iOS 18.6 ― Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements

[imagineadam]

Well… finally took the plunge Friday night from 16.7.2 all the way to 18.6 on my 14 pro. It’s only been a couple of days but initial thoughts are some things are better some are worse!

So far battery is worse but that could be because of the “ongoing device setup” listed in the battery section. Also the ram management is noticeably worse. Less apps stay in the background for sure. App launching speed for most apps is the same or a titch slower. Some are oddly faster. Otherwise most things feel the same. I updated directly from my Mac hoping that’s the best way to do it.

I’ll have more to report I’m sure but what do you guys think? Give it some more days and the battery should level out or am I stuck with worse battery life? Could the ram management get better as the days go? Maybe background processes are killing apps and those will go away with time? Also going from watch os 9 to 11 on my series 6 is kicking its butt too in battery life. Could the meter just need a few days to level out also?

I’m happy to have a cooler looking home screen and have RCS and messages over satellite but I sure miss my great ram management and solid battery life. Plus my device runs warm now too where it used to be alway ice cold before on iOS 16.

 

[James6s]

You’ve took quite the jump and gone up two major software releases. I’d give it several days or so for things to settle down whilst all the background stuff and indexing etc takes place and finishes.

As someone posted on the last page, iApplebytes tests show 18.6 has reduced screen time and battery life even on the 16 series, which is disappointing. Hopefully things will settle down with improved battery life and ram management.

 

[giannisb]

iphone 16 pro here, a week after the update and can’t say I see much of a difference from 18.5 battery life wise, which was already pretty bad for me. At least thermals are better 🙄 I don’t seem to notice any major bugs resolved either, if anything they seem worse. Example, the saturation thingy in previous ios 18.x versions, where colors get saturated when you get to the multi app view then get back to normal when you enter an app. Now, if I get to the multi app view and kill all apps one by one so that it gets me to the home screen, my stack widget flickers for a moment… try it 😂 not to mention the random screen stutters while scrolling in ios menus (control center “add a control” list) and in 3rd party apps that are still here.

All in all, mixed feelings for a version meant to be “the most polished” one for 18.

 

[ScrumpyDaniel]

Not sure if it's been mentioned here (Not checked the whole thread as I was on holiday last week), but Game Mode is finally working again. It's been broken since 18.4 but it now works again, at least for Pokemon GO.

 

[imagineadam]

What is your guys system data sitting at? Mine went from 3-5gb on iOS 16 to 13-15gb on iOS 18. Lost about 20gb of space upgrading. Guessing system data has grown over the years.

 

[teeshot44]

What is your guys system data sitting at? Mine went from 3-5gb on iOS 16 to 13-15gb on iOS 18. Lost about 20gb of space upgrading. Guessing system data has grown over the years.

6.82 for me today. It does fluctuate you know.

 

[UliBaer]

Yesterday on a birthday party a friend of mine told and showed me, his iPhone 14 Pro was damaged by installing the release of 18.6 from 18.5. After completion of the update the iPhone complained the camera was not a genuine Apple one, but the phone was never opened or modified. The camera doesn't work once startet and only shows a black screen, but if one changes the lens to another one the picture appears and a photo can be taken. Unfortunately the resulting picture is some kind of psychedelic mess with colors way off and heavily saturated. Today we reinstalled 18.6 via ipsw, but the fault remains. I told him to go to the nearest genius bar, to ask for help. He stated, the iPhone left warranty about a week ago... 🤦‍♂️
Will be interesting to hear, what they have to say, since the iPhone never was tampered with, has never fallen and is in complete untouched condition.

^The above incident and other concerning news and posts in this thread finally brought me to the decision to stay on 17.7.2. I don't want to risk my momentary relatively satisfying situation on my phone and i think, my engagement with Apple will not last very long further. The above mentioned friend was told, he will have to pay for the replacement of the camera, which he decided not to do and instead will go for a Flip 7.

What is your guys system data sitting at? Mine went from 3-5gb on iOS 16 to 13-15gb on iOS 18. Lost about 20gb of space upgrading. Guessing system data has grown over the years.

System data on my 12 Pro with iOS 17.7.2 (and lots of apps) is at 9.03 GB this moment.

 

[Dylan33x]

They do all they can to force you to upgrade.

I got refused support because I flat out didn't want to upgrade my M1 Studio from Sonoma which has been rock steady (I did upgrade to Sequoia and it was a horrible experience with lag etc so downgraded again).

Really think that if I'm forced or see nag screens to go to Tahoe then I'll look into other options to upgrade the Studio.

At the moment though I'm loving the machine and the UI of Sonoma. It's nice and clean, and legible and a perfect work machine.

What version of Tahoe did you try? I agree that sonoma seems to be the best currently supported MacOS option at the moment.

 

[imagineadam]

The ram management is sooooo painful in ios 18 😫. Hope it’s better in iOS 26 when it’s released.

 

[Zorast]

Yeah and now get a new feature: Broken Websites that uses scroll animations and animations at all. THX APPLE. Dont update to 18.6, until this will been fixed with 18.7. For Apple this is not important,"broken website? hmm not really important for us, u can wait till 18.7 for the fix"

Iam a website developer, and my websites are also affected! ALL Divi websites are effected, also Divi 5! When u use about/more then 5 scroll animations the site will break. Elegant Themes also do not have a solution for it for now.

iPhone 13 Pro on iOS 18.6 fails to load w… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[fergus2019]

Well… finally took the plunge Friday night from 16.7.2 all the way to 18.6 on my 14 pro. It’s only been a couple of days but initial thoughts are some things are better some are worse!

So far battery is worse but that could be because of the “ongoing device setup” listed in the battery section. Also the ram management is noticeably worse. Less apps stay in the background for sure. App launching speed for most apps is the same or a titch slower. Some are oddly faster. Otherwise most things feel the same. I updated directly from my Mac hoping that’s the best way to do it.

I’ll have more to report I’m sure but what do you guys think? Give it some more days and the battery should level out or am I stuck with worse battery life? Could the ram management get better as the days go? Maybe background processes are killing apps and those will go away with time? Also going from watch os 9 to 11 on my series 6 is kicking its butt too in battery life. Could the meter just need a few days to level out also?

I’m happy to have a cooler looking home screen and have RCS and messages over satellite but I sure miss my great ram management and solid battery life. Plus my device runs warm now too where it used to be alway ice cold before on iOS 16.

Unfortunately, it won't get any better. I also regretted switching from 17.7.2 to iOS 18. The phone started charging more often, and started to heat up more. I had to give up the Safari browser altogether because of the wild heating (I've been using Google Chrome for almost half a year now).

 

[frou]

After updating from iOS 18.5 to 18.6, most of my Safari settings got reset. I had to a) Notice that it had happened, and b) Go into the Settings app and put them back to my liking.

 

[Nomad-X]

Yeah and now get a new feature: Broken Websites that uses scroll animations and animations at all. THX APPLE. Dont update to 18.6, until this will been fixed with 18.7. For Apple this is not important,"broken website? hmm not really important for us, u can wait till 18.7 for the fix"

Iam a website developer, and my websites are also affected! ALL Divi websites are effected, also Divi 5! When u use about/more then 5 scroll animations the site will break. Elegant Themes also do not have a solution for it for now.

iPhone 13 Pro on iOS 18.6 fails to load w… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

View attachment 2534407

This is why I don't use site builders. Too reliant on third parties when I can just do it all myself.

 

[James6s]

Well it’s been well over a week now since installing 18.6 on my 16 Pro.

I still think battery life is a bit meh tbh. Better than the early betas but nothing special.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from it… Anyone else with a 16 Pro, how does your battery compare to 18.5? As I’ve said before, mines been running 18.6 betas out the box so I cannot compare.

Performance, smoothness, speed are all top notch with no issues there.

Keeping an eye on the iOS 26 forum and from what I’ve seen it’s not ready to install just yet.

 

[BBDDVV]

Similar feeling with my 15 Pro. When not touching it there's no significant drain, but as soon as I start using it it eats battery...

 

[Tomas1988]

Well it’s been well over a week now since installing 18.6 on my 16 Pro.

I still think battery life is a bit meh tbh. Better than the early betas but nothing special.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from it… Anyone else with a 16 Pro, how does your battery compare to 18.5? As I’ve said before, mines been running 18.6 betas out the box so I cannot compare.

Performance, smoothness, speed are all top notch with no issues there.

Keeping an eye on the iOS 26 forum and from what I’ve seen it’s not ready to install just yet.

I can't say anything about iOS 18 because it's a long-forgotten thing, but I recommend trying at least the public beta if you're afraid of the developer beta. Personally, it was great, there were bugs, but now everything works perfectly since beta 5.
So its time 👍

 

[James6s]

I can't say anything about iOS 18 because it's a long-forgotten thing, but I recommend trying at least the public beta if you're afraid of the developer beta. Personally, it was great, there were bugs, but now everything works perfectly since beta 5.
So its time 👍

Long forgotten lol it is I guess! Most people are in the iOS 26 forum now.

I’m very tempted but I just think I’m not ready for it & battery life to get significantly worse! I’ll keep watching for the improvements as the betas are dropped.

 

[James6s]

Similar feeling with my 15 Pro. When not touching it there's no significant drain, but as soon as I start using it it eats battery...

Same. Idle drain is great, like it only lost 2% overnight. Remember when iPhones used to have zero idle battery drain 😄

 

[teeshot44]

I can't say anything about iOS 18 because it's a long-forgotten thing, but I recommend trying at least the public beta if you're afraid of the developer beta. Personally, it was great, there were bugs, but now everything works perfectly since beta 5.
So its time 👍

Public and developer betas are the same.

 

[Tomas1988]

Long forgotten lol it is I guess! Most people are in the iOS 26 forum now.

I’m very tempted but I just think I’m not ready for it & battery life to get significantly worse! I’ll keep watching for the improvements as the betas are dropped.

many opinions, maybe it works worse on older phones

 

[Tomas1988]

Public and developer betas are the same.

The only difference is timing

 

[Artemiz]

This looks new in 18.6.
13P with no AI stuff.

 

[Cobalt Blizzard]

This looks new in 18.6.
13P with no AI stuff.

Do you have MacBook or iPad with Apple Intelligence enabled? It can sync Focus modes across devices.

 

[ApAx]

This looks new in 18.6.
13P with no AI stuff.

I noticed this too recently, perhaps with the 18.6 update, but I don't recall for sure. You can delete it if you don't need it. I have my customized modes set for the specific scenarios I need, so I got rid of any "curated" ones like this.

 

[Artemiz]

Do you have MacBook or iPad with Apple Intelligence enabled? It can sync Focus modes across devices.

I do have an M1 Pro MBP but don’t recall seeing it before.