Have you downloaded iOS 14 yet? Did you spend hours and hours designing your display options and widgets? Does the update look familiar?
Well if you guess where Apple got their ideas from – it’s Android, as they’ve had phones with a theme for widgets for more than one decade. Fortunately for Apple, they perfected and surpassed their counterpart on their first attempt. In iOS 14, Apple introduced the concept of Home Screen widgets, which provides information at a glance. Widgets can be pinned to the Home screen or various spots and with sizes allowing for creativity and different layouts. There are also shortcuts to change the look of the icons, leading to hours and hours spent of making your phone appeal to your asthetic of choice.
Some new features include the following:
Battery: Custom Power Modes – Siri shortcuts can automatically apply custom settings to your iPhone when it’s charging or in Low Power Mode. The screen brightness level, notification settings, location sharing, Bluetooth on/off and more
Apps: Add to the App Library, there is a new option to add deleted apps to the App library, which removes it from your home screen but retains it in iOS 14’s New App Library. Nice for keeping a clutter free home screen
Back Tap: You can set quick access commands for when you double or triple tap the back of your iPhone. Almost any command is available, from quick navigation shortcuts to opening Siri or the Notification Center, taking a screenshot, changing the volume, muting or locking the phone and more.
Custom Commands – Navigate to Settings> Accessibility>Touch>Back Tap
Bluetooth: a banner will pop-up, so you no longer need to check in the Control Center
Camera: iOS 14 camera settings allow you to toggle Mirror Front Camera which means the photo has the same final orientation as you see in the view finder (By default, iOS 14 flips your camera so you may want to change this)
Messages: you can pin multiple conversations by swiping right on the Messages home screen, but tap the menu above and you can pin as many conversations as you like
Health: bedtime and wind down options as well as compatability with the new Apple Watch Sleep Tracking mode
Maps: cycling directions, EV charging spots and curated sight and restaurant recommendations
Translate: real time spoken translations in 11 languages
Privacy: tighter control of app permissions, Safari blocks trackers by default, notifications for third party mic and camera background access
Compact calls: calls from your iPhone, FaceTime and third-party apps display in an all-new compact design that doesn’t take up the full screen
Picture in Picture: now you can keep watching videos while multitasking on your device
The customization that iOS 14 offers is both efficient and aesthetically pleasing for the user as it creates an interactive module that displays updated information like a weather forecast or your schedule on your home screen and accessibility to customize widgets.
iOS 14 includes a number of accessibility improvements, primarily for Voiceover. A VoiceOver recognition feature recognizes key elements on the screen to add VoiceOver Support for apps and web experiences that don’t have support built in. VoiceOver can read complete sentence descriptions of image and photos in apps and on the web and can speak the text that it identifies within images. As well for sound recognition, a useful accessibility option for those who are hard of hearing, allows the iPhone to continuously listen to certain sounds (example: baby crying, fire alarm, doorbell, knock on the door, a cat meowing and more)
With the iPhone 12 likely delayed until at least next month, we’ll have to wait a little longer to see what new hardware-based features are in store. At least we have the iOS 14 is here to breathe life into your current device. If you can’t wait to upgrade, check if your eligible for TELUS EPP and take a look at today’s best iPhone deals below.
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