Technologies

iPhone WWDC Wishes: What We Want to See Apple Include in iOS 19

Whether Apple calls it iOS 19 or iOS 26, these are some of the things we hope the tech giant brings to the iPhone next.

Apple is set to hold its Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, when the tech giant will show the world what it’s been cooking up during the past year for iOS 19 — or iOS 26 — the software that runs the iPhone. Until then, CNET’s experts have their own ideas about what Apple should bring to the iPhone.

While iOS 18 brought some useful new features to all iPhones, like RCS messaging, and Apple Intelligence to newer iPhones, we’re still taking bets on what Apple will include in iOS 19. Reports suggest Apple is planning a significant redesign of the iPhone OS, changing everything from icons, apps, menus and more. But CNET’s writers and editors have a few ideas we’d like to see in the upcoming OS. Some things we’ve asked for in the past, like customizable lock screen controls, have come to fruition, so maybe we’ll hit the mark again this year.

Here are some of the features and changes we hope Apple includes in the upcoming iOS software.

Bring split screen to the iPhone

Add a native split screen. It’s been available on Android phones and the iPad for years. But on iOS I still have to run my calculator and budget tracking note in two separate windows.

— Mike Sorrentino

Start a workout right from my iPhone

I’d like the ability to start an outdoor workout from the Fitness app on my iPhone (like I can do in Strava or Polar). That way if I forget to wear my Apple Watch or I don’t have one, I can still record my workout. The Apple Watch uses heart rate data to calculate move minutes but I don’t see why the iPhone can’t give me credit for an actual workout using other indicators like distance/pace on a run.

— Vanessa Hand Orellana

No more green bubbles, please

I’m overjoyed Apple added RCS messaging with iOS 18, but I’m going to dream big here: I’d love it if texts with Android users weren’t still green! While it’s great to be able to finally send high-resolution media and see typing indicators with folks who aren’t also using iMessage, it’s still far too easy for iPhone users to scoff at anyone turning their text thread green. End the pettiness once and for all!

— Abrar Al-Heeti

An easier way to manage unused apps

I have more apps on my iPhone than I’ll ever use, after years of installing things to try out and then forgetting about them. Shunting everything into the App Library helps get it out of mind, but that’s the app version of keeping a box of cables you think you might need some day. So I’d like a way to clean up apps, similar to how you can identify large apps in Settings > General > Storage. Let me see when I installed them, the last time I used them and be able to delete the ones I no longer want. I know this sounds fiddly but the thought of going through them all manually is exhausting, so that will never happen.

— Jeff Carlson

Searchable clipboard manager for all your copy and paste needs

I want a clipboard manager in iOS 19. The iPhone has a single copy and paste option, meaning if you copy something, and then copy something else, that first thing you copied is lost. For iOS 19, I’d love to see a searchable clipboard manager, one that has a history of all the things I’ve copied in the last hour, day, week or even month. And if I paste something, I’d like to see multiple options that I can choose from appear right at my fingertip.

— Nelson Aguilar

More customization options for all screens

I want more lock screen, home screen and Control Center customization options, please. I’d like to place my lock screen controls elsewhere on the screen so I don’t accidentally open any control — including, yes, my flashlight. Same thing with the home screen. I appreciate being able to place apps anywhere as long as they are within Apple’s oppressive grid that locks our apps into little boxes. If you have large icons — like I do — there’s an entire empty row at the bottom where it looks like apps or folders can go there but they can’t. Let us breathe the air of freedom, Apple! Please, for the love of everything good, let me move the scroll bar on the right side of the Control Center. I keep hitting it when I open the Control Center and it takes me to a page I don’t intend to be on, which makes it frustrating to use.

— Zach McAuliffe

Long press, double click and more action button triggers

Now that the Action button is on more iPhones, please add support for triggering different shortcuts with multiple presses. In its current setup, I can set the Action button to trigger one action at a time. By default it can toggle between turning on the ringer and putting your iPhone into silent mode. But there are a number of other options for it like being able to open the Camera app and take a photo or make an elaborate automation in the Shortcuts app like to use it to order coffee from Dunkin’.

But the Action button could do so much more if Apple would add support for multiple input clicks. Like it could be a toggle for ringer/silent mode with a single long press, but do something else (like turn on/off the flashlight) with a double-long press. I think this would add so much functionality to the button and as a result open it up to even more people taking more advantage of it.

— Patrick Holland

Better Log video editing tools

I want iOS 19 to add better editing tools for Log video. The ability to shoot Log footage directly on the iPhone is amazing for enthusiastic filmmakers like me but it can only be edited by transferring it off of your phone to an iPad or MacBook. I’d love to see Apple bring deeper editing tools to be able to add cinematic color grades to your Log footage directly on your iPhone.

— Andrew Lanxon

Intelligently organize photos by event in the Photos app

Okay, we’re all glad that in iOS 18 Apple improved the Photos search by adding AI image recognition to actually bring up all the images of your cats. It slightly makes up for the questionable revamped layout of photos and albums that confuses me to this day. I’d love it if in iOS 19, the Photos app had a new way to view photos: in a timeline intelligently organized by event. Say you go to the park for a birthday and have a bunch of photos clearly from the same occasion — the app prompts you to confirm they’re all connected, asks for a title and, boom, event logged. Then I could look at a vertical timeline of logged events from the past few months or years, all of which can be searched if I can’t quite remember, say, when I last went to the park. Yes, I can do this manually by making albums, but it’s the kind of fastidious labor I just can’t bring myself to keep up with. That’s what I want AI to do for me.

— David Lumb

Simple volume controls across the iPhone

Sometimes it’s the small changes that can help make for a smoother experience. I want to see Apple clean up volume controls. If I set the volume to a certain level, I want it to stay at that level for all applications. Sometimes the settings can vary depending on what you’re doing. Too often I come across the problem of lowering my volume to prepare to listen to something — but surprise! — the volume is loud again because I put in headphones and it keeps the louder setting I used the last time I listened to music in my headphones. It just leads to unnecessary frustrations, and makes users feel like they don’t really have control of their devices.

— Bridget Carey

For more on Apple, here’s what to expect from WWDC 2025 and our thoughts on the iPhone 16 Pro and iOS 18 months after their launch. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.

Technologies

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Technologies

You Can See 2 Meteor Showers at Once This Week. How to Catch a Glimpse

Reaching their full glory on the same day this week are the Alpha Capricornids and Southern Delta Aquariids meteor showers. Here’s when to look up.

While meteor showers happen all year, a rarer occurrence is having two meteor showers that peak at the same time. It’ll happen this week, on Tuesday.

The shooting star show comes courtesy of the Alpha Capricornids and Southern delta Aquariids meteor showers. The former is already happening and runs until Aug. 12, with a peak on Tuesday. Southern delta Aquariids will start on Monday, peaks early on Tuesday and runs until Aug. 12 as well. That means for one evening, the two meteor showers are peaking at the same time, giving stargazers a much better chance at catching a shooting star.

Of the two, the Southern delta Aquarids is typically the larger meteor shower, tossing upward of 25 meteors per hour during its zenith. Alpha Capricornids is a lesser meteor shower, with about five per hour on average. Combined, they’ll output an estimated 30 per hour.

See 2 meteor showers at once

Since the meteors are coming from two different points in the sky, you would think spotting meteors from both would be difficult, but that is far from the truth.

Alpha Capricornids, which hails from the 169P/NEAT comet, originates from the Capricornus constellation. It will rise from the eastern skies across the continental US around sunset and streak across the southern sky, setting in the western sky at sunrise.

For the Southern delta Aquariids, its radiant — the point from which its meteors seem to originate — is the Aquarius constellation. Aquarius is right next to Capricornus. That means it also rises out of the eastern horizon, streaks across the southern sky, and sets in the western horizon around dawn.

If you have trouble finding either of them, Stellarium’s free sky map will help you hunt them down. Set the time, date and location, and you’re off to the races. Once you find one, the other one is essentially right there next to it.

Tips on watching meteor showers

As per the norm, the tips here are the same as they are for the aurora borealis and planet parades. Light pollution and weather are your two biggest enemies. Since you can only do anything about one of those, let’s focus on light pollution. You’ll want to drive as far away from the city and suburbs as possible, as the light pollution will make it difficult to see the dimmer meteors. The farther away you are, the better, as even suburban light pollution can obfuscate most meteors.

Once out there, you just have to sit and wait. Since the constellations will move across the south as you watch, you may have to rotate your chair if you’re out there for a while. Otherwise, a pair of binoculars may help. Telescopes aren’t recommended, as they obscure your field of view and may actively obstruct your ability to see meteors.

Technologies

These Are the First FireSat Images for Finding Wildfires from Space

A new satellite program backed by Google and global nonprofits is looking to mitigate destructive fire seasons.

At Google I/O in May, Google revealed that it’s working with the Earth Fire Alliance on FireSat, a program that combines new high-resolution satellites with AI analysis to pinpoint wildfires in their earliest stages and help responders knock them down before they grow. This week the alliance released the first images captured by the initial satellite, showing how fires as small as 5-by-5 meters — about the size of a classroom — can be detected from space.

Existing satellite systems scan for fires, but at a coarser resolution. In one image from Oregon, using MWIR (Mid-Wave Infrared) heat-sensing imaging, a small roadside fire showed up as a bright speck. According to the alliance, it wasn’t detected by other space-based systems.

This example from Ontario, Canada, on June 15, 2025, shows the Nipigon 6 fire, a new blaze detected using the MWIR spectrum, but it also shows how LWIR (Long-Wave Infrared) was used to identify areas left over from a previous burn in 2020, which are heated due to a lack of vegetation. At the bottom, a false-color composite of SWIR (Short-Wave Infrared), NIR (Near-Infrared) and visible Red channels helps track the life cycle of the fire.

Currently, the Earth Fire Alliance has one protoflight satellite, built by Muon Space, aloft for testing. With three satellites in orbit, FireSat will be able to scan locations globally twice a day. And when the program is fully operational, in 2030, a network of more than 50 satellites is expected to cut that time down to 20 minutes; for areas that are more prone to fires, that interval will be every 9 to 12 minutes.

One key reason for Google’s involvement in the alliance is to sort through the massive amount of data that will be generated. Muon Space estimates that each satellite will cover 190 million square kilometers per day, and the multispectral instrument on each satellite records across six channels. With AI and software assistance from Google, the program should filter out false positives. AI is playing a larger role in fighting wildfires around the world — NASA is using its vast trove of Landsat satellite data to build predictive models of where fires are likely to erupt next.

«There are millions of things that can be mistaken for a fire,» said Chris Van Arsdale, Google Research climate and energy lead and chair of the Earth Fire Alliance board of directors. «Looking for fires becomes a game of looking for needles in a world of haystacks.»

It will also be important to prioritize fires that crews can respond to. A June 21, 2025, image of a remote area of Alaska shows a fire that wasn’t observable by ground-based sources.

In this image from Borroloola, Northern Territory, Australia from July 11, 2025, the FireSat satellite identified multiple wildfires spread over a large distance, which would help fire responders coordinate efforts.

The Earth Fire Alliance is currently working with some fire departments and other early adopters to help determine how best to parse the data and communicate with responders.

«What you’re looking at now is raw imagery that is helpful for the technologists, the scientists [and] the remote sensors,» said Kate Dargan Marquis, former California state fire marshall and senior wildfire advisor to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a main underwriter of the Earth Fire Alliance. «But for firefighters, we’ll build fire data products on this data.» That would include map-based tools with AI underpinnings to help them understand where and how they can make fire response decisions, she noted.

The data will eventually be made available for public resources, such as those used by the consumer app Watch Duty. Brian Collins, executive director of Earth Fire Alliance, explained that the current early adopter program includes pathways to determine how to disseminate the information being collected, be that through local dispatchers or other sources. «A very informed public can make decisions [such as when to prepare to evacuate] in advance of being told,» he said, adding that a public that understands fire is no longer scared of fire.

Although FireSat is still in its first stages and won’t be considered operational until three satellites are in orbit, in 2026, the initial data and imagery looks to be a promising tool for fighting wildfires around the globe.