iOS 11.3 Coming This Spring With New Animoji, Vertical ARKit, Health Records, Battery Info, and More

[blcamp]

We are going to be reduced to friggin' emoji for all communications. Just 21st century cavemen.

 

[zorinlynx]

they're hoping we forgot.

They probably found a security or privacy issue and decided to go back to the drawing board.

Do you really want something like messages in the cloud implemented poorly?

 

[nortonandreev]

iOS 11.2.5 seems to be much better on my iPhone X. I'm happy with the update. iOS 11.3, as other X.3 updates lately, brings some nice new features. I'm also pissed that sometimes it takes a lot of time for Apple to fix annoying bugs - such as the keyboard overlying bug (which was finally fixed in 11.2.5) - but this doesn't mean they don't work on bug fixes. It is obvious that in an article, which is more customer-related, they'll point out the changes directly visible to the customers.

I don't have issues with iOS. What would be great is major redesigned iTunes 13 and more improvements in the next version of macOS. It seems that the development's going too slow in the last 3 years.

 

[barkomatic]

blah blah blah. All I care about are the Animojis.

 

[tzm41]

Hmmm, as expected AirPlay 2 isn’t here. But it isn’t there on HomePod at this time either, so…

 

[JM]

I completely forgot about iCloud messages. I have to watch the keynote again to see if that is something they were going to launch or something that would be a cool idea.

There next wwdc will be a bunch of "we thought this would be cool. Wouldn't that be cool?! Yeah we thought so, too. Or how about this?! So cool."

 

[Tonewheel]

"iOS 11.3 introduces new Animoji on the iPhone X, including a lion, bear, dragon, and skull. There will now be 16 characters to choose from in total, including existing ones like a pig, fox, chicken, pile of poo, and robot."

The kids will be thrilled...

 

[macduke]

So are we just going to forget iMessages in the cloud was a thing? Kinda like how Steve Jobs said FaceTime would be an open standard. It just goes away quietly and nobody ever talks about it again, lol.

 

[yanki01]

They probably found a security or privacy issue and decided to go back to the drawing board.

Do you really want something like messages in the cloud implemented poorly?

have you not seen how iOS 11 has fared?

 

[Lesser Evets]

The ideas team at Apple passed out drunk at the party and are late for work this year.

 

[HowEver]

NO iMessages in the Cloud: MacRumors folks want it bad. They don't mind telling you a million times over.

When it was here, and when it returns: MacRumors folks wail about using the cloud, privacy, sharing and intimacy issues.

 

[Defthand]

As it stands right now my messages sync with my Mac and whenever you backup your phone all of the messages are backed up too.

I don’t see the big deal with the messages actively syncing with the cloud AND your devices.

Actually, a message isn't synced to all of your devices. It is merely distributed to all of your devices. When you delete a conversation on one device, copies of it remain on your other devices. You have to manually delete the conversation on each device. It's a primitive chore.

 

[DNichter]

Plz plz plz let us remove the annoying home bar thats always in the way in games

Developers can do this already.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I kind of like this sort of announcement - not tied to any specific event or deadline. Just, when they're ready, announce the features and beta testing, and release when testing is done. There is no need to preview an overly ambitious OS every WWDC and release it by September - two totally arbitrary deadlines.

Feels odd that a feature like Animoji needs to be enabled via a software patch. Apple should really look at decoupling these kind of stuff from the core OS and maybe look into App Store updates or even cloud updates for such minor stuff?

I agree. I think Apple needs to refocus on what is the OS and what is an first-party app. And Animoji is not even the worst part of this - Mail, Messages, Notes, Calendar, Reminders, Safari, etc. All these first-party apps should be updated through the app store, and not bundled with a major OS update. To the extent updates to these apps have dependencies in a new OS update, then the app store already has features to account for that - saying the app update is only compatible with such and such versions of iOS.

 

[WannaGoMac]

This is great stuff but where is the iMessage in the Cloud that was promised at last years WDC??

It's coming with Facetime being an open standard that other phone manufacturers could use...

 

[McTool]

Maybe iCloud messages and airplay 2 come in iOS 11.4

You probably ment iOS12.

 

[skillwill]

I would love to see Apple spend the next year or so refining iOS 11 and adding smaller features in this way. Because if this comes out in say, April, we have what 2 months until iOS 12 is announced, then it's basically back to a broken, unfinished, .0 release and another 6 months of them fixing it. Despite paying for a finished product, we pretty much only get 2-5 months a year with a decent OS (depending if you are a beta tester or wait for public release), then the process starts again.

Maybe carry on building on 11 for a while, make a really solid, feature-filled OS. It won't make the YouTube bloggers very happy but oh well...

 

[MacTiki]

Fun that Apple uses a photo of the moon “landing” as an example of what can be done with ARKit 1.5.

 

[DaveOP]

Ironically, even Microsoft had this working in Windows Phone -- three years ago. If Microsoft of all companies could manage to ship this in one of their most famously failed products of the post-Gates era, I can't believe that Apple can't. Especially since it was 80% done in the beta.

Was the Microsoft solution end to end encrypted?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

We are going to be reduced to friggin' emoji for all communications. Just 21st century cavemen.

Apparently the Egyptians got this right about 5K-8K years ago. We're just now catching up to them on reducing language to pictographs.

On the bright side, at least we can quickly communicate this way without needing a stone mason to carve each message.

Now what is the pictograph (er, I mean, emoji) for "what R U doin?"

 

[McTool]

I don’t understand how iMessages in the Cloud can be so difficult to release.

As it stands right now my messages sync with my Mac and whenever you backup your phone all of the messages are backed up too.

I don’t see the big deal with the messages actively syncing with the cloud AND your devices.

It's more when you delete a message that it will be deleted on all your devices. That's iMessage in the iCloud. Not the other way around like you stated. Apparently most of the people don't get this. It's about deleting messages.

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

This is great stuff but where is the iMessage in the Cloud that was promised at last years WDC??

Tim Cook says you don’t need iCloud messages when you have even more Animoji! Lmao!

 

[Mtmspa]

I doubt messages in the cloud ever happens. If they allow it, the feds will be able to get a search warrant and Apple will have to comply.

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

We are going to be reduced to friggin' emoji for all communications. Just 21st century cavemen.

Reminds me of what Jimmy Kimmel once said. All this technology, you’d think we would be using it to help mankind. Or reach the deep areas in space for exploration. No we use it to post pictures of what we ate today. lol.

 

[Coffee50]

Music videos in Apple Music? I'm actually kind of excited about this. Though perhaps it should be called Apple Multimedia at that point.

Also, I don't understand what the hoopla is about iMessages in the Cloud? They're synced across all devices anyway (except for my SE without a SIM in it for some reason).

There are already music videos in Apple Music, but they aren't really displayed prominently. (I often forget they're there)

All music videos are located at the bottom of artist pages. I'm guessing they'll be adding even more, but right now, you can find them there.