Today’s the day. The day every year that Apple nearly breaks the internet by making their big new iOS update available to hundreds of millions of devices around the world. That’s right, iOS 18 is now available to download.
iOS 18 is available on the following iPhones:
- iPhone 15
- iPhone 15 Plus
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 14
- iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14 Pro
- iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 13
- iPhone 13 mini
- iPhone 13 Pro
- iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iPhone 12
- iPhone 12 mini
- iPhone 12 Pro
- iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 11
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone XS
- iPhone XS Max
- iPhone XR
- iPhone SE (2nd generation or later)
That’s pretty impressive for Apple, updating iPhones that came out 6 years ago, not quite up to the promise that Google and Samsung have been making recently of 7 years. But that’s still pretty good.
iOS 18 launches without Apple Intelligence
One of the biggest caveats this year is that Apple Intelligence is not part of the iOS 18 update. Instead, Apple Intelligence will be available starting with iOS 18.1. Meaning that the brand new iPhone 16 models will launch without their flagship features.
But iOS 18 does get a bunch of other features, like RCS support in messages, Control Center Customization, home screen customization and much more. That’s right, with iOS 18, you can now put icons anywhere you want. And have empty space on your home screens. It’s likely having an Android device in 2008. Apple is also revamping the Control Center, allowing you to have multiple pages, and make different controls larger, depending on how you use them.
There’s loads of changes in iOS 18, in fact, Apple has published a 22-page PDF detailing every little change that is coming in iOS 18. This does include a ton of Apple Intelligence features that aren’t available in iOS 18, but rather iOS 18.1 and later. If you want to know everything that’s being changed, go ahead and check out that PDF.