Apple held its World Wide Developers Conference earlier this week at their Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. This year’s event included the announcement of severalnew software featurescoming to iOS 18, as well as anative password manager appand long-awaitedAI integrationsthat Apple is calling “Apple Intelligence.” However, though AI got the spotlight and was the focus of much of the social media chatter, one update that may have gotten lost in the mix was the news that “Game Mode” will be making its way to iOS. This was welcome news for mobile gamers who want to leverage the processing power of more recent iPhone generations to enjoy some of the incredible mobile games that are coming out for the platform.
What is iOS game mode?
How to get the best performance from your iPhone games
Game Mode was first launched last year as a feature on MacOS Sonoma as a way to prioritize CPU and GPU power for gaming applications. The goal being to reduce the computing power being used by other applications in the background and focus your Macs resources on your game. Game Mode on iOS 18 will work similarly, pausing background activity, including notifications, to focus your iPhone’s processing power on your mobile game.
This new feature should lead to improved frame rates and stability when playing graphically intensive mobile games. As a side effect of pausing or slowing a lot of background processes, users might also experience improved battery life while gaming compared to playing without Game Mode.
Solving the Bluetooth accessory problem
Making your button mashes more accurate
In keeping in mind the performance of various gaming peripherals, Game Mode will double the Bluetooth polling rate which will help reduce lag on gaming controllers, and audio latency on recent generation Airpods. Apple also says it will be adding “Personalized Spatial Audio” which will enable “game developers to create an immersive soundstage, putting players in the middle of the action like never before.”
As Apple continues to push for gaming on iOS and iPadOS to be taken more seriously, new features like Game Mode will go a long way to convince skeptical would-be adopters into giving gaming on their latest iPhone a real shot, especially as Apple fosters partnerships with game companies like Ubisoft to contionue to bring AAA titles to the platform.
Your iPhone probably can’t run Apple Intelligence
Unless you own an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, you’ll miss out on some of the best features of iOS 18.
