It’s been a little more than 30 days since I downloaded the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS to my devices. I thought I’d take a moment to write about what’s sticking.

iOS 18 Beta

One of the features I’m using the most comes from a decision Apple is making possible on the Lock Screen; the ability to swap out the Flashlight and Camera controls for literally, whatever you want. I’ve put my alarm system app and Messages in on either side of “Swipe up to Open.” Having the alarm system app in the bottom left corner of my Lock Screen has been a game changer; making it so much easier to arm, disarm, lock and unlock things. Having the Messages app in the bottom right corner makes it easier to access the # 1 app that I was going to when I swiped up to open.

iPadOS 18 Beta

Not much has been done with this beta so I’ll share something that you can do both here and on iOS. Scheduling Messages in the Messages app has been a very helpful thing to do. I’ve done this more on my iPhone but it’s nice to know that it can be done on my iPad Pro.

watchOS 11 Beta

There are 2 things that I am loving on the watch. Using the Digital Crown to rank the Effort of my workouts has helped me evolve from the barbarian I was; poking at the scale with my fat index finger in the hopes of assigning a score to the sophisticate that merely needs to rotate the Digital Crown getting it right every single time. The last thing I’m loving is the addition of a Training Bezel to the Modular Ultra watch face. This addition has eliminated the need to have a Training widget or Vitals complication as the information is just enough to know that I am “Steady” or “Above” with my training or “Typical” with my Vitals.