iOS 13 best new features: dark mode, swipe, maps, photos and speed – hands on

Ben Sin has spent a day testing the new iPhone operating system and is so far impressed, with five features standing out

Among them: dark mode looks sleeker and conserves battery; Maps now has its own version of Google’s Street View; and the photo app has been upgraded

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Apple’s iOS 13 for iPhones might not be a game-changer in the way iPadOS will be for its tablets, but still features a host of decent improvements.

Published: 11:45am, 26 Jun 2019Updated: 7:24pm, 27 Jun 2019

The beta version of iOS 13, Apple’s new iPhone software that will roll out to the general public this autumn, is here.

I’ve been testing it for the past day and my early impression is that while iOS 13 doesn’t bring game-changing improvements in the way that iPadOS will bring to Apple’s tablet, iPhones will still get enough enhancements to make this one of the more substantive iOS updates in recent years.

Here, in my opinion, are the five most useful improvements iOS 13 will bring to iPhones later this year.

Dark mode

“Dark mode” generated the loudest cheers at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference when iOS 13 was announced. As the name suggests, it turns the iPhone’s entire colour scheme from stark white to either pitch black or dark grey.

Other than giving the phone’s interface a sleeker look and easing eye strain from prolonged use, dark mode also conserves battery as the parts of the screen that are black are not actually turned on (OLED screens only need to light up parts of the panel that are using colours).

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