For the last few years, Apple’s iOS updates have mostly happened behind your home screen. The display you see as soon as you unlock your phone as remained largely unchanged, but with iOS 14, announced at WWDC, it’s getting a shake up.
In a way, it’s the most radical redesign of iOS in years, but also not the most innovative one in the grander scheme of the industry. Front and center in iOS 14 are widgets–larger app icons that display more information at a glance, and change up the composition of your home screen drastically.
Apple also announced new features to automatically help group similar applications and sort them into folders, which will also be surfaced in groups when an app theme is searched for. Siri, Apple’s own digital assistant, is also being reworked so that it doesn’t take up the entire screen when dealing with a query. This lets you do more on your display at once than ever before, including new picture-in-picture support (which was introduced on the iPad a few years ago).
Perhaps one of the biggest changes might be one Apple should’ve introduced years ago. In iOS 14 you’ll finally be able to set your default web browser and mail apps to ones other than Apple’s in-house versions, meaning you can have Gmail or Microsoft Edge open when you tap on links instead.
Apple has not announced a release date for iOS 14, but typically reserves it for launch around September in conjunction with annual iPhone launches. For more on WWCD, check out GameSpot sister site CNET for even more on iPadOS, Apple WatchOS, and MacOS updates.
