iOS 13 Top 5 Features

With new iPhones come new iOS software, and iOS 13 has some exciting features that users have been asking about forever. Here’s my top 5 features that make iOS 13 worth upgrading for!

Dark Mode

While apps have been implementing dark mode for years, Apple’s own software has been stuck in the land of the light for far too long. Reading a late night text message or early morning email could be painful–but those days are over. A new system-wide Dark Mode allows users to shift into a beautiful dark colour scheme that’s perfect for low-light environments. You can choose to turn in on permanently, based on a specific time, or have it shift automatically at sunrise and sunset.

New Photos Modes and Features

The Photos App is completely revamped, with better library management and more intuitive interactions. Zoom in or out over your library by pinching, videos and live photos now autoplay, duplicate shots, screenshots, and receipt pictures are hidden, and both memories and birthday features let you see pictures of people you love more easily.

Editing controls are vastly improved as well, and now include in-app editing for videos. Finally, we don’t need to export video to iMovie to crop or rotate it!

Tattletale Permissions

Facebook and Google have been guilty of using your WiFi and Bluetooth to sneakily track you (and tons of other apps have tried doing it too!). Apple is now letting you know when these apps are trying to track you without your permission by letting you know, so you can shut them down before it happens.

Volume Control

This may seem like a small feature, but for me it’s huge: after 12 years Apple has finally updated the full-screen, video-blocking, opaque pain-in-the-butt volume indicator, removing it from its in-your-way prominence and putting it off to the side of the screen. Gone are the days when you miss key pieces in a YouTube video simply because you can’t hear the audio anymore.

Sign in with Apple

Passwords suck; they’re hard to remember, we end up re-using common ones (making us less secure), and having to change them is a pain. Signing in with Google or Facebook also sucks: they eat up your personal info, share it with third parties that you’re logging in to, and use every time you login as a marketing vector.

Sign in with Apple is Apple’s answer to these problems: an easily-burned login that doesn’t share information with third parties, and keeps you from having to remember passwords. You can choose to share your email or not, and no additional information is transferred, making it an ideal way of logging in without compromising your personal information.

Go get it

These are just 5 features of iOS 13 that make it worth upgrading, not even mentioning cool upgrades to Maps and CarPlay, or the ability to stream to two pairs of AirPods at the same time (so you can watch the same movie as a family member when you’re on a flight).

iOS 13 is available for iPhones now. tvOS 13 and iPad OS 13 launches September 30.