- Apple adds a 'desi' touch to its newest iOS 18 with some India-specific features.
- Siri gains Multilingual support, the Translation app supports Hindi, Lock Screen supports multiple Indian languages & numerals, Live Voicemail transcription supports Indian English accent, and there's a Multilingual keyboard for iPhone 12 or newer models.
- These features will arrive with the stable version of iOS 18.
The latest iOS 18 is unarguably one of the biggest and most ambitious updates by Apple. With Home Screen Customization, a revamped Control Center, a redesigned Photos app, a Customizable Lock Screen, and a new Passwords app, iPhone users are bound to get a fresh experience inside-out. Interestingly, that’s not all. For Indian users, Apple bestows a ‘desi’ touch upon its newest iOS 18 to enhance the iPhone experience with some India-specific features.
Apple introduced some quality-of-life features like Hindi support for the Translation app, new Indian fonts and numerals, and a multilingual Siri. If you’ve got an iOS 18 compatible device, you’ll get to enjoy these extended features when Apple launches the stable version of iOS 18 in the fall.
India-exclusive iOS 18 Features
- iOS 18 users can customize time on the lock screen using Indian numerals from 12 different languages, including Arabic, Arabic Indic, Bangla, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Meitei, Odia, Ol Chiki, and Telugu. Also, users can change the font color and weight to fine-tune their Contact Posters.
- Apple finally extends support for Hindi to the Translate app, Safari webpages, and other system-wide translation features like the Notes app.
- The latest iOS 18 supports an Indian English accent for Live Voicemail transcription, along with Live Caller ID, smart call history search, and a new phone keyboard experience.
- Apple’s iOS 18 adds support for a Multilingual keyboard for iPhone 12 or newer models. This feature will be integrated across the entire system. That’s not all. There’s support for alphabetical keyboard layouts for 11 Indian languages, including Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
- Siri already got a big boost with iOS 18. And now, with India-specific features, Siri can reply back in Hindi and gain Multilingual support for 9 more Indian languages.
- The Move to iOS app has become faster & more reliable. You can now transfer data from Android to iPhone wirelessly or with a cable.
- Apple also adds support for select Indian languages for language search in iOS 18. This will allow users to find words using familiar spellings. If a word has multiple spellings within the same language, it can be looked up regardless of which spelling is typed. Supported languages include Assamese, Bangla, Devanagari, and Gujarati.
These are some of the India-exclusive iOS 18 features coming later this year with the stable version. It’s nice to see Apple showering some love to its Indian iPhone superfans. Now, we just wish to see Apple Pay coming to India.
Do you find these additions useful? Don’t forget to drop your views in the comments below.
