types.

Recode also reports that Apple hasn't been collecting any of this data previously, and affirms that differential privacy will indeed be new with iOS 10. The system is currently in developer beta, with a public release set for this fall.

At WWDC 2016, we got a preview of iOS 10's bigger, bolder new design language, but unlike the new version of tvOS, dark theming was conspicuously absent from the forthcoming iPhone and iPad operating system. I understand why the company chose to exclude it, but quite frankly: This is a mistake.

The reasons for (and against) a dark mode

Partial interfaces with dark dressing have been found in the iOS 10 code base, which might indicate Apple is still exploring the possibility. Since it's only a few screens for a few apps, though, it also might indicate Apple hasn't really made up its mind.

Many assume a future iPhone or iPad will use AMOLED display technology, like Apple Watch, and will need a power-saving dark mode to make the most of it, also like Apple Watch. Since 3D Touch is currently dependent on LED, though, and a future iPhone or iPad is, well, still in the future, I'm going to address why it matters even in the here and now.

As Rene has written about time and time again, there are many good reasons to institute a Dark mode or system-wide Night theme. White screens are hard on the eyes, even with Night Shift enabled, and a Dark mode may also help users with accessibility issues more than the standard Invert Colors option (which helps, but not much). Several default apps in iOS already support a Night mode, including iBooks and Maps; many third-party programs offer the option, too. And iOS 10's custom Color Filters accessibility option already allows users to tweak colors across the spectrum for various vision ailments — why not create a version of that picker that only affects toolbars and widgets?

Additionally, the iPhone and iPad are the odd devices out at this point: The Mac has a Dark mode. Apple TV is getting a Dark mode in the fall. Apple Watch has a de facto Dark mode thanks to its OLED screen.

But despite all the potential good will toward a dark theme, there are still arguments against it. For one, it takes engineering hours to reengineer graphics, and there are quite a few apps that would need to be reworked. Think about iOS 10's new notification and widget bubbles: Third-party designers and developers specifically would have to make sure that any content they include looks great on both the light-grey theming and a darker option.

There's also the question of just how many users would turn the thing on in the first place: With so many exciting ongoing projects at Apple these days, it's hard to dedicate weeks and months to an ultimately-niche feature.

Choice is wonderful

Here's the thing: With over one billion iOS devices, "niche" no longer means what it once did. Even if only 1 percent enable a Dark theme on iOS 10, we're still talking about ten million devices. Even assuming only a fraction of those billion devices are actively used, we're still talking about hundreds of thousands of users. On iMore alone, an informal poll resulted in over 2600 people claiming they'd upgrade or switch to iOS from Android to have a Dark theme, with 829 "possibly interested" and only 292 "Not interested."

There's precedent for multiple themes to fit user choice, too: The iPhone and iPad have had them externally for years now. If you want an iPhone with a white faceplate or a dark one, you can buy one directly from Apple — no external mods required.

Multiple iPhone colors may have been discussed as a "niche" market at one time, but that time is long gone: iPhones, iPads, Watch models, and even Macs have adopted multiple case colors.

If the supply chain can manufacture hundreds of hardware options to help users find the best fit for their style and computing habits, I bet Apple can spare the engineering hours to finish up Dark mode and launch it alongside iOS 10. What say you?

We've filed this feature request with Apple. It can be found at rdar://19760524 (closed as a dupe of rdar://11786790). Do you want a system-wide dark or night theme? Let us know below!

Update: Apple has provided iMore with the following statement:

The kernel is the heart of an operating system and handles all the core operations of the computer. In iOS 10, the kernel cache is unencrypted. That's a marked difference from previous versions of Apple's iPhone and iPad software, and has led to some speculation that Apple either changed its policy on security, or that someone screwed up. My understanding is that the reason was something else entirely:

Streamlining the operating system.

Since it contains only the kernel, device drivers, and configuration files — and absolutely no user data — the iOS 10 kernel cache can be left unencrypted without any concerns over security or privacy.

And since it can be, it was.

More on iOS 10

Apple is opening Messages to developers in iOS 10. They will have access to the iOS SDK and the iPhone's camera so they can create a variety of different apps for iMessage.

The extensions act like a keyboard that you access right inside the Messages app from your "app drawer." You'll also be able to download extensions from a new iMessage App Store.

So, what does this mean for third-party keyboards that focus on emojis or GIFs? What about typing-focused third-party keyboard apps, like SwitfKey or Google's GBoard? Just how much the Messages app extensions affect the course of keyboards is yet to be seen, but I've got a few thoughts.

Emoji will get better

Apple is opening the Messages app up to developers, which means they can create any type of extension they want within the supported framework. If your favorite keyboard has emoji cats or video clips, you can share your content right inside Messages without having to switch from one keyboard to another. It will make it much easier for developers to both be seen and have their apps used.

More people will want to try out these extensions: Not just because they're cool, but they avoid the awful and awkward "open the Settings app, add a keyboard, and give permission for every new app" nonsense. And because Messages content can be added to the text field and quickly sent to the recipient with a single tap, your days of tapping to copy, tapping to paste, then sending should soon be a distant memory. Hopefully, extensions will also be more reliable than third-party keyboards, too.

The Messages API will furthermore open up new types of apps — you won't be limited to funny GIFs and cute stickers. Developers can create interactive messages with app-specific data, like invitations to events or the ability to send money through an online payment service. There are even tools for creating messages that can be changed after they've been sent for such fun things as iMessage games.

Typing keyboards get iMessage love, too

If your favorite third-party keyboard has no desire to create an iMessage extension, you'll still be able to use it inside Messages — and all of the Message apps, too. You won't be forced to use the built-in keyboard when you want to send a chat, and whatever third-party keyboard you prefer will still present iMessage's app drawer at the top of the bubble window.

Why would anyone want to use a third-party keyboard when there are iMessage apps to play with?

Well, that's a personal preference, isn't it? Some of us love having the option to swipe-to-type, or want a keyboard we can use with just our right thumb. Others think that third-party keyboards are a "dumpster fire" and think the whole concept should be scrapped.

Apple seems to understand that we all have different feelings when it comes to our keyboard preference. Not only will you be able to find cool stickers, GIFs, payment services, delivery services, and games in the iMessage App Store, but you'll be able to continue to use your favorite third-party keyboard for typing without messing up your chat flow.

TL;DR: What's going on?

In short: Sticker, video, and GIF keyboards will get better because they will use Apple's framework and be available in the Messages app without having to switch around. And your favorite third-party keyboards won't get messed with: You'll still be able to use them just like you always have (glitches, flaws, and all).

What do you think, iMore readers? Will you be abandoning third-party keyboards when iOS 10 arrives, or do you plan to use them in tandem with the new features? Let us know in the comments.

WWDC 2016 has come and gone without so much as a mention of a Dark Mode or Night Theme for iOS 10. For those who'd been hoping for one, the closest we got was the new Dark Mode for tvOS 10. And, obviously, that's fine for our televisions but not so much of our iPhones and iPads.

There have been some dark interface chunks found in the iOS 10 pre-release seed, leading some to hope that we might see more in future betas. But it's better not to confuse remnants with release plans.

Instead, I'm interested to know how many of you actually want a Dark Mode in iOS 10? How many would prefer something less bright, be it as a night theme or an all-day thing?

I've been asking for a dark mode for year and, if you have access, the request can be found at rdar://19760524 (closed as a dupe of rdar://11786790). Now, I'd like to know what you think. Please vote in the poll above and expand on your thoughts in the comments below.

Metal, Apple's low-level graphics API that was first introduced in iOS 8, only keeps getting better, and that was made even more clear in a demo from Unity showing off a new feature coming to Metal in iOS 10: adaptive tessellation. Seen at the "What's New in Metal" session at WWDC 2016, the demo showed off the level of detail that adaptive tessellation will enable developers to bring to their games with Metal and the Unity game engine.

In a blog post talking about the proof of concept demo, Unity says:

Metal tessellation is headed to iOS 10 this fall, and Unity looks set to bring enable developers to take advantage of the feature in future versions of its game engine. Be sure to check out Unity's full blog post for much more technical detail on the demo. You can also watch the "What's New in Metal" session to see the demo in action.

As part of the live Talk Show at WWDC 2016, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, and senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, provided more details on how deep learning and artificial intelligence is being used in iOS 10 to surface search results without requiring you to share your data with Apple.

How will Apple index my existing photos?

When you first download iOS 10, if you have existing photos in your library, your iPhone or iPad will begin to process them in the background at night when you're plugged in. That way you won't see any performance degradation or excessive power drain during the day when you're trying to use your iPhone or iPad.

Once complete, all your old photos will be indexed for the new, better search.

What about on macOS?

Same thing. iOS typically gets released a few weeks before macOS (formerly OS X), though, and not everyone with an iPhone or iPad has a Mac, so Apple wants you to be able to enjoy the new search benefits immediately.

When the macOS Sierra update arrives later this fall, it'll index your Mac Photos library the same way.

Wait, won't the search index just sync between devices?

Not right now, but maybe one day. A system would need to be built that securely, privately shared metadata and index information between iPhone, iPad, Mac, and other products.

What about new photos? Do I have to wait for them to index?

Nope! Apple enjoys a tremendous lead when it comes to chipset architecture in mobile, and they're "spending" some of it on deep learning and AI processing immediately when photos are capture.

The image signal processor (ISP) inside the Apple A9 already handles an incredible amount of calculations for everything from white balance to burst selection. Deep learning and AI take a couple billion more, but the A9 GPU can still handle those near-instantly.

Why doesn't Apple need me to give them and their servers my photos data to get the indexing done?

According to Federighi, Apple doesn't need our photos to figure out what a mountain looks like in a photo. Their "detectives" managed to look at public domain images and figure that out.

But will it work as well as services that do require photo data sharing?

To be determined. We'll have to wait for iOS 10 to launch this fall and really put it through its paces. Personally, privacy is as valuable to me as money, time, or attention, so having the option is great for customers.

I don't use Google or Facebook photos today, so for me any upgrade will be great. If you aren't sure yet, you'll need to see how much functionality it gives you, weigh the options, and make the best choice for you.

Apple doesn't like carriers. It tolerates them because it has to, but year after year the company has committed to reducing the prevalence of the network providers in the its plans for the iPhone.

For the first few years, Apple wasn't a semiconductor company, so it used minimally-changed components from Samsung and Qualcomm. Then, in 2010, it introduced the custom-designed A4; three years later, it introduced the world's first 64-bit mobile processor, the A7, a product so ahead of its time that Qualcomm pushed up its own plans for a 64-bit solution for Android users, with disastrous results.

Though Apple has managed to reduce its reliance on outside parties in the production, distribution and maintenance of the iPhone, without building its own infrastructure in every country in which it sells, working with the carriers continue to be a necessary evil.

But disruption comes in waves, and with a relatively unsung feature of iOS 10, Apple has once again loosened the proverbial rope. Starting this fall, apps that offer voice calls using myriad Voice Over IP (VoIP) protocols, from Skype to WhatsApp to Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Viber, Tango and many others, will be treated the same, from an operating system perspective, as a FaceTime Audio call or, more importantly, a regular voice call. That means an incoming call from WhatsApp, an increasingly crucial source of low-cost voice communication for people in developing countries, will appear, in full, on the lock screen. Such calls will be logged in the Phone app, with small annotations to suggest they weren't made using traditional means. And perhaps most importantly, people will be able to specify third-party VoIP apps for Favorite callers — so if I prefer to dial my overseas friend using WhatsApp, but my wife using FaceTime Audio, I can do so.

The degree to which the iOS user experience has been untethered from its often-derided default apps is unprecedented in the nine years since the iPhone's release. While APIs for Siri, Maps, and iMessage are no less impressive and essential to the longterm health of iOS as a platform, being able to reduce people's reliance on often-expensive and unnecessary voice components of wireless plans empowers its billion-plus user base, and emboldens customers to pursue lower-cost network solutions.

Let's use Canada as an example. Today, anyone who wants a data plan to use with an iPhone must buy a bundle of wireless minutes as well, which usually come with legacy options like call display and voicemail. But fewer people are making calls in the traditional fashion, and with the proliferation of free IP-based voice calls, many of which are merely checkboxes in an ever-growing feature set of messaging ecosystems, they are an untenable cost burden. With iOS 10, it becomes considerably more feasible to switch to a data-only plan, similar to what is offered for Wi-Fi + Cellular iPads, and transition almost completely to messengers like Skype, WhatsApp and other ubiquitous cross-platform services, for both calls and texts.

Moreover, it allows smaller MVNOs in many countries to offer completely app-based subscription services for phone service, while using a SIM card to resell data from larger providers. This is already a huge business in many parts of Europe, and is increasingly common in the U.S. On iOS 10, a service like Project Fi, which Google has rolled out to its more recent Nexus products, would technically be possible on the iPhone, as it would be able to offer a native app for incoming calls and text messages while maintaining its data reselling opportunity with T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular.

Similarly, with the ubiquity of Wi-Fi, some people may be tempted to ditch the SIM card altogether, siphoning their calls, texts and video messages through the many cross-platform apps that no longer rely on the traditional calling model.

Such a move has been a long time coming. Apple was one of the first phone manufacturers to support Voice over LTE and Wi-Fi Calling, two core tenets of next-generation telephony. But both services still largely rely on carrier-specific provisioning, and sit on top of a customer's regular voice bundle. iOS 10 all but makes them a condition of context: WhatsApp doesn't care if someone is connected using LTE or Wi-Fi, since it routes both through the same VoIP protocol, and cycles seamlessly between.

The argument can certainly be made that Android has had these capabilities for years, and it hasn't set the MVNO world on fire. This is true, but the difference between the average Android handset and the iPhone on iOS 10 is focus: Android owners still can't initiate WhatsApp calls from the native dialler, and Google has spent little time incentivizing such integrations. Android's loose tie-ins have engendered a swath of popular messaging apps with their own takes on the outgoing call; iOS 10 makes plain the promise of loosening ties with legacy network voice services.

As with Apple's eSIM, which sowed further carrier discord with its integration in the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, expanded VoIP capabilities in iOS 10 will be slow to effect actual change. But the next time I go up for a plan renewal, I'll feel much more confident that by going data-only I'll still be able to have an iPhone call experience equivalent to, or better, than what I have today — for half the cost.

During the live episode of John Gruber's, The Talk Show at WWDC 2016, senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, explained how "deleting" Apple's built-in iPhone and iPad apps works in iOS 10.

How does 'deleting' built-in apps work in iOS 10?

Just like an App Store app, you begin the process by holding your finger down on the app you want to "delete". The apps then start to jiggle and an "X" button appears in the top corner. Tap the "X" button and the app is gone.

The difference is, when you delete a built-in app, you don't really delete it. You do remove the icon from the Home screen, the user data is flushed, and the hooks into the system for things like default links and Siri handling are remove. But, it doesn't delete the actual app binary.

There are two reasons for this:

1. Apple's built-in apps are very, very small, taking up only 150 MB of storage. That's because they wrap a lot of core functionality and so don't introduce a lot of extraneous code or assets.
2. When a version of iOS is released, Apple signs it so your iPhone or iPad can verify it's legitimate and hasn't been tampered with by a third party. That code signing covers the entirety of iOS, including built-in apps. If everyone had different apps, some present, some not, the current form of signing security wouldn't work.

How does 're-downloading' built-in apps work in iOS 10?

To "re-download" a built-in app, you go to the App Store and search for it like any other app. The difference is though, if you tap the "Get" button to re-download it, it doesn't actually have to download any data. Since the binary was never deleted, it just switches the icon back on, resumes saving data, and hooks back into the system.

The reason Apple is using the jiggly mode to hide, and the App Store to un-hide, is so customers have a consistent experience across all apps. What's actually happening is an implementation detail that no customer should ever worry about. All apps are simply added and removed in the same way, providing a consistent experience that matches expectations.

Does this mean Apple can update built-in apps via the App Store?

No. Since Apple isn't really moving the built-in apps to the app store, the company won't be able to update them through the App Store. They're still a required part of the entire, signed and secure, iOS system, and as such get updated as part of the entire iOS system through Software Update.

You simply don't have to look at them anymore if you don't want to.

Which built-in apps can be "deleted"?

Some apps are essential to iPhone or iPad working, so can't be "deleted". Most, however, can. Here are the apps you can hide from the home screen with iOS 10 on iPhone or iPad:

• Calculator
• Calendar
• Compass
• Contacts
• FaceTime
• Find My Friends
• Home
• iBooks
• iCloud Drive
• iTunes Store
• Mail
• Maps
• Music
• News
• Notes
• Podcasts
• Reminders
• Stocks
• Tips
• Videos
• Voice Memos
• Watch app
• Weather

Will you be hiding Apple apps?

Nope. I use almost all of them all the time. For me, personally, they still provide the best and most coherent experience. And the ones I don't use, like Tips or Compass, are so innocuous that it's not worth the effort to hide them. I do like that Apple is giving people the option, though!