iOS 12: New Apple iPhone software to make devices faster, rather than bring new features

Apple has been repeatedly criticised for new updates short changing users and slowing down phones

Apple’s new iPhone software will speed up its handsets – even when they are old.

The company has been repeatedly criticised for the fact that new operating systems often bring new features but slow down the phones that use it. Now its new software will vastly upgrade performance, it has said.

The company said that the development of iOS 12 will see it “double down on performance” to make the phones “faster and more responsive”.

That will apply even to older phones, it said. The new software will be available on every iPhone or iPad than can run iOS 11 – making this launch its biggest ever, it said.

Older phones will see vast performance increases with the new software, it said. It had focused particularly on those phones, which have often drastically slowed down when new operating systems are released.

On the iPhone 6 Plus, for instance, apps will be able to launch up to 40 per cent faster, said Apple software chief Craig Federighi. The camera will open as much as 70 per cent faster.

But Apple’s keenest focus will be on ensuring that phones perform well when they are under high loads, and so iOS 12 is being subjected to stress tests, it said.

In such situations, apps can launch twice as fast, Apple said.

Apple will also bring a whole host of new features to iOS 12, including updates to its augmented reality tools and changes to apps like Apple News. But it said that the changes to performance were such that it would be happy to introduce it to the word even if there were no new features being added.