The biggest news is Apple Intelligence launching in other regions apart from the US. I have been using Apple Intelligence already by setting my region to the US. I can finally change to the UK Siri voice, which is significantly better!
I was not on the 18.2 beta so there are some new features too : Genmoji, Image Playground, and ChatGPT integration to name a few. I will write about them when I have tried out these features. However, the most anticipated change for me is the ability to open the camera via a single control click when the phone display is off.
This option is found in the Display & Brightness section at the bottom of the page. By default the ‘Require Screen On’ feature is turned on meaning if your display is off a single click will not get you quick access to the camera. But turn the toggle off and now the camera control can get you quickly into the camera. I still have my action button mapped to the camera, this might change if I can get my muscle memory to reach for the camera control instead of the action button.
One minor gripe is that the camera control related settings are now in three different places in the settings app:
- The Camera Control menu
- Accessibility settings
- Display & Brightness
I wish this would change and Apple can put them all in one place, it makes discoverability hard and is unnecessarily complicated. But, for those who know, there is now a faster way to get to the camera.
