IOS 17

Early development

System features

Home Screen

• Home and Lock screens widgets are now interactive. For example, a user can turn on lights or open shutters of a house by pressing the corresponding button of the Home widget, mark a task complete by pressing directly on a reminder in the widget, etc.
• Spotlight search now allows users to change system settings directly from the search results. For example, if a user searches for "wifi" from the Home Screen, the switch to turn the Wi-Fi off or on appears in the search results.
• The brightness of the wallpaper image changes depending on the dark or light mode, instead of being the same on both.
• Resized photos are now automatically extended to the top with a gradient that fills the missing space.
• Live wallpapers return after being removed from iOS 16, though they must now be selected separately from other photos and only animate when the phone is turned on.

  StandBy

• StandBy is a new feature automatically enabled when the phone is charging while horizontally oriented. It displays information via widgets in intelligent stacks, live activities, photos, the date, the clock, etc. The appearance of this information changes according to the ambient light, with dimmer and less flashy colors appearing at night.

  Autocorrect and text prediction

• The keyboard's autocorrection and dictation are powered by a new on-device transformer model, which is advertised to be more accurate and personalized to users' writing styles.
• Unlike previous versions of iOS, it can learn not to autocorrect swear words.
• Autocorrected words are underlined and can be reverted with a tap.
• Word predictions are shown inline as grey letters that are added when the spacebar is tapped.
• As of iOS 17.2, the option to turn off inline predictions without turning off predictive text was added, which allows the user to switch autocorrect to that of its functions in versions prior to iOS 8.

  Translation

• Ukrainian was added for translation available system-wide, in Safari web pages, and in the Translate app, bringing the number of languages available to twenty.

  AirDrop

• With the addition of NameDrop, by tapping an iPhone or Apple Watch against another iPhone, users can start a file transfer, a shared activity with SharePlay, or exchange a customizable contact card.
• As of iOS 17.1, AirDrop file transfers can continue over the Internet if users leave AirDrop range.

  Siri

• Users can now simply address Siri by its name instead of having to say "Hey Siri" to activate it.
• Subsequent questions asked to Siri do not require the user to repeat the "Siri" command.
• The user can now say "Hey Siri, send a message" and then choose the application to use through a drop-down menu. After the first change, Siri will remember the choice and speed up the operation.
• Users can ask Siri to read a page in Safari.
• Additionally, the ability to find a lost Apple TV remote with Siri was added.

  AutoFill

• The information saved by the user in Contacts can be used to automatically and securely fill in the fields of a form of a PDF or scanned document. Scanning documents take place in Notes.

  Accessibility

• A new feature called Personal Voice uses machine learning to let users recreate their own voice as a text-to-speech model.
• Using Point and speak, the phone will read what is written on the push-button panels of household appliances.
• A feature called Assistive Access is an extremely simplified iOS user interface that can be activated from the Accessibility settings, useful for people with cognitive disabilities.

  Networking

• A user can now connect an iPhone to a private 5G or LTE cellular network, using an eSIM or physical SIM that has been specifically provisioned for that network.
• There is also a new setting for cellular networks that allows users to disable cellular data usage statistics if they do not care which apps are consuming data.

  System settings

• In addition to an updated UI that shows more categories, the iPhone Storage section of the settings app now shows the space occupied by data shared between multiple apps from the same manufacturer.
• In the Haptic Touch duration settings, there is a third duration that is even shorter than the other two available in iOS 16.
• A new option for Focus mode notifications was added called Silence Notifications. This option lets the user choose if they want to mute notifications always or only when the device is locked.
• In iOS 17, the notification sound was changed from "Tri-tone", to "Rebound", which is noticeably quieter. As of iOS 17.2, the ability to change the default sound effect for third-party apps was added, including the previously default "Tri-tone" option.

  Charging

• iPhone 15 models support Qi2 wireless charging. This was later added to the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models in the iOS 17.2 update.

  App features

Phone

• With Contact Posters, users can now customize the appearance of the incoming call screen shown to other iPhone users.
• * Customization options are similar to iOS 16's revamped lock screen, with the ability to pick a custom picture or Memoji as the contact photo, and change their name's font and color.
• On the incoming call screen, a new Live Voicemail button sends the call to voicemail and shows a live transcript on-screen, so the user can decide whether to pick up the call.
• Other improvements:
• * Different ringtones for each SIM.
• * Increased number of memorized numbers in call history to 2,000.
• * Users can choose which SIM to use to call all unknown numbers.
• * The buttons to end a phone call, mute the microphone, etc. are positioned at the bottom instead of being in the center of the screen, so they are more accessible when using the phone with only one hand.
• * Added more than 20 new ringtones and 11 new alert tones, while moving the previous main ones into the classic section.

  Messages

• The Messages app has a new "Check In" feature.
• * The user must pick a contact and set a destination, and Check In notifies the contact once the user reaches the destination safely. If the user stops moving towards the destination and does not respond to prompts, the user's location, route, and battery level are automatically shared with the contact. The contact otherwise has no access to the user's location, and this information is end-to-end encrypted.
• Other improvements:
• * The Messages app also shows a transcript of voice messages.
• * Emojis and photo cutouts can be used as stickers, and stamped on bubbles in iMessage conversations or in other apps.
• * In iOS 17.2, a new feature called contact key verification was added. This adds an extra layer of security to iMessages, as these keys are exchanged by users when they meet up in person or can be automatically shared with FaceTime, and if at any point a device not registered with the key sends a message, the other user will be notified.

  Journal

• Journal is a end-to-end encrypted journaling app that lets users log their daily activities. The app was not available at launch and was added in the iOS 17.2 update.

  Apple Music

• A new feature called a "Collaborative Playlist" allows a group of users to add and remove songs from a shared playlist.
• A new Crossfade effect between played songs, supporting a range between 1 second and 12 seconds.
• Animated album artwork in music player: albums that support animated album artwork will now show that animation in the music player on Apple Music.
• In iOS 17.1, the "Love" system in Apple Music was replaced by a "Favorites" section that comes with expanded functionality.
• In iOS 17.2, a Favorite Songs Playlist was added.
• With iOS 17.2, users can now disable Listening History in a focus mode.

  Apple Maps

• Maps can now be downloaded for use without an Internet connection.
• It is possible to see in real time the availability of charging points for electric vehicles, in particular how many free slots there are at that particular charging point, the type of connection, etc.
• Users can search people on the map by name if they have shared their location.

  Safari

• Safari supports Profiles to keep a user's browsing activities separate when they are at work or school from those at home or personal. Individual Safari extensions can be enabled or disabled by profile.
• Pages previously opened in Private browsing mode require Face ID to be reviewed.
• Any extension that can read info on a page the user visits is disabled by default when private browsing.
• Known trackers are blocked while private browsing and tracking IDs in links are automatically removed.
• In the Safari settings, users can set a separate search engine to use in private mode.
• Users are able to listen to an entire page as audio read from the phone.
• The browsing history now shows favicons next to the site name and description.
• Added support for JPEG XL and HEIC image formats.
• AV1 hardware decoding on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.