iOS 13.5 Released – Here Is What’s New Including Faster Unlock for Faces With Masks

Apple iOS 13.5 Release – Appeared as one of the good news among all bad ones during this Covid-19 outbreak. It is being considered as one of the most important iOS updates ever released, by Apple.

Apple finally delivered the long-awaited iOS 13.5 Release on the 20th of May, 2020. Everyone is so excited to know about the new features added to it and how it is upgraded to the new iOS release. Let us see what is special in the bucket and all the other details about this iOS 13.5 design. Before diving deep into the details, let us take a small tour of the basic info about this release.

iOS 13.5 Release- Introduction

iOS is a mobile Operating System that has been developed by Apple. It was developed for devices like iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc. There have been several updates in the iOS versions from time to time. Among them, twelve major releases have come before this iOS 13.5 design.

The new iOS update-iOS 13.5 release has been the topic of discussion from the past few times. Putting all the guessings on a stand, the release has finally come on the 20th of May this year for the general public, with some really interesting features in it.

As the iOS 13.5 Release came in May 2020 after its previous Major release back in September 2019, there have been so many changes in the features. Let us know all about it, starting right from the iOS 13.5 features.

iOS 13.5 Features

The iOS 13.5 design includes these major features- Exposure Notification API, Face ID enhancement, Face Time, and Some emergency services along with some bug fixes.

• Exposure Notification API
  One of the most important iOS 13.5 features added in this version developed collaboratively by Apple and Google with the guidance of public health authorities. The feature would help in providing Covid-19 Contact tracing API to the apps developed by the state health agencies.
  Through this feature, iPhone users can share their random IDs with the nearby devices and also collect the former person IDs. These IDs enable an app to notify the user if the former person is exposed to COVID-19. 
  The best part with it is that The users can also share their COVID-19 diagnosis anonymously and it does not expose your privacy as the identity(only a few) or location details are never shared. Users can even disable this feature in their devices if they don’t feel comfortable. 
• FaceID And Passcode
  The next feature came as FaceID Enhancements and proved to be very essential in this current pandemic. Under this, the unlock process of the devices with Face ID has been simplified and speed up. Now users can unlock their devices even using their Masked faces using the passcode.
  The passcode field automatically appears while swapping up from the bottom of the LockScreen to log in if the user is wearing a mask. Not only the devices but it also helps in authenticating apps like Apple Pay, iTunes, App Store, etc with the Face ID unlock feature.
• Face Time
  This feature has been added particularly for group Face time calls. This allows users to control automatic prominence on the Group Face Time calls, so that when the user/participant speaks the video tiles’ size does not get changed.
  To enable this feature- Go to Settings > Face Time. Find the “Automatic Prominence” option. Enable/disable the toggle for “Speaking” according to you.
• Emergency Services
  The emergency services have the option of allowing the users to automatically share their health and other essential information with the emergency services from their Medical ID when they place an emergency call. However, this feature is available only for users in the United States.
• Bug Fixes
  The other major iOS 13.5 features that were added, include some of the bugs fixes from previous versions, and also the enhancements were done. It fixes the issue of seeing a black screen when a user tries to play some streaming videos from the websites. The next fix is done with the issue in the share sheets where suggestions and actions do not load.

So these were the iOS 13.5 features added in this version. These will improve the user experience with the device for sure and also help in getting notified about the medical issues such as exposure of COVID-19.

Let us head out to the next section to see what are the other things to know about iOS 13.5 design, especially how much it is different from its predecessors.

How iOS 13.5 Release Is Different From Its Predecessor

As of now, we have seen what iOS 13.5 design is, along with its features and how it is used for Faster Unlock for Masked Faces. Now let’s see, how it is different from its previous versions. 

How iOS 13.5 Release Is Different From Its Major Release Of iOS 12?

As the release of iOS 13.5 design is very huge, let’s see how it is different from the last release of iOS 12, which is iOS 12.4.7. 

1. 1. Upgrade in Performance: The iOS 13.5 design supports up to 30% faster Face ID unlock in iPhone XS, iPhone X, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR as compared to iOS 12.
      The reason behind unlocking iPhone faster, using face id is that the latest iOS 13.5 release involves an intermediate process that creates an automatic face mask filter on the users’ face to enable Apple’s facial recognition technology to work faster.
      In Apple’s facial recognition technology, the Face ID feature requires only eyes, nose, and mouth to be visible in order to unlock the phone.
   2. Dark Mode: The iOS 13 has the Dark Mode feature which changes the complete look of the operating system. It darkens everything from wallpaper to the built-in Apple apps. The dark mode of iOS 13 offers to save the battery also. The dark mode feature is not available in the iOS 12 version.
   3. Add-ons in Augmented Reality features: Through iOS 12 release Apple users experience AR in three different ways, that are shared AR experience, persistence AR, and object-image detection dynamically using AR. But the iOS 13.5 release adds a few more features to it.
      Using AR, developers can now integrate people’s movement into their apps. This way of tracking people’s activity on their phone is called Motion Capture. Next, the People Occlusion feature enables a user to experience AR immersively as it makes the AR content that appears naturally in front of or behind them and its fun green screen-style applications.
   4. Memoji: In iOS 12 release, the Memoji enables users to communicate with their friends and family in more interactive ways via personalized Memoji characters which are customizable and funny. Whereas the iOS 13.5 release upgrades the Memoji customization by adding customized eyeshadow and blush to just get the right look as desired. It also added 30 more hairstyles, earrings, glasses along with 15 new headwears. This iOS release generates Memoji’s and Animoji’s sticker packs automatically using which users can express a range of emotions while messaging.
   5. Siri Shortcuts for Apps: The iOS 12 release enables Siri to run apps Shortcuts by using the user’s voice. These apps’ shortcuts feature allows users to create custom Shortcuts for assigning frequent tasks to the apps. Some of the apps supporting Siri Shortcuts are Kayak, Instacart, Tile, Hotels.com, and Lose it!. Whereas the iOS 13.5 release added the Siri Shortcuts to automation.
   6. Privacy and Security: Through iOS 12 release, Safari blocks social media “Like” and “Share” buttons and stops them from tracking users without permission with the help of its enhanced Intelligent Tracking Prevention tool.
      Safari also creates an autofill automatically and stores strong passwords there, whenever the user creates a new online account along with flag reused password, so that the user can change them later. Whereas the iOS 13.5 release allows the user to grant app permission, to access their location or not anytime.
      It also sends users the notification if any app is using their location in the background. With this release, the user can control to share location while sharing photos. While using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth it prevents apps from accessing the user’s location without their permission by changing API.

How iOS 13.5 release is different from its Minor Release of iOS 13.4?

Since both the iOS 13.4 and iOS 13.5 releases are the subversion of iOS 13, some features are upgraded from iOS 13.4 to iOS 13.5 design, and a few new features are also added. The difference in both of these releases includes mainly the features added in iOS 13.5. Let us recall the differences/features in some more detail-

1. Face ID and Passcode: Since both of these versions are released during this COVID-19 epidemic where everyone has to wear masks. While wearing the mask they can’t use Face ID to unlock their devices, so to unlock their device’s user needs to move to the passcode field. In iOS 13.5 release passcode field is presented automatically after swiping the lock screen bottom to top.
   This also works with apps like App Store, Apple Pay, iTunes, Apple Books, etc that support Face ID authentication.
2. API for exposure notification: iOS 13.5 release is the first version of Apple and Google’s COVID-19 contact tracing API. Through this feature, iPhone’s users can share their random IDs with the nearby devices and also collect their IDs. These IDs enable an app to notify the user if he/she may have been exposed to COVID-19. The users can also share their COVID-19 diagnosis anonymously.
3. FaceTime: This option is added in iOS 13.5 release to allow users to control their prestige on Group FaceTime calls. Due to this feature participant’s video tiles cannot change their size while the participant speaks. This feature is not available in any of the earlier versions of iOS.
4. Emergency Services: A feature to share the user’s health information with emergency services is added to iOS 13.5 release. Using this, user can automatically share their health report with emergency services from their Medical ID when they place an emergency call (This is available only in the US).

How BIG Is The iOS 13.5 Release Update?

The iOS 13.5 release is huge because of the major features which are really essential for this time period added to it along with upgrading some of the previous features. The major features are already explained in the above section but we are mentioning them to have a whole idea about the recent topic “How big is the Update?”.

We will also include the minor changes others than the major ones, which makes this release so different and huge.

1. Face ID and Passcode: During the COVID-19 epidemic iOS 13.5 design came up with the feature to meet with the demand, in which the device automatically presents the passcode field if the user is wearing a mask in order to log in to the device. 
2. Exposure Notifications: The iOS 13.5 release is the first version in which Apple and Google collaboratively work to allow apps created by local health authorities to detect users exposed to COVID-19.
3. Group FaceTime call: This feature of the iOS 13.5 design controls the automatic increase in the video tiles size while the user is speaking. Before this release of iOS, the video tile of the speaker gets enlarged automatically. But now it can be controlled by the “Automatic Prominence” option available in the FaceTime app Settings section.
4. Medical Emergency: Through this release, the user now can share the Medical ID Information with emergency services in case they need to place an emergency call. Now users can also keep the Medical ID information on the lock screen when the iPhone is locked.
5. Sharing song directly as Instagram Stories: The iOS 13.5 design allows Apple Music users to share the songs directly as Instagram stories in which it shows song title, album name along with the animated background.
6. Bug Fixes: iOS 13.5 comes with two major fixes. The first one deals with the black screen that appears when users try to play streaming videos from some websites and the second one fixes the issue of the shared sheet in which suggestions and actions would not get loaded.
   

Future Aspects of iOS 13.5 Release

Some features of the iOS 13.5 release such as Exposure Notifications for API, Face ID and Passcode, and Medical ID sharing will be helpful in the future also.

The Exposure Notification for API feature among the iOS 13.5 features might also be helpful in detecting people having exposure to some type of epidemic like COVID-19.

Whenever you are out of the house and wearing a mask, It will be possible that you could unlock the iPhone having Face ID unlock, using the passcode.

Any type of medical support is always helpful. So, whenever a user needs to make an emergency call, it will be helpful to automatically share the health and other essential information of the user, from their Medical ID with emergency services.

Latest Updates In iOS 13

The latest update in the iOS 13 version i.e iOS 13.5.1 came recently on June 1, 2020, which is a stable release that came after iOS 13.5. If we talk about the changes, there are not many changes done in the 13.5.1 from iOS 13.5 features. It just added some important security updates such as Patches CVE-2020-9859.

This is related to memory consumption exposure and can be used by applications using the kernel privileges to execute the arbitrary codes. To know about these security updates in detail, you can refer to Apple’s iOS 13 updates webpage.

The most recent update came on June 9, 2020, that is the beta release, 13.6 beta 2. It was renamed to iOS 13.6 Beta 2 after the recently canceled iOS version iOS 13.5.5. Beta 2 added some new Health features like a new section ‘Symptoms’  in the Health app.

Also, there are some minor changes done in its Automatic Updates section including the extension of the COVID-19 exposure notification feature to more regions and states. The changes are still going on and the list is not completed yet.

Conclusion

The iOS 13.5 release has finally come on the 20th of May this year for the general public, with some really interesting features in it.

The major iOS 13.5 features include Face ID and Passcode, Exposure Notification for API created by Apple and Google together to allow local health authorities to create COVID-19 contact tracing app, to detect people whoever come in contact with this virus, and also the Mobile IDs, sharing Apple music directly as an Instagram story, and so on.

Some other features that are added to the iOS 13 include-

• Dark Mode (which was not available in the iOS 12)
• Improved System Performance, as the iPhone gets unlock 30% faster than before
• More features like Motion Capture, People Occlusion are added to already available shared AR experience
• Persistent AR, and detection of objects and images using AR dynamically
• Sticker packs of Memoji and Animoji are generated automatically to express yourself while messaging, and so on.

In the future some of the updates of the iOS 13.5 features such as Exposure Notification, Face ID, and Passcode, sharing health-related information of the user’s stored along with Medical ID on the lock screen with the emergency services, etc will be helpful. Besides these, there came a new minor update in iOS 13 i.e 13.5.1, including some security updates and also a beta release 13.6 beta 2, with some new Health features.

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