After over two months of beta testing, Apple has finally made iOS 17 generally available. The latest operating system update rolled out to many iPhone models doesn’t make any huge changes, but it does add some nice features to your iPhone that may make you want to update as soon as possible.
We conducted this review on an iPhone 14 Pro; It is worth reminding that some of the features we will talk about will not come to every iPhone model.
Renewed Phone application
Your iPhone’s Phone application may not seem very important to you, but one of the most important changes that come with iOS 17 concerns the Phone application. You can improve the appearance of you or your callers with the Customized Contact Posters feature.
Similarly, you can customize your iPhone lock screen. This function allows you to add a friend’s picture, customize how their name appears, and more. However, although this feature could be quite fun and useful, it was probably not a feature that most people were looking forward to.
Name Drop
To improve this ability, Apple is using NameDrop, which lets you tap your iPhone on your friend’s iPhone to start a SharePlay experience or save each other’s contacts. While AirDrop is a bit faster, sharing your customized card that you can send through NameDrop can help impress your friends or create some fun memories, at least the first time you use it.
Live Voicemail
While it doesn’t affect the way most of us, including our editors, use our phones, the Live Voicemail feature, where you can see real-time transcription when someone leaves a voicemail, is among the interesting new capabilities. Although Apple says that calls defined as spam by operators will not appear with this function, some organizations have already started efforts to raise awareness about possible frauds that can be committed by people using this feature.
Messages
In the new update, the Messages application also gains some useful updates. The expandable menu to view iMessage apps, accessible with a simple tap, has been updated, and you can also quickly access your gallery with a long press. Live Stickers, which allow you to design very fun stickers from the photos you take, is a really nice feature. Unfortunately, your friends cannot save the stickers we create and send with this very easy-to-use feature. Unfortunately, we do not know why this ability, which is one of the most popular features on WhatsApp and Telegram, has not been added by Apple yet.
Smarter AutoCorrect
Apple also says AutoCorrect and Spelling are smarter than ever. While intelligent guesses do indeed seem to be better, autocorrect, which tries to correct “iPhone” to “iphone” and “iPad” to “ipad”, remains annoying.
With iOS 17, FaceTime also added a fun feature that lets you add reactions during calls. However, you need to activate this function first, and in our testing, it was quite difficult to activate these responses with some hand movements, so it may not be worth the hassle.
A better Apple Music
iOS 17 also introduces several long-awaited features for Apple Music users. Unfortunately, Apple’s music streaming service hasn’t received a massive update, but our enjoyment of the service may be a little more thanks to new additions.
For example, the iOS version of the app is finally adding support for crossfade song transitions between songs. Crossfade seamlessly transitions between tracks, ensuring the music never stops. Apple also added animated covers to the songs, and while not every album has them, the ones that do are sure are pretty cool.
Unfortunately, we continue to look forward to some features that are still unavailable, such as working on collaborative playlists. With a newer version of iOS 17, you’ll be able to let users invite friends to join a playlist. This way, anyone can add, reorder and remove songs. Apple Music is finally taking lessons from Spotify’s best features. A few functions not yet available in the service continue to be rolled out slowly with new updates.
Record your mood
One of the most exciting features of iOS 17 may be the ability to record your mood. Adding this data to the Health app can help you understand how your life choices affect your lifestyle and see what tasks throughout the day affect your mood.
In the Mental Wellbeing section you can record how anxious, happy or sad you feel. Later this year, a Journaling app will combine this information with other data on your iPhone to show you how you’re feeling throughout the day and how you can better express your emotions. Having this all happen on your device means you don’t have to worry about third-party apps accessing that data.
Check-In has arrived in iMessage
Another feature that deserves to be mentioned, especially for those of us who are parents, may be iMessage’s Check-In feature. This feature can be very useful, for example, when the user wants to inform a family member or friend that they have arrived safely.
Once a user initiates the Check-in process, their friend or family member is automatically notified when the user arrives, and if they are not progressing towards their destination, useful information such as device location, battery level and cell phone service status is temporarily shared with the selected person. All of this transmitted information is end-to-end encrypted for greater security.
New Standby Mode
Apple says iOS 17 is all about communication, intelligence and new experiences. Regarding the intelligence part of these three major branches, Apple announced a Standby mode that gives users a full-screen experience with quickly glancing information designed to be viewed from a distance when the iPhone is lying on its side and charging.
Although this standby mode is not very useful for those who do not need to charge their iPhone during the day, it can be very useful for users who need to charge their phone during the day. However, it is possible that such a feature would be more useful on other devices such as iPads.
Safari
Safari has also received a few nice updates, but those updates may be more valuable on the Mac than on the iPhone. While Focus Mode is really useful on the Mac, we can’t say it makes a big difference in Safari on the iPhone. Apple also blocks known trackers from loading on pages and removes trackers added to URLs as you browse. But since people don’t use X (formerly Twitter) in Safari, when a link is shared through the company’s app, viewers will still be included in that link.
Share passwords
There is also another interesting feature that you may find useful, although we haven’t used it personally. Apple now allows you to share various passwords with your trusted contacts. You can create a group and select the group of accounts to share with. Passwords stay current for everyone in the group, and you can remove someone from the group at any time.
iOS 17 battery usage
Although we haven’t been able to test it yet, Apple says we’ll see a significant improvement in battery usage. Looking at our previous Beta tests, it is possible to say that this is true. In general, we can say that we find iOS 17 more stable and more battery efficient than iOS 16.
iOS 17: Conclusion
We all know that iPhone users love to update to the latest iOS version, and when it comes to this version, we can easily recommend you to update as well. Although iOS 17 doesn’t really offer any major changes, it is a solid update with many new features.
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