iOS 13: The Biggest... Disappointment?

This update was promising. With the total revamp to the "baked-in" iOS apps and the major changes to the Shortcuts app, I'll be the first to admit that my hopes were a wee bit high-strung for this release. At the time of writing this article, I'm currently rocking version 13.2.3 and... it's getting better...? Oh no, there's my high-strung hopes again.

First off... Reminders

Before I start to rant, the confession must come first. I, James Crawford, set up the Reminders app to sync to iCloud regardless of all the warnings of the forthcoming issues. There. Now that's out of the way, time to rant. Regardless, the fact that Reminders (especially recurring ones) take upwards to a minute to properly refresh once changes are made is a downside. What happened, Apple? I know the Reminders app was given a lot of new features, so I won't spend a long time on this. If any fingers need pointing, I'll just point them at myself as I had high expectations for this.

Now let's poke at Shortcuts

Shortcuts, at its core, is amazing. Ever since the launch of Shortcuts, both Siri integration & the app itself, I've been in love. Being able to write custom widget buttons with a programming style UI to quickly switch between cellular data and wi-fi, plus custom prompts for other actions, is wondrous. Being a programmer/developer myself, this functionality gets two thumbs up.

With iOS13, Shortcuts was given two adjustments: its core app now being baked into the operating system and a new automation tab. Having this app baked into the OS is no problem for me as I regularly use this app; this merely means I get more functionality to make even more fun buttons! Making personal automation(s) that run locally on my device... now that was truly enticing. I thought to myself "If this works... IFTTT will be another app I can do without!" Sadly, this is not the case. Having trigger events for date, location, connection protocols (connect/disconnect to Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices, etc) and other OS settings? I couldn't ask for anything else. Needing to tap 2 times (once on the notification, then again on "Run Automation") just to ensure the automation runs all the way through? No thank you. Automation as a concept means having a process run automatically without needing end-user input. Notifications to confirm with me to run triggered automation(s) are still end-user input, Apple.

Bugs? in iOS13? Which ones are you referring to?

Not trying to be too cynical... but seriously, which specific ones are you referring to? So far, one of the only stable things in iOS 13 is the hyped-up, overly-anticipated new feature: dark mode. At least you got this right, Apple... even though you most definitely weren't the first, you still did a solid on this one.

On the positive side, there are app improvements

One gripe I've had with the last few OS versions, mainly looking at you iOS 12, is the app background processing/refreshing. Giving an app the ability to run in the background usually implies you want said functionality. However, this wasn't always the case. Thankfully, in recent updates to iOS 13, background apps now properly refresh. In fact, they refresh so well that it's almost like these are a part of the OS as well.

Overall, I would say that iOS 13 is good, but I still wish some other things would be fixed. Some members in the tech world have already been looking forward to iOS 14 due to some of the dumpster fires we've seen in 13. Not sure what fresh adjustments Apple has in store for its upcoming iOS 14, but I'm sure we'll see new ways on how it will give us "the best iPhone ever".