If iPhone X is the future, then iOS is the vehicle to take us to the. Apple's latest iPhone features all sorts of small changes to iOS that make up for the lack of a home button and camera notch, but for the most part, iOS on iPhone X is not that different than it is on iPhone 8.

In fact, if the iPhone X shows us anything, it is that iOS is a little behind. Apple has done well to refresh it with new gestures and animations, but compared to the sleek curves and OLED display on the iPhone X, iOS looks less modern than ever. And if the iPhone X is truly going to lead Apple in the next 10 years, then iOS will have to be three steps ahead. Here there is 10 ways iOS 12 can get the ball rolling:

1. Dark mode

The iPhone X would be impressive with a true iOS dark mode. As we can see on Apple Watch, a dark theme takes full advantage of the OLED features, blurring the lines between glass and screen, and giving the illusion of an infinite screen. Apple might recommend iPhone X as "full screen," but it actually has a pretty thick bezel. We can simulate it with the Invert Colors option in the accessibility settings, but a true dark mode in iOS would remove the visual barrier between the screen and the bezel and make it look like you're holding a piece of glass edge-to-edge.

2. Expand the scope of Face ID

Face ID is very impressive on the iPhone X, but it's not perfect. Much like the debut of Touch ID on the iPhone 5s, Face ID is largely a work in progress and Apple surely will improve speed and reliability of this on future iPhones. 

3. More functionality

OK, we'll admit it: the camera notch isn't as bad as we thought it would be. Although it still looks a bit silly in the pictures, in practice it is not that annoying, and in the right cases, it's actually cool. But one thing's for sure: it's not going away anytime soon. So if that's the case, we'd like Apple to add even more functionality to the spaces around the notch, turning the status bar into a fully interactive space that eliminates the need to open the Control Center so often. 

4. Let's slide anywhere to unlock

There's no doubt that at some point in the future our iPhones will automatically jump to the home screen as soon as we look at them, but until that day comes, we still have to swipe up. The problem is that it must slide from the bottom of the screen where the home indicator is. We often forget, which means we have to swipe twice to unblock. Like Apple removed the bar in iOS 7 and let us slide anywhere to get to the access code screen, the ability to swipe up in the center of the screen would save literally hundreds of seconds every day.

5. Always-on display

Now that Apple is finally using OLED in an iPhone and can take advantage of its power-saving benefits, the time has come for an always-on display. A flagship products staple Android for years, it's an amazing handy feature, displaying things like time, battery percentage, and notifications, with no need to do more than glance at your phone. 

6. Double tap on the screen to turn it off.

Without the Home button, the only way to turn on the iPhone X screen is to press the side power button, so Apple gave us a cool gesture: tap to wake up. But only works when screen is off. To turn off the screen, we still need to press the power button. 

7. Put the apps in a drawer

It sure would be nice if we could hide our apps in a drawer in iOS 12. We've been hating the icon network for years, but on iPhone X it's downright criminal. With such a bright screen, we want see our entire home screen image, but Apple still forces us to saturate our screen with icons. It is time for Apple to give us the option to keep them hidden as it happens in the drawer in Android, showing the iPhone X screen in all its splendor.

8. A smarter unlocking

We can debate the merits of Face ID versus Touch ID all day, but the bottom line is that we shouldn't have to unlock our phones every time we want to use them. On Android phones, you can keep your phone unlocked when connected to trusted Wi-Fi networks or using certain Bluetooth devices and a similar feature would be awesome on iOS.

9. Fix keyboard

The keypad on Phone X has a lot of wasted space. iPhone X may give us more screen to work with, but when you are typing a message or email, actually you don't get any space benefit compared to the iPhone 8 Plus. That's because Apple chose to place the keyboard with considerable space below it so as not to interfere with the home prompt. Every pixel on the iPhone X is valuable, and it's a shame to have so much white space.

10. Bring iPad-style multitasking

iOS 10 brought some serious multitasking capabilities to the iPad, but it no longer needs to be relegated to tablets. Now that the iPhone X's screen measures almost six inches, we should be able to run two applications comfortably at the same time. Or use a PIP window and drag and drop. The iPhone X's giant screen and gesture-based navigation open it up to a myriad of multitasking possibilities, and iOS 12 needs to be incorporated.