Apple iOS 10 – definition – iOS 10 is the tenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 9. It was announced at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 13, 2016, and was released on September 13, that year. It was succeeded by iOS 11 on September 19, 2017.
iOS 10 incorporates changes to 3D Touch and the lock screen. There are new features to some apps: Messages has additional emojis and third-party apps can extend functionality in iMessage, Maps has a redesigned interface and additional third-party functions, the Home app manages “HomeKit”-enabled accessories, Photos has algorithmic search and categorization of media known as “Memories”, and Siri is compatible with third-party app-specific requests, such as starting workouts apps, sending IMs, using Lyft or Uber or to use payment functions. iOS 10 is the final version to support 32-bit devices and apps. In iOS 10.3, Apple introduced its new file system, APFS.
Reviews of iOS 10 were positive. Reviewers highlighted the significant updates to iMessage, Siri, Photos, 3D Touch, and the lock screen as welcome changes. The third-party extension support to iMessage meant it was “becoming a platform”, although the user interface was criticized for being difficult to understand. Third-party integration in Siri was “great”, although the voice assistant was criticized for not having become smarter than before. Reviewers were impressed with the image recognition technology in Photos, although noting it was still a “work in progress” with a higher error rate than the competition. 3D Touch “finally feels useful” and “works in almost every part of the OS”. The lock screen was “far more customizable than before”, and reviewers enjoyed that notification bubbles could be expanded to see more information without needing to unlock the phone.
A month after release, iOS 10 was installed on 54% of iOS devices, a “slightly slower migration” than for the release of iOS 9, speculated as being caused by an early release issue that may have “put some [users] off downloading the update”. User adoption of iOS 10 steadily increased in the following months, eventually totaling 89% of active devices in September 2017.
| A version of the iOS operating system | |
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iOS 10 running on an iPhone 7
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| Developer | Apple Inc. |
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| Source model | Closed, with open-source components |
| Initial release | September 13, 2016 |
| Latest release | 10.3.4 (14G61) / July 22, 2019 |
| Platforms |
iPhone
iPod Touch
iPad |
| Kernel type | Hybrid (XNU) |
| License | Proprietary software with open-source components |
| Preceded by | iOS 9 |
| Succeeded by | iOS 11 |
| Official website | iOS 10 – Apple at the Wayback Machine (archived September 12, 2017) |
| Support status | |
| Third-party application support | |
iOS 10.0
iOS 10 was introduced during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 13, 2016 and was released to the public on September 13, 2016.
Raise to wake added with new lock screen with gestures for accessing the camera and Today view.
Significant Messages improvements providing new effects, Tapback for quick replies, create handwritten messages and heartbeats, automatic text emojification. Messages now support apps and sticker packs.
Support for third-party VoIP for receiving calls on the Lock screen.
Portrait Camera for new iPhone 7 Plus introduced creating a depth effect.
TV app introduced, replacing the Videos app users are now presented with Up Next and recommendations.
Version History
- iOS 10.0 – 10.0.3
- iOS 10.1 – 10.1.1
- iOS 10.2 – 10.2.1
- iOS 10.3 – 10.3.3
iOS 10 Features
Messages
Expressive Messaging
- • Bubble effects let you send messages loudly, gently, slam or with invisible ink
- • Full-screen effects to celebrate special moments
- • Tapback for quick replies to messages, links, and photos
- • Handwritten messages animate like ink on paper
- • Digital Touch lets you send sketches, taps, and heartbeats
- • Tap to replace can emojify your text with just a tap
- • Rich links show a preview of web pages you share
iMessage apps
- • New App Store for iMessage
- • Use the power of apps in Messages to share and collaborate with friends
- • Download stickers to send and place on text bubbles and photos
Siri
- • Siri now works with the following types of apps
- • Messaging apps to send, search and read back text messages
- • VoIP apps to place phone calls
- • Photos apps to search for images and photos
- • Ride service apps to book rides
- • Payment apps to make personal payments
- • Fitness apps to start, stop, and pause workouts
- • CarPlay automaker apps to adjust climate, radio, seat, and personal settings
Maps
All new look
- • Proactive suggestions for places you’re likely to go next, based on your routine or appointments in Calendar
- • Improved search with new callout design, clustered results and category filters
- • Home, work, favorite locations, and locations from upcoming Calendar events are displayed on the map
- • Displays where your car is parked via CarPlay or Bluetooth
- • Weather for the currently viewed area
Extensions
- • Make a reservation within Maps using extensions from participating reservations apps
- • Book a ride to a destination within Maps using extensions from participating ride service apps
Turn-by-turn navigation improvements
- • Search along route for gas stations, food, and coffee shops
- • Automatic view adjustment of the road ahead
- • Use pan and zoom during navigation
- • Option to avoid tolls and highways
Photos
- • Advanced face recognition designed with deep learning to automatically group similar faces together
- • Object and scene recognition to intelligently search for photos by what’s in them using advanced computer vision that scans your library locally on device
- • Places album to see all your photos, videos and Live Photos on a map
- • Brilliance control applies region-specific adjustments to brightness, highlights and contrast
Memories
- Intelligently highlights forgotten events, trips, and people, and presents them in a beautiful collection
- Memory movies automatically edited with theme music, titles, and cinematic transitions
- Related memories make it easy to rediscover even more photos in your collection, based on location, time, people, scenes and objects
- Easily share with family and friends
Home
- • New Home app to securely manage and control HomeKit enabled accessories
- • Scenes to control groups of accessories with just a tap
- • Rich Notifications with quick actions to control accessories
- • Optionally share home access with family and friends
- • Remote access and automation of accessories with Apple TV or iPad
Apple Music
- • An all-new design for Apple Music brings greater clarity and simplicity to every aspect of the experience
- • Navigate your Library with an improved menu and see all of the Downloaded Music that you can play on your device while offline
- • See recommendations in For You that highlight mixes, playlists, albums, and Connect posts—selected for you based on the music and artists you love
- • Visit Browse to more easily see exclusive releases, find curated playlists, and discover the most important new releases—picked by our editors each week
- • Listen to Radio more easily—clearly see what’s live on Beats 1, hear your favorite shows on-demand, or choose a curated station for any genre of music
- • Play music with an improved Now Playing experience—swipe up to view available lyrics and quickly see or edit songs that are coming up next
Apple News
- • An all-new design in For You adds bold typography, vibrant color, and distinct sections that make it easier to find stories on specific topics
- • See the most important stories of the day within Top Stories—updated by our editors throughout the day
- • Find the most popular stories right now within Trending Stories—selected based on what others are reading
- • See all of your stories grouped into easy-to-understand sections on the topics you follow or read
- • Discover the best and most interesting stories of the week within Featured Stories—selected by our editors
- • Share stories more easily—just tap the icon on any story to send it to a friend right from For You
- • Receive breaking news notifications from some of your most trusted sources
- • Subscribe to your favorite magazines and newspapers directly in News
- • New personalized Today View widget lets you keep up with the latest stories throughout the day
Experience
- • Raise to Wake automatically wakes the screen as you raise your iPhone
- • Rich notifications that support real time information, audio, photos and videos
- • Today view is redesigned and supports all new widgets for apps like Weather, Up Next, Maps, Stocks and more
- • Control Center is redesigned with easier to access controls including dedicated cards for music playback and Home
- • Expanded use of 3D Touch
- • Lock screen notifications to support an expanded view and access to quick actions
- • New quick actions for built in apps like Weather, Stocks, Reminders, Health, Home, FaceTime, iCloud Drive and Settings
- • Home Screen widgets
- • Control Center for access to quick actions for Flashlight, Timer, Calculator and Camera
- • Clear all in Notification Center
QuickType
- • New emoji, including gender diverse options to existing characters, single parent family variations, rainbow flag and beautiful redesigns of popular emoji
- • Contextual predictions for current location, recent addresses, contact information and calendar availability using deep neural network technology
- • Emoji predictions
- • Calendar events are intelligently populated using deep learning technology with information from your conversations in Mail and Messages
- • Multi-lingual typing now lets you type in two languages at once without having to switch keyboards
- • Rest & Type on iPad intelligently adapts to your unique typing patterns
- • Predictive typing now uses deep neural network technology for greater prediction accuracy
Phone
- • Voicemail transcription (beta)
- • Spam call alerts with spam call identification apps
- • Support for third party VoIP apps receiving calls on the Lock screen, including support for Call Waiting, Mute and Do Not Disturb
Other improvements
- • Apple Pay in Safari
- • View two pages at once using Split View in Safari on iPad
- • Notes collaboration lets you invite people to work on your notes together
- • Markup support in Messages, Photos and PDFs stored in Notes
- • Bedtime Alarm in the Clock app lets you set a regular sleep schedule and receive bedtime reminders
- • Health adds support for health records and organ donation (US Only)
- • Stabilization support for Live Photos for improved camera capture
- • Live Filters support when capturing Live Photos
- • iCloud Drive now supports Desktop and Documents folders from macOS
- • Live search results in Spotlight for Chinese and Japanese
- • Siri support for Spanish (Chile), Chinese (Cantonese – China), English (Ireland), English (South Africa)
- • Ling Wai and Kaiti Black document fonts for Chinese
- • Yu Kyokasho and Toppan Bunkyu fonts for Japanese
- • New definition dictionaries in Traditional Chinese and Danish and bilingual dictionaries in Dutch and Italian
- • New keyboard for Spanish (Latin America)
Accessibility
- • Magnifier now uses the camera on your iPhone or iPad like a digital magnifying glass for real-life objects
- • New range of display color filters to support different forms of color blindness or other vision challenges
- • VoiceOver adds a Pronunciation Editor to customize the way words are pronounced, additional voices, and support for multiple audio sources
- • Additional text highlighting options in Speak Screen and Speak Selection, as well as the ability to speak keyboard letters and predictive typing suggestions to support multi-modal learning
- • Switch control now lets you control iOS, macOS and tvOS all from the same iPhone or iPad, so you don’t need to configure switches for the secondary device
- • Software TTY allows you to place and receive TTY calls without the need for traditional hardware teletypewriter accessories
iOS 10.1 Features
This update includes Portrait Camera for iPhone 7 Plus (beta), transit directions for Japan, stability improvements and bug fixes.
Camera and Photos
- • Introduces Portrait Camera for iPhone 7 Plus that creates a depth effect that keeps your subject sharp while creating a beautifully blurred background (beta)
- • People names in the Photos app are saved in iCloud backups
- • Improved the display of wide color gamut photos in the grid views of the Photos app
Maps
- • Transit support for every major train, subway, ferry, and national bus line, as well as local bus systems for Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya
- • Sign-based transit navigation including layouts of all underground structures and walkways that connect large transit stations
- • Transit fare comparison when viewing alternative transit routes
Messages
- • New option to replay bubble and full screen effects
- • Messages effects can play with Reduce Motion enabled
Apple Watch
- • Adds distance and average pace to workout summaries in the Activity app for outdoor wheelchair run pace and outdoor wheelchair walk pace
iOS 10.2 Features
iOS 10.2 introduces new features including the TV app (US Only), a new and unified experience for accessing your TV shows and movies across multiple video apps. Emoji have been beautifully redesigned to reveal even more detail and over 100 new emoji have been added including new faces, food, animals, sports, and professions. This update also includes stability improvements and bug fixes.
TV
- • Use Up Next to see the movies and shows you’re currently watching and pick up where you left off
- • Get recommendations for new movies and TV shows in Watch Now
- • Discover new apps and the latest iTunes releases in the Store
- • Access the Library for your iTunes purchases and rentals
Emoji
- • Beautifully redesigned emoji that reveal even more detail
- • Over 100 new emoji including new faces, food, animals, sports, and professions
Photos
- • Improves stabilization and delivers faster frame rate for Live Photos
- • Improves accuracy of groupings of similar photos of the same person in the People album
- • Fixes an issue where Memories might generate a memory from photos of screenshots, whiteboards or receipts
- • Fixes an issue where the camera would stay zoomed in after switching back from the Camera Roll on iPhone 7 Plus
- • Additional support for RAW digital cameras
Messages
- • Adds new love and celebration full screen effects in Messages
Music
- • Swipe up the Now Playing screen to more easily access Shuffle, Repeat and Up Next
- • Choose how to sort Playlists, Albums, and Songs in Library
News
- • Stories you’ve saved for later now appear in the new Saved section
- • The best paid stories from channels you subscribe to will now appear in a dedicated section in For You
- • It’s now easier than ever to get to the next story, just swipe left or tap Next Story while reading
- • Fixes an issue that caused the Move sheet to persist after filing a Mail message
- • Addresses an issue with long press activating copy and paste in Mail
- • Fixes an issue in which the wrong message would be selected after deleting a Mail conversation
Accessibility
- • Adds BraillePen14 support to VoiceOver
Other improvements and fixes
- • Adds notification support for HomeKit accessories including window coverings, occupancy, motion, door/window, smoke, carbon monoxide, and water leak sensors
iOS 10.3 Features
iOS 10.3 introduces new features including the ability to locate AirPods using Find My iPhone and more ways to use Siri with payment, ride booking and automaker apps.
Find My iPhone
- • View the current or last known location of your AirPods
- • Play a sound on one or both AirPods to help you find them
Siri
- • Support for paying and checking status of bills with payment apps
- • Support for scheduling with ride booking apps
- • Support for checking car fuel level, lock status, turning on lights and activating horn with automaker apps
- • Cricket sports scores and statistics for Indian Premier League and International Cricket Council
CarPlay
- • Shortcuts in the status bar for easy access to last used apps
- • Apple Music Now Playing screen gives access to Up Next and the currently playing song’s album
- • Daily curated playlists and new music categories in Apple Music
Other improvements and fixes
- • Rent once and watch your iTunes movies across your devices
- • New Settings unified view for your Apple ID account information, settings and devices
- • Hourly weather in Maps using 3D Touch on the displayed current temperature
- • Support for searching “parked car” in Maps
- • Calendar adds the ability to delete an unwanted invite and report it as junk
- • Home app support to trigger scenes using accessories with switches and buttons
- • Home app support for accessory battery level status
- • Podcasts support for 3D Touch and Today widget to access recently updated shows
- • Podcast shows or episodes are shareable to Messages with full playback support
