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What's up guys, Stephen Culls of Mac here and with less than one week to go till the
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2018 WWDC keynote, Apple has dropped its general release of iOS 11.4
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While you might have seen all of my previous videos guiding you through all of the betas
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I wanted to give you one final overview of everything that's new in iOS 11.4
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Let's get started. So there's a couple of new big features in iOS 11.4 that Apple have teased for a long time
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Firstly, there's messages in the cloud. iMessage syncing was already pretty good, but it had its limits
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One is that if you set up a new device, then you would not be able to see any of your old messages or conversations
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Another is if you deleted a message on one device, it would still be present on others
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iCloud Sync for Messages fixes all of these problems as it now stores them all in one
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central spot, the same way the iCloud photo library works. The best thing about this is, if you're a serial messenger, storing your messages in
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the cloud could save a ton of space. If you already have two-factor authentication enabled on your iCloud account, then messages
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in iCloud will probably be enabled by default. Once you've got iOS 11.4 installed, you can check by going to settings, tapping the
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banner at the top of the settings app with your name on it, then iCloud and looking at the list of services you have enabled
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Within there, there's a new entry for messages where you can toggle it on or off. On top of keeping your messages organised across all of your iOS devices, messages in
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the cloud also helps if you restore your iPhone from a backup in the cloud or if you set up
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a new iPhone or iPad. The same way it would bring all of your apps, emails, calendars and so on
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The next big update is the addition of AirPlay 2, which brings multi-room audio capabilities
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as well as HomePod stereo pairing. AirPlay 2 brings multi-room functionality to any of your compatible devices such as
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HomePods, Apple TVs, along with certain Sonos and Name speakers to name just two
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If you're interested to see what speakers are compatible, I'll leave a link in the description to a list Apple has put on their website
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In addition to multi-room, AirPlay also allows you to stereo pair two HomePods together for
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left and right channels, which is a feature many HomePod owners have been waiting for
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since its release. You can set up a stereo pair in the Home app as long as they've been updated
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Unfortunately, I've only got one HomePod at this moment in time so I can't try that out
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Speaking of the HomePod, there's also new Siri commands so you can say, play the latest episode of the cult cast in the bedroom
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So Siri can now work with rooms and speakers you've set up within the Home app
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The HomePod also now supports the Calendar app which is super handy
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While iOS 11.4 only really has two new features, they are very welcome additions that have
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been well worth the wait. As always, there's also bug fixes and improvements in performance
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For example, a lot of people have been saying that Face ID is quicker on the iPhone X now
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which isn't something I've noticed but if you've already got iOS 11.4 on your iPhone
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X and you have noticed a change, let me know in the comments section down below
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And there's also some new wallpapers for the product red iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
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Apple has already gone ahead and released a developer beta of iOS 11.4.1 but there appears
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to be no noticeable changes, making it likely to be further bug fixes and speed improvements
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perhaps even for the slightly older iOS devices. Well, that's it for this video, thank you guys for watching
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If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and hit that like button, subscribe if you haven't
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already and I'll catch you in the next one
