iOS 18

[fooferdoggie]

Right now my iPhone is on iOS 18.0.

What's odd, is if I go to Settings > General > Software Update, I get what the photo below shows. Which I suspect to the average iPhone user looks like a released iOS update for the general public. I've never OK'd getting beta updates. And what's on the screen doesn't say anything about being a beta.


View attachment 31530

its just an update for the 16's came out the same day as the phones.

 

[Cmaier]

Right now my iPhone is on iOS 18.0.

What's odd, is if I go to Settings > General > Software Update, I get what the photo below shows. Which I suspect to the average iPhone user looks like a released iOS update for the general public. I've never OK'd getting beta updates. And what's on the screen doesn't say anything about being a beta.


View attachment 31530

is that a new iphone? they released a new version of ios 18.0 for the new iphones.

 

[Citysnaps]

is that a new iphone? they released a new version of ios 18.0 for the new iphones.

Yeah a 16PM. I'll update. Would have been nice if they changed the name slightly, like 18.01. Or 18.0a.

I assume there are no issues updating?

 

[Cmaier]

no issues. I did that update when i first set up my phone. Went smoothly, and it was pretty quick.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Yeah a 16PM. I'll update. Would have been nice if they changed the name slightly, like 18.01. Or 18.0a.

I assume there are no issues updating?

ya it was a bit weird but it was only for the 16's so maybe that's why.

 

[Edd]

Check out the Shazam icon on Control Center. That’s the next size up from the smaller icons next to it, as far as I can tell. Trying to find an in-between size but it’s not cooperating.

 

[Yoused]

Check out the Shazam icon on Control Center. That’s the next size up from the smaller icons next to it, as far as I can tell. Trying to find an in-between size but it’s not cooperating.

I noticed the addition of the power button on the upper right. I tried it on my iPad, and yes, I can call up the shutdown screen with it – a lot quicker than going through settings.



One Maps feature I just noticed. Since at least the previous version of maps, possibly longer, when you zoom out, the gridlines start to curve, and eventually you have a globe. As the limb of the globe appears,

you can see the haze of the atmosphere, which sort of seems to be proportionally sized for the scale of the globe. The GEarth app does not do this, but it does appear to be celestially accurate, which Maps does not seem to have added.

 

[dada_dave]

Over at the other place, a user by the name of jo-1 claims there is a huge performance boost in Geekbench AI when upgrading from iOS/iPadOS 17 to 18 and macOS Sonoma to Sequoia:

Geekbench AI: Indication of Topaz, LrC speed up?

Someone on another forum ran Geekbench AI 1.0 on his M1 Max MBP 64gb with Sonoma and then with Sequoia. The AI results for the Neural Engine, GPU, and CPU improved substantially with Sequoia. The Geekbench AI scores for the M1 Max, Sonoma vs. Sequoia, for the Neural Engine, GPU, and CPU is...

forums.macrumors.com

This boost affects both the M4 and the M1 although to different degrees. I haven't upgraded yet. I'll try to remember to test GB AI before I do. Alternatively if someone has a cutdown an M3 Max on Sequoia they can compare to my results on Sonoma.

Sonoma GB AI 1.1 M3 Max 14" 14-core	Single Precision Score	Half Precision Score	Quantized Score
CPU	3835	5398	4752
GPU	13347	13619	4229
NPU	2609	13243	14543

I do find it interesting that the Quantized score on the GPU is so poor compared to its Half Precision and Single precision performance, that's 8-bit integer performance right?

Sequoia 15.1 GB AI 1.1 M3 Max 14" 14-core	Single Precision Score	Half Precision Score	Quantized Score
CPU	4385	7490	5987
GPU	15245	19752	17673
NPU	4588	32894	35772

Holy shit ... uhh ... yup very much confirmed for my machine using the same version of GB AI from before the OS upgrade, massive improvement in scores from just upgrading the OS. Weirdly did get some error messages, out of memory from my system while running it, but I'm not sure if that's relevant. The app finished and ran just fine and the memory seemed okay when I watched. Unsure what the cause of the error message was.

Sequoia 15.1/Sonoma GB AI 1.1 M3 Max 14" 14-core	Single Precision Score uplift	Half Precision Score uplift	Quantized Score uplift
CPU	+14%	+47%	+26%
GPU	+14%	+45%	+418%
NPU	+75%	+248%	+246%

 

[Jimmyjames]

Sequoia 15.1 GB AI 1.1 M3 Max 14" 14-core	Single Precision Score	Half Precision Score	Quantized Score
CPU	4385	7490	5987
GPU	15245	19752	17673
NPU	4588	32894	35772

Holy shit ... uhh ... yup very much confirmed for my machine using the same version of GB AI from before the OS upgrade, massive improvement in scores from just upgrading the OS. Weirdly did get some error messages, out of memory from my system while running it, but I'm not sure if that's relevant. The app finished and ran just fine and the memory seemed okay when I watched. Unsure what the cause of the error message was.

Sequoia 15.1/Sonoma GB AI 1.1 M3 Max 14" 14-core	Single Precision Score uplift	Half Precision Score uplift	Quantized Score uplift
CPU	+14%	+47%	+26%
GPU	+14%	+45%	+418%
NPU	+75%	+248%	+246%

Interesting. I know Maynard Handley mentioned this, but I can’t remember what he said exactly was the reason for this increase.

I’d be interested in the accuracy scores to see if there is any difference between Sonoma and Sequoia. I know on Sonoma even the quantized scores were very accurate. Some of the competitors NPUs were not. I wonder if this speed-up has affected that?

 

[Altaic]

Interesting. I know Maynard Handley mentioned this, but I can’t remember what he said exactly was the reason for this increase.

I’d be interested in the accuracy scores to see if there is any difference between Sonoma and Sequoia. I know on Sonoma even the quantized scores were very accurate. Some of the competitors NPUs were not. I wonder if this speed-up has affected that?

The mlx devs talked about some of the Metal and memory handling changes in 15.1. I’ll try to dig that up. Of course, the NPU scores would be due to other changes. Needless to say, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in ML, so I expect many more improvements over time.

 

[dada_dave]

The mlx devs talked about some of the Metal and memory handling changes in 15.1. I’ll try to dig that up. Of course, the NPU scores would be due to other changes. Needless to say, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in ML, so I expect many more improvements over time.

Yeah it's possible there were big performance gains in the CoreML API, not using it myself I don't know how high level it is. That said some of my performance gains are so high that I am a little worried about the results. However, while I can't retest my old Sonoma results, after a restart I redid the Sequoia benches, getting rid of those out-of-memory errors, and got basically the same results. So as far as I can tell the numbers are the numbers.

 

[NotEntirelyConfused]

Yeah it's possible there were big performance gains in the CoreML API, not using it myself I don't know how high level it is. That said some of my performance gains are so high that I am a little worried about the results. However, while I can't retest my old Sonoma results, [...]

I've been away so missed much of the M4 discussion for the last five days. Catching up now.

You know, it is *trivially* easy to test this yourself. I mean, it's never been hard, but if you're an old-timer it's pretty shocking how fast it goes. In the *really* old days, you could partition a disk with two different OSes. Getting that right was a pain, and you had to do it ahead of time. More recently you could resize your existing partition, within certain constraints. It was a bit of a pain and you had to give up a chunk of space you preallocated. But now...

1) Go into Disk Utility. Allocate a new partition with a minimum size of (say) 15GB and a max size (if you care to bother) of whatever you like - I picked 100GB. This will be done in under a minute.

2) Run the (relatively recent) MacOS installer of your choice. Pick the new volume, install to there.

3) There is no step three!

This whole process took me under 5 minutes of effort (mostly figuring out where to download the installer from, which may not have even been necessary, I'm not sure) and maybe 20-30 minutes of computer time. You can choose which volume to boot by holding the option key at startup (or using System Settings) and all it takes away from your internal disk is whatever space it's actually using (or the minimum, if you set that and it's larger).

So you can test different Mac OSes yourself quite easily without using a VM, which is handy if you're trying to get honest benchmark numbers.

 

[Herdfan]

Random idea.

I just spent 20+ minutes on the phone sitting in my truck at Costco. I was talking to my insurance company and they kept putting me on hold for several minutes at a time.

I don’t like talking on BT especially in a parking lot where people outside your vehicle can hear you.

So I was thinking that since the iPhone has a proximity sensor when out the phone up to your ear, why couldn’t it be able to jump from phone to BT/Speaker when you remove it from your ear.

I kept having to manually change it while on the call and I can’t see why this couldn’t be automated.

 

[Yoused]

I just used Apple's calculator and found it to be a pain in the tender parts. I hope they find a way to make it more useful, because I find it to be too awkward.

 

[Herdfan]

This was weird.

My phone indicated that is was going to install 18.1.1 overnight when charging and connected to WiFi. Just like normal.

But for the past 3 nights when it was charging and connected to WiFi, it didn’t install. And on two of these nights woke me up with the bright notification that it didn’t install the update.

Picked my phone up a few minutes ago and it was finishing up the update.

Why tell me you are going to do it overnight, then don’t and tell me you didn’t only to install it mid-morning.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Just got an iPhone 16 Pro Max yesterday (coming from an 11 Pro).

One thing I’m noticing in my iOS 18 research shortly before and after I got the phone is there is a lot of things being shared out there that aren’t actually available yet, hopefully within the next couple weeks. Beta reporting I assume.

Right now my major gripe is having to reset the passwords on all my banking apps, and my main bank account still isn’t working even after I called support. It keeps running through the steps to verify who I am and reset the password. Even though I get an email saying the password was accepted when I login it goes straight to the password reset again. I’ve even uninstalled and reinstalled and app and same bullshit happens. I’ll have to call the bank again.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Figured out the bank app issue. I put in the user ID incorrectly. It would have been nice if it actually told me that instead of repeatedly making me go through the password reset gauntlet and not once saying "wrong ID, jackass." It somehow validated who I am but couldn't share that tidbit?

Really liking the new AI photo cleanup. It’s not perfect if you get too extreme with the removal but most people wouldn’t notice anyway as probably 99% of photos are only viewed on a phone screen without extreme zooming.

Between the existing AI and what will come out soon, the 16 is probably the best upgrade in a long time that wasn’t just mostly a better camera.

 

[Cmaier]

Figured out the bank app issue. I put in the user ID incorrectly. It would have been nice if it actually told me that instead of repeatedly making me go through the password reset gauntlet and not once saying "wrong ID, jackass." It somehow validated who I am but couldn't share that tidbit?

Really liking the new AI photo cleanup. It’s not perfect if you get too extreme with the removal but most people wouldn’t notice anyway as probably 99% of photos are only viewed on a phone screen without extreme zooming.

Between the existing AI and what will come out soon, the 16 is probably the best upgrade in a long time that wasn’t just mostly a better camera.

typically the reason apps don’t tell you that the user ID is wrong is that bad actors can use that to keep trying different ID’s (e.g. against a dictionary or against data leaks from other sources) until they find ones that the app confirms are real. This makes it easier to get into the accounts.

 

[Yoused]

I really dislike the iPadOS Mail app. I use PKeyboard, which allows me to construct the keyboard layout I like. When I go to write an e-mail, I put in the recipient and then the subject line, but it will not allow me to go into the subject body from there: I have to go back to the TO: line before it will let me get into the body.

So, I tried the normal keyboard, but that is messed up as well. It takes up so much of the screen that I cannot see below TO: and if I scroll, it bounces back to the top, so I can never get past the first field; if I go portrait, I can make it work, but it is just wrong that I should have to do that. I guess I could find a better mail app, but that is a pain, and I already do not like e-mail.

 

[Edd]

if I go portrait, I can make it work, but it is just wrong that I should have to do that. I guess I could find a better mail app, but that is a pain, and I already do not like e-mail.

Yup. It’s gotten better (particularly with the newer camera placement), but from the beginning of the iPad, Apple has seemed to have it in their head that the iPad is a portrait device. It is not, in my book. I barely use the stock Mail app but that would drive me nuts.