Your newest iPhone replace is formally right here. iOS 17 brings some substantial new options and loads of upgrades that streamline how you employ your iPhone, particularly when connecting with different iPhone customers.
Whereas the lock display customizations launched in iOS 16 fashioned the massive visible change final 12 months, Apple has now utilized an identical makeover to your cellphone calls and speak to lists. And at a time when there isn’t any scarcity of video name apps and companies, it’s attempting to make FaceTime much more compelling.
After I previewed the developer construct a month or so in the past, I centered on messages and FaceTime, each of which bought loads of consideration on this replace. After just a little extra time with the completed product, iOS 17 seems like a giant quality-of-life improve for iPhone customers. With no large tentpole characteristic, it’s tougher to pinpoint why it’s so significantly better — however I will strive.
Supported units
20 completely different iPhone fashions assist iOS 17, going way back to 2018’s iPhone XR. As lots of the OS updates this 12 months aren’t significantly processor- or machine learning-intensive, you’re not lacking out on a lot with older supported iPhones. One exception is StandBy, which works greatest (or the way it ought to) with Apple’s greatest smartphone screens — always-on shows.
StandBy Mode
With StandBy, Apple is dipping its toe within the sensible show waters with out making you purchase one other system. (For now.)
In case your iPhone is horizontal and charging, iOS 17 will shift into StandBy mode, ditching your wallpaper and icons for big clocks, calendar data, now enjoying widgets, pictures and the remainder. (One curious oversight: no electronic mail widget.)
You’ll want an iPhone 14 Professional or iPhone 15 Professional to make sure it really works prefer it ought to — that’s, all the time on. With all the opposite units, you’ll have to faucet the display to get your data, which defeats the purpose. StandBy additionally makes use of the identical iOS widget Good Stacks so you possibly can swipe between completely different data.
With iOS 17, we lastly get interactive widgets, too, so you possibly can toggle sensible house lights or tick one thing off your to-do checklist with out having to launch a complete app. (One other useful characteristic coming to Reminders and your to-do lists is an automatic grocery checklist characteristic, which is able to detect if you’re composing a buying checklist, and draw collectively merchandise you’ll sometimes discover in the identical place within the grocery retailer.)
Apple’s Continuity upgrades imply now you can use widgets in your Mac, even should you don’t have the identical app put in in your laptop. There are additionally extra curated widgets for iOS 17, so you possibly can choose a particular photograph album to populate them (no extra screenshots or very dated vacation pictures) and dedicate widgets to podcasts, Safari or your music.
Contact posters and FaceTime
Photograph by Mat Smith / Engadget
Contact Posters stay the massive visible twist for iOS 17. Nonetheless, I’m nonetheless ready for my iPhone-carrying buddies to replace their units so I can see the shiny improve. Contact posters combine completely different profile pictures, fonts and colours and can seem when somebody calls you, FaceTimes you, or if you’re looking out by way of contacts. This picture may even seem if you check out NameDrop, Apple’s new characteristic for contactless… contact sharing. As I famous in my preview, the profile photograph you employ doesn’t must be taken in Portrait mode to make sure the cutout impact between the picture and textual content, which is sweet.
NameDrop affords a level of customization, so if you share your particulars, you possibly can select what cellphone numbers and emails to shoot throughout by bringing two appropriate iPhones shut to one another. There’s a beautiful visible undulation, sound impact and haptic buzz, making it an odd delight to share your particulars. Apple additionally teased an upgraded AirDrop, capable of switch content material on-line even should you step away. Nonetheless, that characteristic will arrive later this 12 months.
With FaceTime, alongside some new augmented actuality gestures, you possibly can go away a video voicemail if somebody doesn’t reply your name. Sure, you’re simply sending a video, to be trustworthy, however it’s right here if you might want to just do that.
Messaging will get higher and higher
So, Messages is nice now? It’s taken a while, however I’ll admit it: I need my buddies to ditch WhatsApp and return to the opposite inexperienced messaging app. (And to my Android buddies, I’m sorry.)
Apple has improved its sticker options, together with Stay Stickers, animated stickers taken from Stay Photographs. iOS 17 now collates all of my reduce–outs of canine, selfies and infants into one drawer. This drawer additionally homes memoji, emoji and third-party stickers. Like static cutout stickers earlier than, you possibly can ‘raise’ topics out of pictures by lengthy urgent on them within the Photographs app. With iOS 17, you possibly can add sticker results, like “shiny” and “puffy” that replicate fake gentle if you transfer your cellphone. Stickers can now even be used from the sticker drawer and added to pictures, paperwork, and screenshots with Markup – that’s the little pencil tip icon.
A brand new Test In characteristic, embedded into Messages, can auto-notify somebody that you just’ve arrived at a vacation spot. In case you don’t arrive by a specified time, your iPhone will even ask you to substantiate you’re okay, and should you don’t reply, an alert can be despatched to whoever you despatched the Test In notification to. The recipient might be knowledgeable of sign standing and battery life. You possibly can even share the route you’re taking, should you’re keen to.
The keyboard is way improved, however I’m unsure how
Photograph by Mat Smith / Engadget
Apple has taken on board the criticism of its typically spotty autocorrect accuracy. It says it’s utilizing a brand new “transformer language mannequin” for its autocorrect ideas in English, French and Spanish. Nearly instantly, it labored higher and has improved additional over the previous couple of weeks. I observed my cellphone swapped ‘bbiab’ for ‘Brian’, in an electronic mail to Engadget’s head of Video.
That is made even higher by the non permanent underlining in your autocorrected phrases, so you possibly can see what’s modified — nice for if you didn’t discover your iPhone tweaking your missives.
Tapping on an autocorrection exhibits a pop-up of the unique, so you possibly can simply swap it again if you need. Predictive textual content ideas seem mildly improved too. iOS 17 ends Apple’s prudish method relating to curse phrases, so now you can save your favourite naughty phrases, and your iPhone will study them and (hopefully) use them appropriately.
Stay Voicemail and voice be aware transcription
Stay Voicemail is one characteristic not but out there to me within the UK. And I’d very very similar to it, please. This voicemail improve allows you to display a name by way of stay transcription, with the iPhone parsing what somebody says, you possibly can then decide up the decision in the event that they’re saying one thing you’re eager about listening to about – or simply allow them to go away a message.
I had our Govt Editor Aaron Souppouris — whose London accent is incomprehensible to lots of people — check this characteristic within the US. In case your cellphone is locked when the decision is available in, the system prompts you to unlock to learn stay. As soon as unlocked, Stay Voicemail caught each phrase he mentioned, which is fairly spectacular.
It’s a special method to Google, which launched its personal call-screening tips to the Pixel years in the past. In Android’s implementation, the system screens calls and asks the caller questions. It’s just a little extra… interactive. In iOS 17, you get a stay transcript of their message and might select to interrupt them by leaving the message. Or simply get the jist. Google’s approach means individuals know they’re being screened which I dislike.
Photograph by Mat Smith / Engadget
Machine-learning transcription isn’t new on iPhones (you’ve been capable of dictate in your cellphone for years), however it’s the implementation in iOS 17 that’s. When somebody sends you a voice be aware on Messages, the iPhone can now auto-transcribe the contents of that voice be aware, so long as the audio is obvious sufficient. I feel I made my level throughout our iOS 17 preview, however It is my favourite characteristic this 12 months.
Enhancements past the iPhone
Billy Steele/Engadget
The iOS 17 advantages even stretch to your AirPods — in the event that they’re the newest ones. With second-gen AirPods Professional, you’ll get adaptive audio — and dropdown icons in your cellphone to toggle the brand new options on and off. This adjusts the extent of noise cancellation in a noisier surroundings and is bolstered by a brand new Dialog Consciousness characteristic, which, when it detects you talking, will decrease the quantity of your music or podcast. Sadly, it does the identical if you cough. Take a look at our deep dive on the brand new options right here.
In case you personal AirPlay-compatible units, iOS 17 will supply up speaker choices and mechanically join if you play audio in your iPhone, additional streamlining the method. Nonetheless, with my HomePod, I needed to be very shut for the auto-connect popup to seem.
Whereas we’re speaking audio, voice assistant Siri picks up some minor, however notable, enhancements. No extra ‘Hey Siri’ simply ‘Siri’ — they’re cool like that now. Siri now handles back-to-back instructions, too.
Cross-device enhancements even attain AirTags and different Discover My-enabled peripherals. Different individuals can now observe these, so two individuals can monitor the identical merchandise.
Elsewhere, Safari now affords separate looking profiles in your work and private – or some other manner you’d wish to divide up your web exploring. iOS 17 additionally introduces group password and passkey sharing.
One other easy improve to your iPhone expertise is any two-factor authentication codes and messages despatched to your electronic mail can be mechanically inserted into your internet browser, a characteristic that’s been out there for codes in textual content messages for years. Higher but, iOS can now mechanically delete these texts or emails after you’ve inserted the code, clearing out area, particularly in Messages, for the texts that matter.
Lacking components
In the course of the large iOS 17 reveal at WWDC 2023, Apple famous that some options of the brand new OS wouldn’t be out there at launch. One of many large ones is a Journal app.
Apple says that Journal will glean particulars from different apps, like Messages and Podcasts, mechanically suggesting stuff you would possibly need to recall and write about. The Journal app is scheduled to land earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
There are a couple of different issues not right here on the time of public launch, too, like the improved AirDrop capabilities I discussed earlier. Music collaboration was additionally teased, with the power to ask buddies to your playlists and let anybody add, reorder, and take away songs – or react to poor selections with emoji.
One other characteristic I’m ready on is clever kind detection for PDFs. Apple says iOS 17 will finally have the ability to determine PDF types throughout Information, Mail and any scanned recordsdata you’ve snapped. If it means I don’t have to drag out my laptop computer each time I have to fill in a PDF kind, I’m on board.
There are some main accessibility upgrades too, which could get misplaced within the barrage of options. The large one is Private Voice. After quarter-hour of speaking at your iPhone, (studying set phrases aloud), the iPhone can simulate your voice, a la DeepFake tips we’ve seen in recent times. Whereas it’s cool to have a robo-Mat, the use case is anybody who might lose the power to talk, or finds it troublesome to take action now. (It additionally sounds fairly synthetic, having toyed with different comparable voixe fashions in Descript and different companies.) With Private Voice, you possibly can convert written textual content right into a voice for FaceTime, Telephone calls and different appropriate communication apps.
One other characteristic tucked away in Accessibility settings is the power to hurry up haptic contact. Haptic Contact is the lengthy contact characteristic that changed the (arguably higher?) 3D Contact first discovered on the iPhone 6S. A protracted press on an icon or a photograph takes longer than urgent arduous on 3D Contact. Now you possibly can tweak the settings (Accessibility-> Contact-> Haptic Contact). This instantly sped up all of the menu looking and secondary options I accessed by way of lengthy presses — give it a strive.
Wrap-up
Photograph by Mat Smith / Engadget
With iOS 17, the visible variations are apparent. However underlying these are many small upgrades, particularly for iPhone customers that talk largely with different iPhone customers. In case you’re utilizing FaceTime, you possibly can go away a video message or use a handful of wacky augmented actuality gestures. In case you’re calling them or messaging different iOS 17 customers, there are Stay Stickers, Test In, Contact Posters, NameDrop and voice be aware transcription — already the standout characteristic to me this 12 months. (I’m nonetheless ready for extra of my acquaintances to rise up to hurry and obtain the replace, so I, selfishly, can use these options extra.)
In case you’re already utilizing AirPods Professional, they’re higher, too. Conversational Consciousness is already making me look much less of an ass once I order my drink on the espresso store.
Alongside broader quality-of-life enhancements to typing and Messages, Apple has additionally continued to push ahead with accessibility options, too. We’re nonetheless ready on that journaling app and a number of other extra options. Nonetheless, there are sufficient notable modifications this 12 months, combining the brand new (StandBy) with the improved (predictive typing) to maintain your iPhone recent with out having to put money into new {hardware}.