Around a month ago now Apple hosted there annual WWDC keynote which a lot of you must have seen by now! During the event as expected we got to see the release of the latest in software wizardry for iPhone with iOS 17! Since this I’ve been running & testing iOS 17 on my main every day device waiting a month before writing my review and opinions to get the full aspect of the OS.
Before I go into it however whilst I have been running the beta it is much better to wait until later in the year as the betas can be buggy. They can also change thing’s mentioned in this blog post may get removed or more features added when iOS 17 gets released later the year! If you decide to brave it then backing up your device before you install it is an aboustle must.
Compared to last year to me iOS 17 really doesn’t feel like a BIG “feature packed” update however this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a boring update. iOS 17 to me is all about enhancements to apps that were already present on iOS. Although it is also worth mentioning that iOS 17 includes a brand-new app called “Journal” which I was looking forward to testing out but sadly at time of writing we are currently on iOS 17 beta 3 and it is not yet present on iOS.
The Phone App & “Contact Posters”.
The first thing I’m going to talk about with iOS 17 is Apple’s new “Contact Poster’s” feature in the phone app. The reason I’m talking about it first is when I installed iOS 17 the first thing, I checked out was this feature. When Apple announced this feature, it came across like it was one of the headline features of iOS 17 and they do look cool BUT, it’s just a bit of a gimmick. It’s not something I can really see myself using much.
Messages App (iMessage).
The first biggest change on the messages app you’ll notice is the redesign when you’re in a chat. I’ve got mixed feelings when it comes to this redesign. It certainly feels a lot cleaner which is a positive and now if when you’re sending an iMessage you also want to send a photo or user an iMessage app. You now hit the new plus button to the left of the text box and this new menu will pop-up where you can now find everything. This is neat but the design of this menu to me it just doesn’t sit right with the rest of the operating system design. (I also forgot all about the “Digital Touch” feature until writing this… Does anyone use that?)
Probably the coolest change to Messages is that if someone sends you a audio message. iOS will automatically transcribe the message into text underneath it which is perfect for those occasions where you just can’t listen to those messages.
The Apple Music App.
This year the Apple Music app finally got a feature for the iPhone that I’ve been wanting for year’s now! (It’s one that’s been on iTunes since forever & even the Apple Music app on Android has had it for year’s) I’m talking about crossfade in-between songs! With the beta’s it has had a rocky start but on beta 3 the feature is working perfectly, and the transition in-between songs is perfect there is no way I’ll be turning it back off!
If you want to switch on crossfade you need to open the settings app and you’ll find crossfade in the music section. Just like iTunes you can customise it from 1 second to 12. I’m hoping in a future update Apple will allow the ability to switch it on or off (Or maybe a shortcut) in the music app itself, but I do feel like this is unlikely.
Another feature on Apple Music that’s new is some albums will now have a full-screen animated background related to the album artwork on the album & now playing screen. I sadly still haven’t seen one on my device (And I have been keeping a look out, even on new albums) However when on Twitter or Reddit I have seen a lot of users posting screenshots of the new feature and it is getting A LOT of positive feedback.
The Coolest Smaller Thing’s about iOS 17:
Firstly, we now have interactive widgets for our home screens! Now it is only first party widgets however I’m sure by public launch around September time there is going to be loads of supported live widgets so far. However, for the first party ones for music app and the Home app are my favourite live widgets for my home screen.
AirDrop, to be honest got whole bunch of new updates too much to really talk about here, but my personal favourite update to AirDrop is now that when you are airdropping files. If you’re two devices go out of range, the AirDrop transfer will continue on its own over the Internet!
This was completely unannounced in the keynote, but “Reminders” now has a new shopping list feature where when you add items to it, it will categorise it on its own for example when you add milk it will then automatically move it & automatically create a sub-list called “Diary, Eggs & Plant Proteins” next I added Bacon and it did the same process this time under “Meat”. Personally, I think this is a simple yet awesome new feature.
For those of you use the “Fitness” app, alongside the Apple Watch it’s had a makeover which looks really nice! Lastly another cool feature that was released in iOS 17 which I haven't spoke about is "Live Speech" that's because I wrote a lot more on the feature which you can read here ->
My Biggest iOS 17 Disappointments:
Firstly the “Dynamic Island”. Pre-WWDC I fully expected to get more features for the Dynamic Island especially with Apple very likely to release the base iPhone models later in the year. However, I’ve not noticed any difference and I think during the WWDC Keynote it was only mentioned once.
With the changes to Siri, including the change from “Hey Siri” to just “Siri” I was excited. It’s a cool change that to me really has made no difference and because of years of saying “Hey Siri” to my devices I still carry on using it anyway out of practice further to my disappoint the first time I connected my AirPods after updating I got a notification saying that I had to carry on saying “Hey Siri” with my AirPods as just “Siri” was not supported.
iOS 17 also saw the addition of 2 new Animoji’s, this is a feature I really don’t care for however and I couldn’t even tell you what the two new ones are and I’m not going to find out it’s not worth it.
Lastly, I was a little gutted that we didn’t get a couple more fonts for the lock screen. I was hoping for maybe just two more cooler ones.
If you want to see even more about what’s coming up in iOS 17 look on Apple’s website here & see the full preview! https://www.apple.com/uk/ios/ios-17-preview
Thanks for reading,
Kyle Wilkinson
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[1] – Apple, iOS 17 Preview https://www.apple.com/uk/ios/ios-17-preview/
[2] – All Screenshot’s shown in the blog post is taken on my iPhone 14 Pro Max, Running iOS 17 Developer Beta 2. iOS 17 is subject to change when it launches publicly later on in the year.
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