New features available with iOS 13 will help new for developers and users

Dark Mode

Beautiful new look

A new Dark Mode option gives iOS and apps a beautiful dark colour scheme. Perfect for low-light environments, Dark Mode is easier on your eyes and won’t disturb people around you.

Turn on manually

Tap the new button in Control Centre to quickly turn Dark Mode on and off, such as when you enter a dark room or theatre.

Scheduled

Have Dark Mode turn on and off at a certain time or based on sunrise and sunset, which is great when you’re outside at night or using your iPhone before you go to bed.

Wallpapers

New wallpapers optimised for Dark Mode automatically change as you switch between light and dark.

System integration

Dark Mode is beautifully integrated throughout iOS, from built-in apps and settings to system-level views.

Works with your favourite apps

An API lets third‑party developers implement Dark Mode in their apps.

Photos

All-new Photos tab

The all-new Photos tab lets you browse your photo library with different levels of curation, so it’s easy to find, relive and share your photos and videos. You can view everything in All Photos, focus on your unique photos in Days, relive your significant moments in Months or rediscover your highlights in Years.

Auto-playing Live Photos and videos

Throughout the Photos tab, muted Live Photos and videos begin playing as you scroll, bringing your photo library to life.

Smart photo previews

In Days, Months and Years, photo previews are larger to help you distinguish between shots. Photos uses intelligence to find the best part of your photo in photo previews, which means you get to see the uncropped version of your photo when you tap to view it.

Contextual transitions

Animations and transitions keep your place in the Photos tab, so you can switch between views — like Days and All Photos — without losing your place.

Removes similar shots and clutter

Duplicate photos, screenshots, whiteboard photos, documents and receipts are identified and hidden, so you see only your best shots.

Significant events

Months presents your photos by events, so you can rediscover the moments that matter most.

Event titles

The Photos tab displays the name of the location, holiday or concert performer to provide helpful context for your significant events.

On this Day

Years is contextual, so it shows you photos taken on or around today’s date in past years.

Birthday mode

If you have birthdays assigned to people in your People album, the Photos tab will highlight your photos of them on their birthday.

Zoom in and zoom out

View your library in All Photos however you’d like. Zoom in for a closer look, or zoom out to quickly scan through your library and see all your shots at once.

Screen recordings smart album

All your new screen recordings are now in one place.

Search enhancements

You can combine multiple search terms — like “beach” and “selfies” — without tapping each word in search.

Music for Memories

Soundtracks for Memory movies are selected based on what you listen to in the Apple Music app.

Extended Live Photos playback

When you press and hold to play a Live Photo, Photos will automatically extend the video when you have Live Photos taken within 1.5 seconds of each other.

Preview intensity

As you apply an edit, each adjustment displays its intensity, so you can see at a glance which effects have been increased or decreased.

Individually review each effect

Tap each effect icon to see what your photo looked like before and after the effect was applied.

Filter control

Control the intensity of any filter, like Vivid or Noir, to fine-tune your look.

Enhance control

Enhance now lets you control the intensity of your automatic adjustments. As you increase or decrease Enhance, you’ll see other adjustments — including Exposure, Brilliance, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Brightness, Black Point, Saturation and Vibrance — intelligently change with it.

Video editing support

Adjustments, filters and crop support video editing, so you can rotate, increase exposure or even apply filters to your videos. Video editing supports all video formats captured on iPhone, including video in 4K at 60 fps and slow-motion in 1080p at 240 fps.1

Non-destructive video edits

Video edits are now non-destructive, so you can remove an effect like a filter or undo a trim to return to your original video.

Vibrance

Boost muted colours to make your photo richer without affecting skin tones and saturated colours.

White Balance

Balance the warmth of an image by adjusting temperature (blue to yellow) and tint (green to magenta).

Sharpen

Change photos by making edges crisper and better defined.

Definition

Increase image clarity by adjusting the definition slider.

Noise reduction

Reduce or eliminate noise such as graininess or speckles in photos.

Vignette

Add shading to the edges of your photo to highlight a powerful moment using Strength, Radius and Falloff.

Updates to auto adjustments

Straighten, crop and adjust the perspective of your photos automatically.

Pinch-to-zoom support

You can pinch to zoom while editing to review your changes on a specific area of your photo.

Image Capture API

The Image Capture API lets you import photos directly into an app when a camera is connected to your iOS device.*

Camera

Adjust Portrait Lighting intensity

Virtually adjust the position and intensity of your studio lighting. Increase the intensity of each Portrait Lighting effect — moving the light closer to your subject — to smoothen skin, sharpen eyes and brighten facial features. Or decrease the intensity of the light — moving it away from your subject — for a subtle, refined look.2

High-Key Mono

A new Portrait Lighting effect, High-Key Light Mono, creates a beautiful, classic look with a monochromatic subject on a white background.2

Updates to Portrait Segmentation API

The Portrait Segmentation API now supports skin, hair and teeth segmentation, so developers can create new effects for Portrait mode photos.2

Privacy and Security

App location permissions

Control the location data that you pass to apps with new, fine-grained controls. You can choose to grant an app access to your location once or anytime you use it.

App location transparency

Receive a notification when an app is using your location in the background, so you can decide whether to update your permission.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth location privacy enhancements

API changes and new controls help prevent apps from accessing your location without your consent while you’re using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Sign in with Apple

Sign in with Apple ID

Sign in to apps and websites quickly and easily using the Apple ID you already have. No filling out forms or creating new passwords. Just tap “Sign in with Apple”, use Face ID or Touch ID, and you’re all set.

Respect for your privacy

Apple will never track or profile you when you sign in with Apple. The most information you’ll have to share with an app or website is your name and email address.

Hide My Email

Not sure you want to share your email address with a particular app? You’re in control. You can choose to share or hide your email address. You can also choose to have Apple create a unique email address for you that forwards to your real address.

Built-in security

Sign in with Apple requires your Apple ID to be protected with two‑factor authentication. That way access to the accounts in your favourite apps is protected as well — automatically.

Works everywhere

Sign in with Apple works on all your Apple devices as well as the web and apps on Android or Windows. No matter where you need to sign in to your favourite app, you can use Sign In with Apple.

HomeKit

HomeKit Secure Video

HomeKit-enabled cameras can now add support to detect and record specific activity like people, animals or vehicles. These recordings are stored securely in iCloud. And new privacy settings allow you to control when your cameras stream and record.*

HomeKit-enabled routers

Enabled routers bring an extra layer of security to your smart home. Use the Home app to control which services your HomeKit accessories can communicate with in your network and on the Internet.*

AirPlay 2–enabled speakers in scenes and automations

Access songs, playlists and radio stations with Apple Music.*

Refreshed Home app accessory controls

There are more robust accessory controls in the Home app.

Siri shortcuts

Siri shortcuts can now be added to automations.**

Maps

New map

Rebuilt from the ground up, the brand‑new map features significantly improved and more realistic details for roads, beaches, parks, buildings and more.3

Look Around

Explore where you’re going before you get there with an immersive 3D experience that gives you a 360-degree view of a place. And enjoy smooth and seamless transitions as you navigate your way around.4

Collections

Build collections of your favourite and soon‑to‑be‑favourite locations and share them with friends and family.

Favourites

Whether it’s home, work, the gym or your kid’s school, create a list of places you visit often for quick, one‑tap navigation.

Junction View

Junction View helps drivers in China eliminate wrong turns and directional misses by lining them up in the correct lane before they need to turn or enter an elevated road.

Share ETA

Share your estimated time of arrival with family, friends and co-workers. Your ETA even updates should a significant delay occur.**

Customer feedback

A redesigned customer feedback experience makes submitting incorrect addresses, business locations or operating hours that much easier.

Real-time transit

See live departure times, the current location of the bus or train on your route and a more detailed schedule when viewing transit stops.

Flight status

Up-to-the-moment information about your flight terminals, gate locations, departure times and more is now available.

Place cards

Place cards are more helpful and easier to use, with dynamically updated information for things like movie show times, restaurant hours and more.

MapKit

Updates include vector overlays, point-of-interest filtering, camera zoom and pan limits and support for Dark Mode.

Improved CarPlay experience

CarPlay provides easier route planning, search and navigation, as well as Junction View in China. Favourites and Collections features are also available in CarPlay.

Siri

Siri intelligence

Siri offers personalised suggestions in Apple Podcasts, Safari and Maps. Siri can even detect reminders in messages and events in third‑party apps.

SiriKit for Audio

Siri can now play music, podcasts, audiobooks and radio with third‑party apps.

Radio

Ask Siri to tune in to your favourite radio station.

Indian English voice

Siri has a new Indian English voice.

Shortcuts

Conversational shortcuts

Shortcuts are even more powerful, enabling you to interact with your apps in a conversational way.

Built-in Shortcuts app

The Shortcuts app is now built in and home for all your shortcuts.

Suggested automations

Get started with the Shortcuts app by adding a personalised daily routine to help streamline your day.**

Automations

Set up triggers to run any shortcut automatically.

AirPods

Announce Messages with Siri

Siri can read incoming notifications from your messaging apps to your second-generation AirPods when you can’t reach for your phone.5

Audio Sharing

Pair two sets of AirPods to one iPhone and enjoy the same song or movie along with a friend.*

Augmented Reality

Support for Motion Capture

Motion Capture lets developers integrate people’s movement into their apps.8

People Occlusion

AR content appears naturally in front of or behind people, enabling more immersive AR experiences and fun green-screen-like applications.8

Accessibility

Voice Control

Introducing a new way to control your iOS devices, entirely with your voice.9

Accurate dictation

Voice Control uses the Siri speech recognition engine to give you the latest advances in machine learning for audio‑to‑text transcription.10

Add custom words

Whether you’re writing a biology report, filling out a legal document or emailing about a favourite topic, you can add custom words to ensure that Voice Control recognises the words you commonly use.

On‑device processing

All audio processing for Voice Control happens on your device, ensuring that your personal data is kept private.

Rich text editing

Thanks to rich text editing commands, you don’t have to rehearse before you speak. Making corrections is quick and easy. You can replace phrases by name. Try saying, “Replace I’m almost there with I just arrived”. Fine-grained editing also makes it simple to select text. Try saying, “Move up two lines. Select previous word. Capitalise that.”

Word and emoji suggestions

If you need to correct a word, simply ask and you’ll be presented with a list of suggested replacements.

Seamless transitions from dictation to commands

Voice Control understands contextual cues, so you can seamlessly transition between text dictation and commands. For example, say “Happy Birthday. Tap send.” in Messages, and Voice Control sends “Happy Birthday” — just as you intended. You can also say “Delete that”, and Voice Control knows to delete what you just typed.

Comprehensive navigation

You can rely entirely on your voice to navigate an app. Comprehensive navigation is provided by navigation commands, names of accessibility labels, numbers, grids, voice gestures and recorded commands.

Navigation commands

Navigation commands give you quick ways to open apps, search the web, press the Home button and more.

Names

You can easily navigate by telling Voice Control to select the name of an accessibility label for buttons, links and more.

Numbers

Say “show numbers” to see numbers appear next to all clickable items onscreen. Use this to quickly navigate complex or unfamiliar apps. Numbers automatically appear in menus and whenever you need to disambiguate between items with the same name. Just say a number to click it.

Grids

Saying “show grid” superimposes a grid on your screen and allows you to precisely do things like tap, zoom, drag and more.

Gesture with your voice

Use your voice to perform gestures, such as tap, swipe, pinch, zoom, press the Home button and more.

Recorded commands

You can record multistep gestures for apps on your iOS device. So if you love to send messages with fireworks, you can record the gestures to do this and use the recording to quickly send messages with fireworks.

Attention Awareness

With Attention Awareness, Voice Control goes to sleep when you turn your head away from the TrueDepth camera on an iPhone. It doesn’t activate until you look back at the screen — so you can talk to a friend nearby without affecting your device.

Files

Rich metadata

Column View displays a rich set of metadata, so you can see the details for each file as you browse.

Downloads folder

A new downloads folder gives you a central place to access your web downloads and attachments from Safari and Mail.

External drive support

Access files on a USB drive, SD card or hard drive.

iCloud Drive folder sharing

Share folders with friends, family and colleagues in iCloud Drive. You can even give them access for adding their own files.*

Local storage

Create folders on the local drive and add your favourite files.

Zip and unzip

Select files and zip them for easy sharing via email. Tap a zip file to expand it into a folder and access the files.

File servers

Connect to a file server at work or a home PC using SMB from Files.

Keyboard shortcuts

A host of new keyboard shortcuts make navigating Files even easier.

Search suggestions

Search suggestions make it simple to find what you’re looking for. Just tap the suggestion to quickly filter your results.

Document Scanner

Create digital copies of physical documents and put them directly in the location where you want to store them.

Health

Cycle tracking

Track important data about your menstrual cycle. Log your period, including flow level, symptoms like cramps and headaches, and whether or not you experienced spotting. And log key fertility metrics, including basal body temperature and ovulation test results.

Period prediction

View a prediction for when your period is likely to begin and end in each cycle for the next three cycles.

Fertile window prediction

View a prediction for when your fertile window is likely to begin and end in each cycle for the next three cycles.

Period notifications

Receive notifications to remind you to log your period and to let you know when your next period is approaching.

Fertile window notification

Receive a notification when your fertile window is approaching.

Cycle history

View your entire cycle history with glanceable views of each cycle’s logged period, symptoms, fertile window and length.

Cycle statistics

View the date of your last menstrual period, your typical period length, your period length variation, your typical cycle length and your cycle length variation.

Cycle visualisation

Scroll through the daily log to see your period, noted symptoms and fertile window at a glance — in the past and future.

New Summary view

A new Summary view dynamically presents the information that matters to you most, including alerts, recent entries from your favourites, highlights and new features to enable.

Highlights

Using data from apps and devices you use most, you can see automatically generated charts and graphics including comparison bar charts and line graphs.

Search and browse

Find what you need more easily with a new categorisation of data types and improved search of all health data.

Interactive charts and filters

View historical data by hour, day, week, month or year and filter with overlays including historical average, daily average, latest, range and alerts.

Education

Learn more about your menstrual cycle and hearing health.

New profile page

Track your personal health in a profile that includes medical ID and connected apps and devices.

Environmental audio level

View notifications and the environmental audio levels from the Noise app on Apple Watch, with the decibel levels categorised in two ranges — OK or Loud.

Headphone audio level

View audio levels from headphones you use, with the decibel levels categorised in two ranges — OK or Loud.

Audiograms

Track audiograms from hearing tests.

Oral Health

Use the new Oral Health data type to track your toothbrushing time.

Activity Trends

Get a view of your long‑term progress with key activity metrics, comparing the last 90 days with the last 365 days. If you’re starting to trend down, you’ll get personalised coaching to get back on track. See trend data for active calories, exercise minutes, stand hours, stand minutes, distance, flights climbed, workout walk pace, workout run pace and cardio fitness level measured by VO₂ max.

Have a App Idea?

Book your FREE call with our technical consultant now.
Let's Build Your App

Book your FREE call with our technical consultant now.

Totally enjoyed working with Karan and his team on this project. They brought my project to life from just an idea. Already working with them on a second app development project.

They come highly recommended by me.

Martins
Owner, Digital Babies