Final week, a French regulatory group successfully leaked an October 24 launch date for iOS 17.1 — a date by which Apple had dedicated to releasing a repair for a European iPhone 12 compliance situation. Immediately, proper on monitor, Apple has launched the ultimate Launch Candidate (RC) of iOS 17.1 to builders in preparation for the broader public launch subsequent week.
Apple’s launch candidates sometimes come out a few week earlier than the ultimate public launch to offer builders some lead time to check their apps in opposition to the ultimate model earlier than it goes out far and large. Barring any show-stopping bugs — which has virtually by no means occurred in Apple’s 14-year historical past of iOS beta releases — the RC model turns into the precise public launch.
Therefore, these RC variations additionally embrace Apple’s launch notes, giving us an advance peek on the official listing of what’s coming in iOS 17.1. Whereas most of what’s there has already been unearthed by of us like us poking by way of the earlier developer betas, there are nonetheless a few surprises in retailer, significantly within the space of bug fixes.
New Options Coming in iOS 17.1
Though we’ll have to attend till a minimum of iOS 17.2 earlier than we see all of the options Apple has promised for iOS 17, the iOS 17.1 launch brings a minimum of one important new characteristic to AirDrop together with a part of Apple’s greater plans for Apple Music.
AirDrop
When Apple unveiled iOS 17 in June, it introduced two huge enhancements to AirDrop. First was the flexibility to start out an AirDrop switch by holding two iPhones close to one another; this was paired with a brand new NameDrop characteristic that mechanically affords to switch contact data when nothing else is chosen.
The second was the flexibility to proceed bigger AirDrop transfers over the Web, so that you don’t have to remain in vary to complete sending an extended 4K video to somebody, as an illustration.
Whereas proximity AirDrop and NameDrop have been obtainable in iOS 17.0, AirDrop transfers over the Web was listed as a kind of “coming later this 12 months” options. The excellent news is that we gained’t have to attend for much longer, as iOS 17.1 will unlock this. Plus, watchOS 10.1, which ought to be launched on the similar time, will add NameDrop functionality to the Apple Watch.
Music
We’re nonetheless ready on Collaborative Playlists in Apple Music, however iOS 17.1 brings another new toys for music followers, together with favorites, cowl artwork collections, and music strategies.
Favorites replaces the previous coronary heart icon with a star, but it surely additionally expands past simply loving songs; now you possibly can mark albums and playlists as favorites, and also you’ll lastly be capable of use a filter to show the favourite objects in your library.
Apple has additionally offered a pleasant library of summary cowl artwork collections to spruce up your playlists. As the discharge notes point out, these additionally “change colours to mirror the music in your playlist.”
Lastly, you’ll now discover a new set of music strategies on the backside of every of your playlists, with 5 objects that match the “vibe of your playlist.” You may rapidly preview these — even with out dropping your home whereas listening to a playlist — and for those who like them, you possibly can add them with the faucet of the plus button on the proper aspect. There’s additionally a refresh button within the high nook to offer you 5 extra picks.
It is a surprisingly enjoyable new characteristic I’ve already been utilizing for the previous few weeks to spherical out my playlists.
StandBy
As we discovered within the second iOS 17.1 beta, Apple has added new choices to assist these of us with always-on-display-equipped iPhones (the iPhone 14 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional fashions) have extra management over when the show turns off.
Relatively than merely toggling whether or not or to not use the always-on show, iOS 17.1 now offers you a 3rd choice to by no means flip the show off when your iPhone is propped up on a charger in StandBy mode. That is solely obtainable in case you have an iPhone with an always-on show; in any other case, your display will nonetheless flip off after 20 seconds.
Different Fixes and Enhancements in iOS 17.1
Apple’s launch notes listing one other listing of small however notable enhancements in iOS 17.1, together with extra customizable Picture Shuffle lock screens that may allow you to select images from a particular album — a welcome change for individuals who discover Apple’s sensible albums to be a bit too random.
The notes additionally point out that iOS 17.1 “addresses a difficulty the place customized and bought ringtones might not seem as choices to your textual content tone,” however sadly, it doesn’t enhance the default app notification sound or present any manner to decide on a customized one.
All iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 fashions additionally obtain extra Crash Detection optimizations — simply in time for snowboarding season. Hopefully, this implies emergency companies will encounter fewer false alarms this 12 months.
Apple doesn’t point out this one within the launch notes, however as we found within the first beta, iOS 17.1 additionally brings again sensible move-to-folder strategies in Apple Mail.
Different fixes and enhancements embrace Residence key assist for Matter locks, extra dependable syncing of Display Time settings throughout gadgets, higher keyboard responsiveness, fixes for a difficulty that would trigger location privateness settings to reset when pairing an Apple Watch and the place incoming caller names might not seem whenever you’re already on one other name.
Lastly, Apple additionally says that iOS 17.1 “fixes a difficulty which will trigger show picture persistence,” which could possibly be in response to current reviews we’ve seen on Apple Discussions and Reddit of “display burn-in” on the brand new iPhone 15 Professional fashions. Since these are unlikely to be precise display burn-in, which is a everlasting situation that takes a for much longer time to develop, iOS 17.1 ought to hopefully deal with the problem.