Photo: Michael Murtaugh

Last week’s big tech news? Apple is getting on board with AI. The company plans to differentiate its AI tools (called Apple Intelligence—get it?) by making them available across your Apple devices when iOS 18 rolls out publicly this fall. Here’s what our tech experts are most excited about:

Siri may finally be able to understand you better. Siri is notorious for misunderstanding queries or providing useless answers. With iOS 18, it’s getting an AI boost, which means it may understand your voice commands with more accuracy.

Edit your photos with ease: Apple’s new photo cleanup tool will be able to remove people and objects from the background of your pictures. (Yep, Android phones—like our top pick—have had this feature for a long time.)

Make your own emojis. Generative AI will allow you to make your own unique emoji for any occasion. Think: a dinosaur wearing a tutu on a surfboard. We’re not quite sure what occasion would warrant that particular emoji, but hey—to each their own.

And a few non-AI updates worth noting:

Fully customize your home screen. You’ll be able to give app icons custom colors and place them anywhere on the screen. Senior staff writer Max Eddy says, “AI might grab all the attention, but with these features, iOS will never look the same.”

A whole new world of texting: iOS 18 will let you send tapbacks with any emoji, instead of just today’s defaults, like “ha ha”, exclamation, and heart. You’ll also be able to animate text with new effects—and bold or strike through text to emphasize what you’re saying. Oh, and you’ll finally be able to schedule texts to send later. Whoa.

Everything we’re looking forward to with iOS 18→

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Photo: Michael Hession

A good iPhone case does more than just offer protection against scratches, dings, and cracks. It also allows you to personalize your phone, often without adding much bulk or changing how you use your device. After testing hundreds of iPhone cases, we’ve landed on 15 great winners.

Protect your phone→

Photo: Connie Park

One of our five favorite laptop backpacks, we’ve found the Troubadour to be surprisingly ergonomic for something so elegant and polished. And it’s thoughtfully organized, inside and out—with a roomy main compartment, an organizer panel with several pockets and pouches, and a padded laptop compartment.

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