Apple had to cram so much into its WWDC 2024 keynote that some features were left out of the spotlight. Here on the company’s campus, I had the opportunity to speak with various executives as well as take a deeper dive into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, Apple Intelligence, watchOS 11, and more. In these sessions, I was able to learn more about how specific things work, such as exactly what steps you take to customize your iPhone’s Home screen and Control Center. I also saw some other updates that weren’t even briefly mentioned during the keynote, like new support for walking routes in Apple Maps and what training load insights look like in watchOS 11. Of all the unmentioned features I found, here are my favorites .
Maps: Create and share custom routes
I’ve always been a Google Maps girl, partly because that app had superior information compared to Apple Maps in the early years. I stick to Google Maps these days because it has all my saved places and history. When I found out that iOS 18 would bring updates to Apple Maps, especially in terms of hiking and routes, I was intrigued.
Basically, in iOS 18, when you enter a search in Maps, you’ll see a new option under Find Nearby called Hikes. It will show you recommended hikes, and you can filter by hike type (loop, for example) and specify length. You’ll find nearby options, and tapping one will show you a topographical view detailing the elevation, how challenging it should be, and the estimated duration. You can tap to save each route and store it for offline reference later, as well as add notes. There’s a new library view and you’ll find it in your Maps profile.
You’ll also be able to create new routes in Maps by tapping anywhere to start defining your route. You can keep tapping to add points, which will cause the trail to continue connecting them, then hit the “Close Loop” button to complete your trail. These routes can be shared, although it’s not yet clear whether you can share them with, say, your friend or driver to get them to take your preferred route to your destination.
The trails that Apple will serve in Maps are created by its own team that works with US national parks, so they will only be available for the country’s 63 national parks to begin with. In other words, it’s not porting information from AllTrails, for example. In a press release, Apple said thousands of hikes will be available for viewing at launch.
As a city dweller who only occasionally walks, my excitement is less about the hiking and more about the potential to share my personalized routes to show people how to get to my building or favorite restaurant from the train station. This is a fascinating feature and perhaps the reason I choose Apple Maps over Google’s.
Calendar integration with reminders
To be honest, the Maps update might be my favorite of the whole lot was not shown during the WWDC 2024 keynote by a huge margin. But some of the new tools coming to Calendar tickle my fancy. Specifically, the new reminders integration makes it easy not only to schedule your tasks directly in your diary, but also to check them off from the Calendar app. Soon, you can move reminders around by long-pressing them, so a note to call you mom can be slotted into the 5pm Wednesday slot instead of sitting in your Reminders app. In addition, Calendar gets new views that better describe your activity level each day of the month, similar to how the Fitness app shows your rapid daily ring progress in the monthly view.
Tapback insights showing exactly who responded with which emojis
It’s not something that wasn’t mentioned at all during the keynote, but there are details about how Tapback works that weren’t covered on yesterday’s show. If you’re like me, you might not have even remembered that Tapback refers to those reactions you can send in Messages by double-tapping a blue or gray bubble. With iOS 18, you’ll get more options than the limited selection of heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, “Haha”, exclamation marks and question mark. They will also appear in full color with the update, instead of the existing (dull) grey.
What I found out later, though, is that when you double-tap a message that already has reactions attached, a new bubble appears at the top of the screen showing who responded with what emojis. This should make lurking in a group chat easier, but it can also double as an unofficial voting tool by asking your friends to react with specific emoticons to indicate different answers. This should make Messages a little more like Slack, and I wish Whatsapp and Telegram would take note.
Other: Math Notes on iPhone, Journal and Safari updates
iOS 18 comes with quite a few features that didn’t sit well on the WWDC stage, like the new Journal app widget for the home screen, which displays prompts for reflection and lets you create new entries. The journal also has a new Insights view that shows your writing streaks and other historical data, plus a new tool that lets you add your state of mind to each app entry.
Safari, meanwhile, is getting a new Highlights button in the search (or URL) bar, and tapping it will display a machine-learning-generated summary of the web page you’re on. Tapping this brings up a panel with more information such as navigation directions to a restaurant mentioned on the page, for example, or a phone number to call a business. You can also quickly launch reading view from this window.
I wasn’t very enthusiastic about either, largely because I don’t use the Journal app much and I don’t need Safari to summarize a website for me. But some other buried updates I really wanted to call out. For example, Math Notes for iPad and using the Apple Pencil certainly got a lot of time, but it wasn’t until I looked at Apple’s iOS 18 press release that I realized that the Notes app on the iPhone is also getting a version of it. According to the screenshot Apple included, it looks like you can count and split expenses among a group of friends by writing a list of expenses and how much each item costs, then adding the names of each expense to a formula with plus and equal signs , then dividing that of the number of people in your group. Not quite separate, but I could see this getting more powerful over time.
I was also intrigued by some of iPadOS 18’s Smart Script features, especially when I realized that you can simply move your scribbled words by dragging your scribbled words further apart and the rest of your scribbled text moves in tandem. It’s hard to describe and I’ll have to wait until I can try it myself to show you an animated example. But it was impressive, even if not extremely useful.
Finally, the Passwords app and other privacy updates got a shout-out during the keynote, but I learned more about how things like setting up accessories and sharing contacts with apps work. Apple is releasing a new accessory setup kit so device makers can adopt a pairing interface similar to how you’d connect your AirPods or Apple Watch to your iPhone. If developers don’t take this approach, the new Bluetooth setup interface will be much clearer about which other Bluetooth devices are on your local network and what you’re actually giving access to when you allow an app to see other devices on your network. While this wasn’t completely missed during the keynote, the Passwords app is something that makes me happy, as I’m sick of digging around in settings to find a way to get codes for specific apps that I use my authenticator on. iPhone to unlock .
There are a lot of talked about features that I’m excited about and learning more about, including the new dynamic watch style in the Photos watchface in watchOS 11, pinned collections in the redesigned Photos app, and an iPadOS mirror for easier remote tech support. Oh, and that new Airplay feature that will let you send money to friends by holding your phones together? yes Be able to pause and adjust your watchOS activity rings and this training load information? Hallelujah!
And while I can see the appeal of locked and hidden apps, I’m not sure I’ll find much use for them, and it’ll probably make my already suspicious nature worse.
I’m also a bit wary of things like Genmoji and Image Playground, both of which are Apple Intelligence features that won’t hit all devices with iOS 18. There will be metadata information showing when images were generated by Apple’s AI, and guardrails to prevent the creation of offensive and exploitative content.
Clearly, there are a lot of updates coming to Apple’s phones, tablets, laptops, and portable devices later this year, and I can’t wait to try them out. The public beta should be ready around late summer this year, when most people (who are willing to risk an unstable platform) can check them out.
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