Apple's latest next version of its iPhone software, iOS 13, will speed up phones, the company has claimed, saying apps will launch up to twice as fast. "Nothing is more important to our iPhone users than performance," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, while announcing the new software on Monday at the firm's annual developer conference in San Jose, California. Federighi said app updates in iOS 13 would be up to 50% smaller with 60% fewer updates and the new system would speed up other tasks, too, such as Face ID facial recognition unlocking the iPhone XS 30% faster. The big crowd pleaser, however, appeared to be the introduction of Apple's system-wide "dark mode", which turns the user interface from black text on a white background to white text on a black background, as has become popular in a variety of apps. Dark mode reduces eye strain in low light conditions and saves battery power on top-end smartphones because black pixels on OLED screens – such as those on the iPhone X and XS – consume no power.