10 things we now know about iOS 10

Published in

Carphone Warehouse Ireland

6 min readJun 16, 2016

Unveiled on Monday evening at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, iOS 10 for iPhone, iPad and iPod, promises a whole host of new features and improvements. Here are 10 that caught our eye.

1. iOS 10 won’t work on devices over four years old

First things first, the new iOS won’t work on the iPhone 4s — which is still a relatively popular model in Ireland — meaning, it will pretty much be obsolete by the end of the year (time to trade in and upgrade?). Similarly, the iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad mini, and most of the iPod touches, with the exception of the latest generation, will all be old news once iOS 10 is launched.

2. Bye-bye bloatware

Finally on iOS 10, Apple is going to allow users to get rid of some of those pesky pre-installed apps that they never use; Stocks anyone? While removing these apps won’t save you much space, as they’re designed to use less than 150MB of storage, it will appease users — like us — who like to keep their Home screen streamlined.

However, Apple has warned that removing some of these apps may have a knock-on effect on other apps or lead to reduced function. So if you remove the Weather app, not only will you not see it in the Notification Center, any third party app that uses information from the app may not work without it. In short, be careful what you wish for.

3. A whole new world on Maps

Speaking of those annoying pre-loaded apps, Apple is finally getting the message about the lack of functionality on Maps, particularly when compared with Google Maps, and has decided to do something about it, namely opening it up to third party developers and apps like Uber, and adding some extra bits and pieces like traffic information and the ability to search for nearby petrol stations and shops.

On iOS 10, Maps will also be able to remember where users park their cars, a feature which should prove particularly helpful in Dublin Airport’s long-term car parks, where holidaymakers often spend hours trying to find their lost cars.

4. Siri gets serious

Interestingly, Apple is also opening up the doors of Siri to third parties. So while up to this point Siri has only worked with native apps, i.e. Maps, Messenger, Stocks (again), from the release of iOS 10, Siri will be able to do things like update your Facebook status, check for new Snapchats and send a WhatApp message. In short, Siri is about to become much smarter and more powerful.

Plus you’ll also find Siri on the next version of macOS, enabling a much more cohesive cross-platform performance from our favourite sarcastic personal assistant.

5. iMessage is about to become a whole lot of fun

One of the main areas to receive a significant amount of love on iOS 10 is the Messages app. This is iMessage but not as you know it.

Love emojis? Of course you do, and Apple knows it! That’s why on iOS 10 when you’re typing a message, words that can be replaced with emojis will be highlighted in yellow. Simply tap on the word/s and hey presto dancing lady emoji, or whatever you’re into yourself, appears to replace the word.

In addition, iMessage users will be able to do things like reply to messages with handwritten notes, make text bigger or smaller, write in invisible ink and add special effects and animations like balloons for a birthday or blur the photo until the recipient taps on it.

Inline media — which allows you to play videos and view media without leaving the app — is also on the way for iPhone users and we’re hoping to see even more developments on Messages in the coming months, as just like Maps and Siri, it is about to be open up to third parties.

6. Apple Music is getting a makeunder

Confused about what exactly Apple Music can do and where all the music you previously downloaded sits? Yeah, us too. Luckily, Apple seems to have realised its offering is lagging far behind the likes of Spotify and is about to do something about it; namely, make a simplified, easier to use version of Apple Music.

Image by 9To5Mac

7. Easy cross-platform copy and pasting

Understandably, Apple is exceptionally keen for iPhone users to also buy iPads and Macs, so in an effort to make it even easier to work across multiple devices, we’ll see a universal clipboard on iOS 10, meaning users can copy text on their iPhone on the bus in the morning and paste it into a document or email on their Mac when they arrive at the office. Very handy.

8. A new and improved lock screen

The iPhone lock screen on iOS 10 is actually getting a number of new features, but one of the key improvements is ‘Raise to Wake’ which does exactly what it says on the tin: raise the phone to wake the screen and get notifications on the go.

This is a feature we’ve previously seen on a number of Android phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S7 and has so far proven popular with users, so we’re sure it will be the same with iPhone users.

iPhone 6s users with 3D Touch will get an addiitional layer of features with iOS 10, including real-time updates from apps like Hailo, Uber and LiveScore.

9. Better photo management

For Photos, Apple has taken a leaf out of Instagram and Google Photo’s book on iOS 10 and created a new ‘Memories’ tab where photos can be dynamically organised into smart folders depending on things like where the photos were taken and who’s in them. This should make it easier to a) find photos from a particular event and b) post all the photos from that event on Facebook with one button press.

Image by Digital Trends

10. Good night, sleep tight

Finally, Apple has made a play for apps like Sleep Cycle by adding a new ‘Bedtime’ tab as part of the alarm function. On iOS 10, users will not only be able to set what time they want to wake, they can also set bedtime reminders and specify how long they want to be asleep. In theory at least, users should also be able to analyse their sleep cycle, however so far beta users of iOS 10 have been less than impressed with this feature.