iOS 17 has been released, here are the top 10 features in it
Apple has released the iOS 17 for eligible iPhones. Here are the top 10 features in the new operating system.
iOS 17 brings a variety of improvements across the system, from the improved autocorrect in keyboard, swipe to reply in messages, and more. Apple likes to call them as "new features", while they are just quality-of-life additions. On the other hand, there are several new features that add some actual functionality which can be useful in your day-to-day life.
Here are the top 10 features in iOS 17
Contact Posters
The Phone app in iOS 17 is getting new personalization options with Contact Posters. Instead of just displaying your name on the caller's screen, it can now provide a richer visual experience. You can now use your photo, or a Memoji to create your personal Contact Poster. You may add a font of your choice and a color to it to spruce things up a bit. It also supports vertical text in Chinese and Japanese languages. The settings are also saved to your contact card.
The customized Contact Poster will appear on other iPhone users' screens when you call them via FaceTime (audio call). The result looks like this, and since we use the device for calls every day, it can be a refreshing change. The best part is that Contact Posters isn't limited to the Phone app, it will also be available in third-party VOIP apps.
Check In
Apple has expanded its safety features to the Messages app, which now has a feature called Check In. This option, when started, will notify your friend or family member when you reach your destination. For example, let's say you enable Check In after leaving your office, once you reach home, the Check In will end automatically.
However, if there were any delays during transit, your phone will prompt you about it, and give you an option to "add time" to the Check In. This will ensure your loved ones don't panic about whether something happened to you. If you do not respond to the prompt within 15 minutes, your contact will be alerted about the delay. iOS 17's Messages app will send them information your last known location, your iPhone's battery level, and cell service status. This will help them call you, or find you in person. Apple says that the data shared during Check In is end-to-end encrypted between the devices.
NameDrop
Do you want to exchange phone numbers with another iPhone user, without handing your phone to them, or dictating your number? The NameDrop feature in iOS 17 offers a privacy-friendly way to accomplish this, all you need to do is bring your phones close together, and you should see your Contact Poster displayed on each other's screens.
It offers some options such as "Receive only", and Share, which you can use to share your phone number and email address with each other. NameDrop also works with an iPhone and an Apple Watch.
Offline Maps
When you are travelling to a new place, you may use the Apple Maps app to look up directions, and places to visit. However, this can be a problem, if you find yourself in an area with poor cell service. iOS 17 supports Offline Maps, a feature that has been present in Google Maps for nearly a decade. Open the Apple Maps app, access your profile and select the Offline Maps button, and you will be able to download the map for the area that you select.
Once it has been downloaded, you can use it to navigate around, even when you are offline. The feature supports routes for driving, cycling, walking, and public transport. It can use historical traffic data to display an estimated time of arrival. Apple Maps will update the Offline Map that you downloaded with new data whenever you connect to a Wi-Fi network.
Note: The feature is not available in all regions.
Find My lets you share AirTags
Find My in iOS 17 now allows you to share your AirTag with up to five other users. This isn't limited to family members, you can share the tags with your friends too. This allows everyone in the group to use Precision Finding, and play a sound to pinpoint the location of a shared AirTag that is nearby. The feature also supports other Find My network accessories.
Grocery Lists in Reminders
The Reminders app in iOS 17 is capable of sorting grocery lists automatically into various categories such as diary, produce, etc., to help you with your shopping. You may change how the items are grouped by the app, and it will remember your preferences.
Notes app supports PDFs
iOS 17 adds yet another improvement to the Notes app, you can now use it to view (read) PDFs natively. It works with inline PDFs and document scans. And, it also lets you annotate the documents, so you can mark up PDFs. The Notes app is gaining support for linked notes, i.e. you can create links for a note and use it with another, or even create a wiki-like page with several linked notes.
StandBy
StandBy is a new full-screen mode which is triggered when your iPhone is on its side (on a stand) while charging. It transforms your phone's screen into a smart display with glanceable information such as a clock, photo stand (or album slideshow), displays data from widgets such as timers, sports scores, music controls, etc.
You can customize the clock styles, select the accent color, choose a specific photo album, and more.
Interactive Widgets
The widgets in iOS 17 are interactable, both on your Home Screen and Lock Screen. This will allow you to perform a variety of actions quickly without opening the corresponding app. So you could turn off the lights in your home, play or pause music, complete to-dos, and more quickly by tapping on the widgets. These options are also supported in StandBy.
Roadside Assistance via Satellite
Last year, Apple introduced support for Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via Satellite in iOS 16. The features have proven to be lifesavers on numerous occasions in various countries around the world, helping lost hikers and campers, victims in car crashes and other incidents. iOS 17 adds another emergency service option called Roadside Assistance via Satellite. It works similar to the Emergency SOS option, in that it also uses satellite connectivity in areas with no cell coverage (or Wi-Fi). When you find yourself stranded on the side of a road, you can use Roadside Assistance via Satellite to contact emergency services or a roadside assistance provider, via the Messages app. The app will display a questionnaire with options such as flat tire, locked out, no fuel or charge, etc.
This will allow the roadside assistance provider to send a mechanic to your location with the right tools to assist you. The service is covered for AAA members in their plan, and is also available for non-members.
Roadside Assistance via satellite is available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico), for four-wheeled, motor-driven cars and trucks. The feature is exclusive to iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15, or iPhone 15 Pro, and is free for the first 2 years. On a side note, Emergency SOS via Satellite will be introduced in Spain and Switzerland later this month.
Note: iPhones purchased in the following regions do not support Satellite connectivity: Armenia, Belarus, China mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
Apple announced its Journal app during the WWDC 2023 event in June, but the feature is not available in iOS 17 yet. It will be coming later this year along with AirDrop Transfers, Collaboration on Playlists in Music, AirPlay in hotel rooms, Enhanced Autofill for PDFs.
Really the only thing I dislike about MacOS as a whole is the way Apple updates the OS with huge update file downloads. Actually 700Mb is small compared to some Apple has released which are in the gigabyte size. These large file sizes also translate to long update times as well.
I like Emre, Onur, Shaun and Eray’s articles more, Ashwin and Martin are always complaining about something instead of getting excited and sharing their excitement with the world.
Ever since I started bookmarking their pages my mood has been so much better, I’m glad to be free of the depressing vibe the two of them have. Damn it feels good to just enjoy life and not look for things to complain like I used to while I were under their influence.
Personally I really like @Ashwin and @Martin articles both equally. Please respect the authors.
You realize that none of the authors you like are real people, right? They are AI bots ‘writing’ articles that are basically taken from product advertisements (e.g., “Get Protected the Right Way With Avast Free AntiVirus” Really?) So, yes they are excited, but the excitement comes from advertising copy. No real world negativity from those sources.
My approach is to use a UBlock Origin filter to block all the articles except those by Martin and Ashwin. It has made the site readable again for me.
I would like to achieve that as well. Mind sharing some UBlock tricks & tips? :)
@ Anonymous,
Go to this link from yesterday https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4573146 and scroll down to the post by “Anonymous said on September 2, 2023 at 1:33 pm” He (or she) posted instructions on how to skip articles written by users other than Martin and Ashwin.
You might want to consider changing your name before you post to make it easier for users to identify your comments.
@Herman Cost
You can add this to your rules in uBlock Origin:
ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Ashwin/))
@John World. Than you dude. So much better.
Why does Martin even allow this garbage to ruin his website. Every single article not written by martin and ashwin reads like sensational clickbait, I don’t care about if I should buy the latest apple product every week, new roblox cock rings that don’t pull your pubic hair, elon musk’s new body spray or whatever bullshit these bots can come up with.
+I like Emre, Onur, Shaun and Eray’s articles more
you’ve made my day
It’s not the EU’s fault that Bing is such a crappy search engine. In any event it’s built into the OS and Microsoft does its best to convince users to adopt it over Google by making it the default search tool. A great Many Windows 11 users are not technically minded and don’t know how to switch to another search engine and just accept their lot.
In any event I hope the EU Commission doesn’t allow Microsoft to pull the wool over their eyes.
Both Google and Bing are now worthless. Nowadays, Yandex is the only search engine that finds anything I’m looking for.
Try https://sear.be.
Yandex is Russian and under Putin’s control. Search results you get may not be accurate and possibly manipulated to give you a false sense of security depending on what you’re looking for.
Bing is absolutely a gatekeeper. Except for countries such as China and Russia that have their own search engines (Baidu and Yandex), most of the world’s searches relies on just two search engines: Google and Bing.
Alternative search engines overwhelmingly get their search results from Bing. DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant, Swisscows, Excite, Lycos, Yahoo, You, etc. all use Bing behind the scenes for their results.
StartPage originally used the Google search engine for it’s results, but have also started using Bing as well recently.
Microsoft also use Bing as the default search engine in Windows (such as the Start menu search, Taskbar search, desktop search bar, Edge sidebar, etc.) and use Bing as the default search engine in Edge – which is the default browser on Windows. Windows has greater than 70% desktop market share and is used by more than two billion people.
Not to mention Microsoft’s anti-consumer efforts when it comes to Bing. They have a history of malicious intent by aggressively trying to trick users who use a different search engine and browser into resetting their default search engine and browser back to Edge and Bing (by displaying unscrupulous popup dialogue boxes and full screen pages prompting the user to change their settings back to the “recommended settings” – which is Edge and Bing).
@ ECJ,
Microsoft’s Bing has managed to sidestep the EU’s Digital Markets Act for now arguing that it doesn’t qualify as a gatekeeper: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3705935/eu-lists-gatekeepers-to-be-regulated-opens-imessage-and-bing-investigations.html
The easiest way to avoid Bing is never to use Edge. It’s not mandatory and you’re free to use which browser you wish. I use Floorp myself which is a Firefox fork with many extra privacy configurations. https://floorp.app/en/download/
“A report claims that Apple is developing an affordable MacBook series”
Its is time to stop posting Rumors as reports.
Apple has already a Chrombook killer. It is called : iPad.
I can see Apple getting concerned about losing sales to Chrome OS devices. Given that K-12 kids have probably been using Chromebooks and would be familiar with that platform going off to college. I remember when Apple ruled K-12 computer rooms and because they simply out priced the educational sector. Google managed to take a huge bite out of educational market especially with COVID. I never thought iPads worked in a K-12 setting, and mac’s are too expensive. I doubt Apple can really make a MacBook below $500 which would compete with Chromebooks.
I managed hundreds of ipads for schools when I worked at an MSP – ipads are certainly OK, and boy are they hundreds of times better than Android tablets. Chromebooks suck so much, their market penetration into school system became real when schools received a bunch from government
Apple has always had great diffculty grasping what “low cost” means. I don’t have much faith in them ever generating anything that can compete with a Chromebook, but I’ll buy it if they do. I don’t want a Google OS, Windows is getting painful, and I’m tired of hearing how great Linux is from people who don’t use it.
I agree with the posters above about the usefulness of using a uBO filter to limit the posts I see on this site to those from Martin and Ashwin.
While Apple has patched iOS 16 for this, they haven’t yet indicated if they’re going to for supposedly-still-getting-security-updates iOS 12 (the latest OS option for the millions of still-in-use iPhone 6) and iOS 15 (still in use on millions of iPhone 6s to 8, which can’t be upgraded to 16).
I hope they do. Long-term support is one area where Apple phones crush Android, and it’s the #2 reason I use them (#1 is because not a privacy nightmare).
Apple has now released security updates for iOS 12 and 15 to address this issue. This is how you keep loyal customers.
Released an update for iOS 15, yes; for iOS 12, no. It’s not clear from reading their release notes if this means iOS 12 is not affected, or if they’re just not bothering.
M3 won’t move the needle much on performance. Honestly, Apple has put itself in a bind making the M1 really good. Probably the first time when Mac users can have some real lasting performance. But that also means that many won’t be persuaded to upgrade as often either. I am using a M1 MacBook Air and a M1 Mac mini and have yet to even entertain upgrading to a M2 or even a future M3 model of either because I am very satisfied with the M1 performance.
I like iPhone in general have owned iPhones for many years. But I don’t see these Apple events inspiring me to want to upgrade and spend hundreds to get what few improvements offered up.
People still watch this nonsense? As I get older technology no longer excite me.
I love it – Apple took an objectively bad thing and turned it into something people don’t hate. “It’s not that our front camera/sensors cover up screen real estate, this is uhh, a dynamic island… Yeah! It’s a feature actually, you’re lucky to have it”.
@ bruh,
I like iPhone too, but you have to be a virtual millionaire these days to own one and I don’t have the kind of money required to purchase one I’m afraid.
2015??
“Sorry Series 8, Apple Watch Series 9 is as powerful as it is handsome”
“Apple to release iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 on September 18, and macOS Sonoma on October 26”
“Apple unveils the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2”
“Apple Watch Ultra 2 packs a punch to the older generation”
“Does it make sense to upgrade to iPhone 15?”
“iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max with Ray Tracing, Action Button announced”
“Apple announces iPhone 15 series with USB-C port, Dynamic Island”
Seven Applespams, all pushed out within a few hours. You should rename this site “AppleHack”.
I can’t believe people waste their money on smartwatches. The world has truly gone insane.
A total waste of money. Thats why people can’t afford basic necessities anymore. They just keep falling for Apple’s BS every year.
That is, if you don’t mind paying for Apple and their US Gestapo friends reading your most intimate data to use it against you.
> Apple also updated the macOS Sonoma 14 web page to reveal the release date of its desktop operating system. Sonoma will be released on October 26.
This is not true. The website says September 29. I have no idea where your October 26 comes from.
> Rumors suggest that Apple could announce the first M3 Mac in October, though another reliable leaker quashed hopes for any new MacBooks.
I am not aware of any _current_ rumor that suggests that there will be a M3 Mac before 2024.
Is this again an AI written article?
Just an FYI on the USB C situation.
The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus only use the USB-C end-connector. The actual cable attached to it transfers data at the many years old Lightning cable speed, which is USB 2.0 based. (Max 480 Mbits/s in ideal lab conditions.)
If you want iPhone USB data transfer at true USB 3.0 speed, then you have to pay more to buy the iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Plus, which transfers data at actual USB 3.0 speed (5 Gbit/s in ideal lab conditions).
Just another example of Apple using absurd (and very mean-spirited, IMO) down-grading of their lower-priced phone hardware. I mean, who else would sell an $799+ phone in 2023, using a data port that transfers at USB 2.0 speed?
The USB 2.0 spec was published in year 2000, 23 years ago.
The USB 3.0 spec was published in 2008 and the USB C connector spec was published in 2014, tho not widely adopted til paird with USB 3.2 in 2017, fyi.
Man, I find this stuff so cringy – but obviously, it appeals to a certain type of person. I have no issue with Apple, my only issue is that every other hardware and software manufacturer seem to just be trying to copy Apple, instead of coming up with original ideas & visions. I don’t blame Apple for “innovating” in whatever direction they feel necessary, I’m just annoyed that nobody else is,,,
Android is looking more like iOS, Windows 11 is looking more like MacOS, I had to set up a “premium” high-spec Dell laptop recently at work which just looked like a knock-off Macbook. It’s just sad.
People aren’t going to buy stuff that strays too far from the norm. Take for example foldables. I haven’t seen anyone personally that has one, nor are they “taking the market by storm”.
RE: Android looking more like IOS:
That ‘Material You’ garbage is thankfully nowhere near iOS. I think you might be referring to Samsung’s UI though. They try to keep things like Apple to win over Apple users (I think anyways). If it weren’t for Samsung’s UI though, Android would be totally a non-option for me, as Material You is just plain ugly.