iOS 12 Developer Beta 1 – In Depth Review

What a beginning

Its been nearly 2 weeks since iOS 12 Developer Beta 1 was released to developers. It has been quite a pleasant experience so far. Hundreds of users are already saying that iOS 12 is already better than iOS 11. Some are saying that iOS 12 feels like a finished product and iOS 11 felt like a beta. But jokes aside, there have been many glitches on iOS 12 as I will show you a few in this article. I will also discuss performance, battery life and just the overall experience I have had using iOS 12 on my iPhone 6. There is a lot to discuss!

iOS 12 Better than iOS 11 so far?

Before getting into the specifics, I would just like to say that in my opinion, iOS 12 is way better than 11. I experienced so many lag spikes, slow-downs, battery drain and more on iOS 11. I have experienced very little if anything on iOS 12. RAM management is way better on iOS 12. Obviously, there won’t be much improvement in that aspect on my iPhone 6. This is because the iPhone 6 only have 1gb RAM. But my apps stay ‘live’ and open in the multi-tasking for longer. At times, some apps feel like they have frozen. But when you click back on them, they are still live and active which is always good.

iOS 12 Performance

As expected, improvements in performance was the main focus of iOS 12. And it definitely hasn’t let us down. On older devices such as the iPhone 5S, 6 and even 6S, there has been noticeable improvements. Animations are faster, e.g. the unlocking animation. Opening apps, scrolling through home screens or feed is smoother too. Playing games is smoother too. Overall, there has been a performance improvement. As quoted from Apple regarding performance:

“On iPhone 6 Plus, for example, apps launch up to 40% faster, keyboard comes up, up to 50% faster, 70% faster to the camera from the lock screen. Share sheet coming up 2x faster, apps launching up to 2x faster under load.”

These numbers that Apple have claimed definitely have not disappointed which is great. I find myself enjoying using my iPhone 6 more now. I was considering upgrading to an iPhone 7. But now iOS 12 has in a way revived my iPhone 6. Instead I will wait for the rumoured 6 – inch iPhone X LCD – budget model which could be the ideal upgrade for me.

Battery Life

Battery life on iOS 12 has resulted in many mixed opinions. Some say battery life has significantly improved. Some say that it has worsened. Some say it has stayed the same and improves or worsens depending on the day. You will see what I mean from the screenshots below. (Important to note: the timings in the screenshot may confuse you. This is because due to Ramadan, I switched my sleep schedule a bit. This is so that I was awake at night and got home from school and slept).

On a normal school day, I am on 4G for about 6 hours and I get home around 4pm. I got about 4 hours of Screen-On Usage and 4 hours Screen-Off Usage. I usually charge my phone up when I get home and plug it in when I go to sleep at night.  After waking up, I was back at 100%, and at around 3:30am I fell asleep. I had gotten around 4 hrs and 25 mins of On-Screen usage from my iPhone. On a weekend day however when I was on Wifi the whole day, I got 6 hours On-Screen usage. See for yourself from the screenshots below but for me, battery life has remained the same. This is positive as this is only the first beta of iOS 12.

Any Issues?

I have experienced quite a few glitches on iOS 12. I also remembered to screenshot some. I will show screenshots below. One glitched I experienced was when sliding down to see the Notification Center and sliding back up to go back. I did this quite a few times and managed to get this glitch:

Another glitch I got was when using the Timer shortcut on the Control Center. I attempted to set a 15 – minute timer, and got this glitch: (It wouldn’t let me set a timer at all)

I experienced this third of many glitches. I slid to the right to access the widgets page from the lock screen and got this glitch:

Quite a weird but amusing one if you ask me.

Overall, iOS 12 has been a pleasant experience and OS to use so far. It will only become better. We are expecting Beta 2 this week tomorrow or on Tuesday and I simply cannot wait.

If you have any questions regarding iOS 12, feel free to leave them down below!

Author: Holden Satterwhite

Founder of Appleosophy and Redfruit Media. Twitter: @hesatter