Paul Morris on April 7, 2018, 11:36 pm

iOS 12 Concept Demos Lock Screen Complications, System-wide Dark Mode, Much More [Video]

It’s only a matter of weeks until Apple officially lifts the covers from iOS 12 and introduces the next-generation of its mobile platform to an array of engaged developers.

We already have an inkling that Apple will focus on stability and usability improvements rather than an overhaul of features but this brand new iOS 12 concept imagines what iOS 12 would be like if Apple did bring at least some improvements.

This particular iOS 12 concept has been pulled together by Andrew Vega, Maximos Angelakis, and iupdateos, and looks to try and show their combined vision for what Apple could theoretically introduce with iOS should it want to make changes.

For those who may want to immediately see what this concept is all about it also comes with a tagline of “Smarter. Faster. Darker”, which goes some way to letting us into the thinking of all of all of the parties involved. From a feature perspective, we’re looking at a system-wide dark mode, lock screen enhancements, and the much talked about group FaceTime experience.

One of the main parts of this concept is the idea that Apple could introduce an always-on display that would be akin to some of the more premium Android-powered devices. Rather than having the display activated constantly and showing all of the information on the device, this would be to allow a user to instantly see pertinent information, such as the time, date, and weather conditions in the local area.

The team also believes that iOS could benefit from lock screen complications that would allow a user to see pre-defined information directly on the lock screen in a similar fashion to how Apple Watch works.

One of the potential inclusions which are likely to appeal to the widest subset of users is the potential system-wide dark mode. This is something that iPhone and iPad users have been crying out for over the last few years. Apple currently offers a dark mode of sorts through the Accessibility Smart Invert feature, but this is by no means a complete dark mode that appeases those users.

All of these features are a great idea in practice, and you should definitely check out the video for yourself to see them in action. However, it’s far more likely that the announcement of iOS 12 will be an extremely timid affair without much going on in the way of design and feature improvements.