iOS 18 is a mixed bag, and we gotta talk about it

With the recent release of iOS 18 – the iPhone's newest operating system update – my iPhone actually feels like it's gotten worse. Never did I have so many issues with a software update from Apple.

Ironically, the Cupertino company actually changing a few things and freshening some of its primary apps up is supposed to be a good thing, but is it, with this update?

Well, I've had issues. For context, my primary phone right now is a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, but I just had to fire up my iPhone and see what the fuss was about, since the Apple event happened, and the annual iOS update was announced with much fanfare.

Well, at least Apple probably thinks so. Most people you ask will confidently say that this was the most boring Apple event in quite a while, but that's besides the point.

The Photos app redesign is a perfect example of why people generally don't like change

So Apple decided to bloat up… I mean "redesign" its Photos app – the one that stores all of your photos and videos you've taken with that lovely iPhone camera.

Where once you could immediately scroll up and browse through your photos and videos, you're now greeted with a bunch of extra bells and whistles that you first have to scroll away from.

Those include a "Recent days" album, as if looking at your latest photos isn't good enough, "Memories" and "Trips" albums, "Wallpaper suggestions" and stuff like that. They're all technically nice to have as an option, but I seriously doubt many people will want all of that on by default.

The good news is that the Cupertino company threw us a bone here – there's a button at the bottom of this "new and improved" Photos app that says "Customize & Reorder". Despite its name, I presume most people will use it for exactly what I did – to remove all that extra stuff they simply don't care about. After all, people just want to look at their latest photos, most of the time they open this app.

Even still, after you've disabled literally all of that extra stuff, since iOS 18 arrived you're now forced to swipe up once or twice before you're free to scroll through your photos. Not intuitive, and not what I would consider an improvement.

If all of that gets disabled by the user, they should just be able to open the Photos app and immediately scroll up through their photos, without that new extra gesture that's required (which sometimes doesn't register and turns into two or more extra, needless gestures)...

Video seeking in the Photos app was clearly bugged at first, wasn't it?

I'm kind of baffled at another change in the Photos app on iOS 18 – every photo or video you tap on now zooms out of full screen to show the sharing, editing and delete buttons, among others.

But more notably – if it's a video, there's a new video seeking interface – far more generic than it used to be. See, before iOS 18, seeking through your videos was quite perfect, in my opinion. You could watch it in full screen, while having a seek bar on the bottom, that consisted of little frames from your video. It was literally perfect.

But no, says Apple – the seek bar should now be a generic white line, and your video shall no longer be in full screen, because reasons.

Even worse, if you used the seek bar once and paused, it seemingly bugged out, and you couldn't seek through the whole video further. It just kept seeking through the first two seconds of the video or so, forcing you to close and open it, to be able to seek through the whole video again…

In fairness to Apple, this is no longer the case, and it works now, a few weeks after I first noticed it. I don't know if resetting my phone fixed it, and this was just some crazy, niche bug that only I had, but I did have it until recently, and it was infuriating.

But yeah, slowly and surely, this new interface will grow on me. It's quite a downgrade from the previous one, in my honest opinion, but alright, Apple, you do you.

This new dark mode took some getting used to

So I guess the stars aligned in 2024 and Apple finally decided to give iPhone users a feature Android users were granted well before the 2020s – dark mode.

Dark mode for your app icons, so your home screen can be less irritating to the eye, and fit with your pitch black wallpaper, if you're like me, and always go that route on phones with AMOLED screens. Nothing beats an inky black wallpaper on an AMOLED display, plus it theoretically saves a bit of battery life.

But I have to admit, those iOS 18 dark mode icons took some getting used to. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't just a rather bright gradient going into a darker shade. I know that's what the default light mode icons always looked like, and it's just a color invert, but I would've loved the option of a flat, even darker shade. Let us tint the background, just like how we're now allowed to tint the app logo – now that would've been a lot of welcome freedom to customize!

Alas, that's too much to expect, I suppose. Oh, and not all app icons seem to be optimized for this new dark mode.

For example, the Yahoo Mail app icon sticks out like a sore thumb, still looking exactly like it did before, next to all of those updated, dark mode icons.

A couple of other, more niche apps I use are also not updated, which tells us this is something required of the individual developer to take care of, Apple didn't just flip a switch and darken all the icons universally. Fair enough, but still – it's distracting when you have that one icon sticking out in an otherwise uniform home screen.

In any case, don't get me wrong, it's great that Apple finally decided to get with the times and offer iPhone users a much requested, and in my opinion more pleasing-to-the-eye dark mode theme.

It just takes a bit to get used to, and has some growing pains, as some developers are yet to optimize their app icons for it.

No Apple Intelligence… So, let's talk about that

During the recent iPhone 18 event Apple was all about how these new phones were built from the ground up with AI in mind. Which, in Apple's case, doesn't mean Artificial Intelligence, but Apple Intelligence, because… marketing.

Sure, great, but those phones already shipped, without their main selling point – the aforementioned Apple Intelligence.

iOS 18 – a major update, as its integer number signifies, did not bring what it should have. Instead, the following iOS 18.1 should bring Apple Intelligence… only to people in the US. And perhaps some day next year, iOS something-else might bring it to the rest of us in Europe and beyond.

I'm trying to be understanding here, in fairness to Apple – rolling out an AI-focused update all over the world is complicated. Different regions have different laws, and the EU in particular is giving the trillion-dollar company a hard time over various things it considers to be issues, constantly, such as monopolism, and in this case – privacy, when it comes to AI.

So clearing that up will take extra time, thus, Apple Intelligence will take extra time to arrive to iPhone users in the European Union. Fair enough.

At the same time, we, as users who spend a lot of money on flagship phones, should be fair to ourselves also. We're expected to buy the new iPhone 18 for the promise of future features, and for some of us – it's quite a distant future. Is this fair?

It is what it is, I suppose, and I'd be last to encourage a rushed and unpolished product release over the tried and tested "when it's ready" (and legally allowed), but that doesn't mean I have to like this situation.

I understand Apple had to rush-announce its AI in order to please its investors by keeping up with the global AI trend, even if Apple Intelligence isn't legally (and likely technically) ready for mass release.

But yeah, buying expensive tech based on future promises – not my thing, and a company worth trillions of dollars' investor and legal concerns – not my problem to have to sympathize with, at my expense.

I still can't transfer files normally, like I can with my Android phones; can this be changed already?

So I had a full season of a favorite show of mine on DVD, which is now on my Windows PC. I wanted to transfer those video files to my iPhone, but lo and behold – this is still a nightmare.

Apple expects you to download iTunes for any file transferring, still. See, on an Android device it's as easy as connecting it to your PC, and you have access to its Downloads folder, video folder and more. You're free to easily transfer files to and from your Android phone.

But with an iPhone, even on iOS 18, we're still dealing with antiquated ideas like having to download special always-running Apple software on your computer, in order to move a few files to and from it. "Fantastic."

Since I don't want to download iTunes for one thing, and then have to uninstall it, I thought I'd transfer the files to my iPhone using a USB stick. Nope! The iPhone still doesn't support external storage either. Unlike Android again.

Fine, I thought, I'll use the USB stick to transfer the videos from my PC to my iPad then, which does support external storage. And afterwards AirDrop them to my iPhone, from the iPad… You see the problem?

This is way, way too much hassle, because Apple is still being stubborn, in 2024, continuing to force users to deal with iTunes (or the newer Apple Devices app) just for a simple file transfer.

iOS 18 still doesn't bring normal file transferring to the iPhone, and still doesn't give it external storage support, because… Apple…

It's so much easier on Android… And has been forever.

iOS 18 is a mixed bag for me, but there's plenty to love also; what are your thoughts?

At the end of the day, there's a whole lot to appreciate in iOS 18 also. More customization, finally, notably including the aforementioned dark mode icons. A redesigned and also more customizable Control Center. All of those new Photos features which will surely be welcome to some, even if I'm not in that "some" group… A Passwords app for quick access to all of your impossible-to-memorize, auto-generated passwords.

And of course, soon – a ton of incredible AI-powered features that might easily change the way we use our phones, forever.

But what are your thoughts on iOS 18, and Apple Intelligence being delayed? Happy with the new features, or got gripes with them?

And are you excited for Apple Intelligence, or doubtful that it'll be as good as promised? Or as useful?

Share your thoughts and opinions with your fellow tech enthusiasts in the comments section below!