Apple's iOS 12.1 Is Out Tomorrow and Will Include Group FaceTime

iOS 12.1will feature: Group FaceTime, Dual SIM support, new emojis, and more.

General view of customers at the Apple Covent Garden re opening.
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LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 26: General view of customers at the Apple Covent Garden re-opening and iPhone XR launch at Apple store, Covent Garden on October 26, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

General view of customers at the Apple Covent Garden re opening.

Apple's iOS 12.1 will be available on October 30 (tomorrow), according to Apple themselves. The new release will bring with it a previously delayed Group FaceTime feature and (on a lesser note) 70 new emojis that add previously unavailable icons for hairstyles, food, and animals for the iPhone and iPad.

That Group FaceTime option will allow you to converse with up to 32 people at a time, and will also automatically bring up video of whomever is speaking. In a feature that could be helpful, while making more paranoid people nervous, Group FaceTime will also auto-size each person's image based around how frequently they're talking, how much they're talking, how loud they're talking, and how much they're moving. Those not talking will be at the bottom of the screen until they pipe up, which seems like a good metaphor for life.

As Apple's press release states:

Group FaceTime is integrated into the Messages app, making it easy to start a Group FaceTime right from a group iMessage chat. If people in a conversation have already started a FaceTime session, Messages shows the active call in the conversation list and inside your conversations. 

As for other features—in addition to the aforementioned emojis—you will now have more control over the depth of field effect on portraits. Plus owners of iPhone X's, iPhone XS's and iPhone X's will get Dual SIM support (though you'll have to have an eSIM friendly carrier). If you need help setting that up this might help. Other than that, just wait until tomorrow.

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