Apple releases iOS 11.3, the biggest update for iPhones since iOS 11 first launched This is a big update, and Apple also released updates to tvOS and watchOS. by Samuel Axon - Mar 29, 2018 2:39pm PDT Apple Today, Apple released iOS 11.3 to all supported devices, including the iPad Air and later, the iPad mini 2 and later, the iPhone 5S and later, and the sixth-generation iPod touch. The update is available for download now in supported regions. With several new features, it's arguably the biggest update to iOS since iOS 11 first released. iOS 11.3 addresses battery-based performance throttling on older devices, adds significant new capabilities for augmented reality, adds the ability to chat with customer support reps from companies in Messages, and lets users access their personal health records in the Health app. Apple also released smaller updates for tvOS (tvOS 11.3) on the Apple TV and watchOS (watchOS 4.3). Let's dive into what each of these updates adds for users. Battery Health You'll find the new Battery Health settings nested under "Battery" in the Settings app. Note that it's prominently listed as still in beta. As promised, Apple has made it possible to disable performance throttling on older iPhones whose batteries have degraded to the point that that they pose a risk for unexpected shutdowns resulting from voltage shortages. Apple lists this as a beta feature. There is now a section in the Settings app, nested under "Battery," called "Battery Health." If you visit this on a phone with a battery Apple deems healthy, it will simply serve up brief copy explaining some key concerns with iPhone batteries, along with a link to a webpage that goes into more detail. It will also show a value for "maximum capacity." This value is a percentage. Apple explains it this way: This is a measure of battery capacity relative to when it was new. Lower capacity may result in fewer hours of usage between charges. There's a section of this settings screen labeled "Peak Performance Capacity." If your phone has never experienced an unexpected shutdown due to low battery health, it will simply say: "Your battery is currently supporting normal peak performance." However, if your battery has dropped to a low-enough maximum capacity, you'll be shown this copy instead: This iPhone has experienced an unexpected shutdown because the battery was unable to deliver the necessary peak power. Performance management has been applied to help prevent this from happening again. Next to this, you'll see an option to disable the performance-management feature that has so irked iPhone owners. It also tells you that you can upgrade the battery to solve this problem completely: Your battery's health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. Notably, performance management is disabled until the phone first experiences an unexpected shutdown; it's not activated simply by a maximum capacity below a certain value, and you can't turn it on unless you've run into the problem. The note about the Apple Authorized Service Provider is meant to address a consumer complaint that Apple was not transparent with users about the option to upgrade the battery—that complaint is key in the class-action lawsuits that have popped up in response to the performance management controversy that began last December when Reddit users and the dev behind benchmarking app Geekbench confirmed that iOS throttled performance on devices with underperforming batteries. Apple does not offer this feature on iPads, but this update does add a new iPad feature called "charge management." The update notes say it "maintains battery health when iPad is connected to power for prolonged periods of time, such as when it is used in kiosks, point-of-sale systems, or stored in charging carts."
ARKit 1.5 ARKit is Apple's augmented reality application programming interface. Apple introduced ARKit at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last year. The framework handles some of the lower-level heavy lifting for augmented reality so developers can focus on customization of its experiences and on content. Previously, ARKit could only accurately place objects on flat, horizontal planes, limiting the range of applications developers could make. With ARKit 1.5, developers can now place objects on vertical planes like walls, and accuracy is improved when mapping objects onto surfaces that aren't completely flat. It also adds image-recognition capabilities. For example, an AR app could show a full-sized robot if a poster for an associated robot movie is seen by the phone's camera, or it could provide additional context in a museum when a certain painting is seen. Apple touts a "higher-resolution real-world camera view when using AR experiences," and auto-focus is now supported in AR views as well. AR is a major focus for Apple this year; it has been the subject of many of the company's top executives' comments about their strategy and new initiatives, and many of the major additions and updates in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X—all released late last year—were focused on laying the ground work for improved AR experiences, either with new sensors or improved performance. Tim Cook has said he believes AR will be a watershed moment for the app store once AR developers find their stride. App intelligence firm Sensor Tower recently estimated that apps built on ARKit have been downloaded 13 million times since iOS 11's initial release. Half of those apps are games, but Pokémon Go and several other popular AR apps are not included in those numbers because, for all or some of the reported period, they were not built on ARKit. New Animojis This update also adds four new Animoji for the iPhone X: a skeleton, a lion, a dragon, and a bear—not to be confused with the existing panda bear Animoji. They're pictured below. These new Animoji don't add any new functionality; they're just new skins for the TrueDepth sensor-based, iPhone X-exclusive feature. Business Chat iOS 11.3 adds the ability to chat with representatives from participating companies directly in your Messages app. It's essentially a platform for text-message-based customer support. The conversation can be triggered by tapping the Messages icon that appears in the Safari or Apple Maps apps, as well as in iOS searches. In the course of the conversation, you can use Apple Pay for transactions without leaving the app. If you need to set an appointment, a menu listing available times will swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Apple claims no personally identifiable data is shared with the companies unless you share it yourself and that businesses cannot start conversations—users have to initiate. You start Business Chat by tapping the Messages icon in Maps or on participating Business' websites in Safari. The first participating companies include: • Apple • Discover • Hilton • The Home Depot • Lowe's • Marriott International • Newegg • Ameritrade • Wells Fargo • 1-800-flowers.com Like the Battery Health settings, Business Chat is listed as a beta feature. Health Records Apple's health-related efforts aren't always the most-touted developments by tech enthusiasts, but they've been a significant area of focus for the company lately. In iOS 11.3, Apple has added Health Records to the Health app. This feature allows you to connect to various health records networks in which your providers participate, and it collects all those records in one place, even though your providers might use completely different networks and systems. Health Records are located in the Apple Health app under the Health Data tab. Health Records supports just shy of 40 systems in the United States, but it is not yet comprehensive, and it is not available in all regions. This information was available to people before, but it has not always been centralized for the user in this way. The data is not really centralized, though—it's still coming from those other systems. The user just sees it in one place in the app. In a way, Apple is looking to do the same thing with the Health app on iOS that it does with its TV app—remove the friction inherent in working with a plethora of unconnected, unstandardized systems and providers. As with the TV app, success hinges on how many providers participate. Health Records needs to be nearly comprehensive for the value to be realized. This is a starting point, but Apple still has work ahead of it, and this one feature, while laudable, will not smooth out the US healthcare system's problematic records issues in general. This feature is also in beta. Other features and bug fixes in iOS 11.3 Those are the major features in iOS 11.3, but Apple added a few small things as well. Software authentication of HomeKit-compatible devices increases the number of devices that can support HomeKit. Support for the Advanced Mobile Location (AML) standard gives emergency responders in supported countries more accurate location information when responding to an emergency call. A new "For You" section has been added to Apple News, offering more personalized selections, and you can now sort App Store reviews in new ways, including "most critical," "most favorable," "most recent," and "most helpful." There are numerous bug fixes, addressing issues like failed incoming calls when waking the display, Mail messages reappearing in notifications after they've already been read, and parents' inability to use Face ID to approve purchase requests from their children on the iPhone X. Apple’s privacy play Apple has expanded its efforts to loop users in on when and how their personal data is being accessed or used by the company's apps and features. First off, it has added a new icon to represent user privacy that appears to notify users whenever Apple is doing something with their personal information. Each instance of this comes with a brief explanation of what information is being accessed and why, with a small link to a more detailed page that goes into greater detail. You'll see this privacy icon whenever Apple asks to use your personal information. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently took jabs at Facebook and Google about user privacy, saying Apple's approach is different. Apple's head of services Eddy Cue made similar comments at a SXSW talk this year. Apple has always made claims like this to differentiate itself from competitors, but the tone and frequency changed as scandals like the Cambridge Analytica controversy hit Facebook and others. Apple is capitalizing on current controversies by actively seeking to position itself as the tech company that cares about your privacy and protecting your data, in contrast to other tech giants, and this feature is intended to drive that point home to users. Apple Music Videos Music videos have been available in Apple Music for a while now, but they were difficult to discover. Apple has now added a section to the Browse tab in the Apple Music app to find and watch music videos. This section is curated just like other parts of Apple Music. It has featured videos, playlists, and genre-based lists. Watching music videos on Apple Music requires an active subscription to the service. "Music Videos" is a new section under the Browse tab. We still don't know if Apple plans to add the numerous TV shows it is developing to Apple Music, the TV app, or a new app. But if some or all of that does end up in Apple Music, we can see this as a sampling of what that might eventually look like. Notably missing: AirPlay 2 and Messages on iCloud AirPlay is Apple's protocol for streaming media between devices over your Wi-Fi network. It's been around by one name or another since 2004, but Apple announced at WWDC 2017 that AirPlay 2 would be part of iOS 11, that it would allow you to manage your multi-room speaker setup on your iOS device, that it would improve streaming latency, and that it would expand audio buffering so streaming could continue in some situations even if devices moved out of range. Audio companies like Sonos announced they would support the updated protocol. At first, it seemed that Apple planned to launch AirPlay 2 alongside the HomePod speaker launch in February. It didn't. Then Apple included it in early betas of iOS 11.3, suggesting it would launch with this update. It didn't. It was removed from later beta releases. Apple clearly intended to launch this feature already, but it has faced delays. The company hasn't explained those delays, and we still haven't seen AirPlay 2. Apple also originally intended to include a new feature called Messages on iCloud in iOS 11.3, but that feature is missing as well, despite appearing in some beta releases of the update. Apple did previously hint it might not be coming yet, though. Whenever it launches, Messages on iCloud promises to free up space on your iOS device by moving photos and other space-hogging items in Messages conversations to the cloud. watchOS 4.3 Alongside iOS 11, Apple also launched watchOS 4.3 for all Apple Watch models. The release notes are as follows: - Control volume and playback on HomePod from your Apple Watch - Restores ability to control music on iPhone - Use any orientation for Nightstand charging mode - Siri watch face now shows progress toward closing Activity rings and when new songs are added to Apple Music mixes - Resolves an issue where Activity achievements were incorrectly awarded for some users - Fixes an issue where Siri music commands were not working for some audio devices This is not as significant an update as iOS 11.3, obviously, but many users were clamoring for the ability to use the Watch in portrait during Nightstand charging mode. In watchOS 4, Apple removed the previously available feature that allowed you to use your Watch to manage playback from iPhone's Apple Music app. This feature is back now. tvOS 11.3 tvOS 11.3 dropped today for the fourth-generation Apple TV and the Apple TV 4K, too. It's an even smaller update. Here are the notes: - Apple TV App: Now available in Brazil and Mexico. - Siri:* Siri now understands Portuguese in Brazil. - Video playback: On Apple TV (4th generation), you can play videos in their original frame rate. The framerate feature was previously only available on the Apple TV 4K. Security updates As always, there are numerous security updates for all three of these releasesthat are not included in the regular patch notes. Apple shares these notes in the security updates hub on its support site, with dedicated pages for iOS 11.3, watchOS 4.3, and tvOS 11.3. Original Article at: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/apple-releases-ios-11-3-the-biggest- update-for-iphones-since-ios-11-first-launched/ -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. 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