IOS 17

IOS 17
iOS 17 is the seventeenth and current major release of Apple's iOS operating system for the iPhone and the successor to iOS 16. It was announced on June 5, 2023, at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, and released publicly on September 18, 2023.
Development
According to Mark Gurman, iOS 17's internal codename was Dawn. Apple leaders initially intended iOS 17 as a "tuneup release" similar to Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, allowing them to focus on their new mixed reality headset. Despite this, several major features were added later in the development cycle.
Features
User interface and system features
Interactive widgets
The widgets are now interactive, on the Home and Lock screens. For example, users can turn on the lights or shutters of the house by pressing the corresponding button of the Home widget; or mark a task complete by pressing directly on a reminder in the widget, etc.
Wallpaper improvements
The brightness of the wallpaper image changes depending on the dark or light mode. Resized photos are automatically extended to the top with a gradient that fills the missing space. Live Photos are now also supported. The font weight for the text on the lock screen can be adjusted more freely.
StandBy mode
StandBy mode is automatically enabled when the phone is charging while horizontally oriented. It displays information via widgets in intelligent stacks and Live activities also the clock
. The appearance of this information changes according to the ambient light, so at night they appear with less flashy and less bright colors.
Autocorrect and text prediction improvements
The keyboard's autocorrection and dictation are powered by a new on-device transformer model, which Apple says is 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, and added when the spacebar is tapped.
AirDrop improvements
AirDrop file transfers continue over the Internet if devices become out of reach. This feature is not yet available, but Apple says it will be available later this year in a software update.
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.
Spotlight improvements
The global search now allows users to change system settings directly from the search results. For example, if the user searches for "wifi" from the Home Screen, the switch to turn the Wi-Fi off or on appears directly in the search results.
Focus mode improvements
Silence Notifications: a new option for notifications in focus mode that allows users to choose to mute notifications Always or When locked.
Visual Lookup improvements
Visual Lookup is now able to recognize in photos the symbols of the various lights in the car, the symbols in the labels of clothes, etc.
Siri improvements
Users can now simply say "Siri" instead of "Hey Siri" to activate Siri with their voice. Subsequent questions asked to Siri do not require the user to re-say the "Siri" command.
Users 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.
Ability to find a lost Apple TV remote with Siri.
Faster Haptic Touch
In the Haptic Touch duration settings is a new third duration that is even shorter than the other two available on iOS 16.
Advanced AutoFill in PDFs and scanned documents
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.
Accessibility improvements
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.
Assistive Access: an extremely simplified iOS user interface that can be activated from the Accessibility settings, useful for people with cognitive disabilities.
Networking improvements
Private 5G and LTE networks: added support for private cellular networks, allowing to 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.
A new setting for cellular networks allows users to disable cellular data usage statistics if they do not care which apps are consuming data.
iPhone Storage improvements
In addition to an updated UI that shows more categories, iPhone Storage now shows the space occupied by data shared between multiple apps from the same manufacturer.
Automatic verification codes
Adds support for one-time verification codes in the Mail app.
Adds feature to automatically delete verification codes.
App features
Phone
With Contact Posters, users can 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 the number of calls in call history to 2000.
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 alert tones.
Messages
The Messages app has a new "Check In" feature. The user picks a contact and sets 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. The Messages app also shows a transcript of voice messages. Emojis and photo cutouts (created through the "remove subject from background" tool) can be used as stickers, and stamped on bubbles in iMessage conversations or in other apps.
Journal
Journal is a new bundled end-to-end encrypted journaling app that lets users log their daily activities. This feature is not yet available, but Apple says it will be available later this year in a software update.
FaceTime
FaceTime supports the ability for callers to leave a video or audio message when the recipient is unavailable. Effect reactions have been added to FaceTime calls, similar to the reactions feature in Messages.
Apple Music
Collaborative playlist: allows a group of users to add and remove songs from a shared playlist.
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 the animation in the music player on Apple Music.
In iOS 17.1 Beta 1, Apple replaced the "Love" system on Apple Music with a "Favorites" section.
Maps
Offline maps: maps can now be downloaded for use without an internet connection.
Charging stations for electric vehicles: 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.
Search for people by name: users can search people on the map by name if they have shared their location.
Safari
Profiles: 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.
Private browsing protected by Face ID: the pages previously opened in Private browsing mode require Face ID to be reviewed.
Private search engine: in the Safari settings, users can set a separate search engine to use in private mode.
Listen to Page allows users to listen to the 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
Notes
Users can create links between notes to quickly jump from one note to another.
Users can view and annotate PDFs directly within the app.
Reminders
The list of a reminder can now be organized into sections.
Photos
Recipe search: users can search for recipes on the Internet using a photo containing food.
Pet recognition: dogs and cats are automatically recognized and categorized within the people section.
Simplified cropping: when a user zooms in on a photo, a button automatically appears to crop the photo without having to go into photo editing first.
Search for objects in videos: in the search box, users can type the name of an object to find the exact frame in the video where that object appears.
Camera
The Camera app has two new optional settings: "Level" shows a horizontal line that turns yellow when the subject is aligned to the horizon, and "Lock white balance" can disable automatic white balance adjustments when recording a video.
Deferred Photo Processing: the Deep Fusion post-processing process is performed in the background, instead of taking place at the same time as the "shot" and only when the camera is not in use. This ensures significantly higher recording sessions, without shutter blocks, allowing the user to capture new photos at any time.
Find My
Find My supports sharing AirTags and similar third-party items with up to five people.
Clock
The Clock app supports multiple simultaneous timers.
Weather
The wind map has been added.
The Weather app now lets users compare today's weather with yesterday's.
Moon phase: a new section shows the current state of the moon, the time until the next full moon, the times of moonset and moonrise and the lunar calendar.
Screen Time
Screen Distance checks and warns users if they are holding their Face-ID enabled iPhone too close to the user's face for a considerable period of time.
Health
The Health app lets users log and label their mood, and see how their mood correlates to various lifestyle factors over time. The app also let users take standardized assessments for anxiety and depression, although this information is not diagnosis and should not be treated as such.
Users can be notified if they forget to log that they have taken their medication.
Added summary of users' friends' training results.
Shortcuts
Commands associated with various apps are shown in Spotlight search when users search for that app. For example, when searching for the Camera app, commands to open the app in Selfie, Portrait, Cinematic, Time-Lapse, etc. modes are shown.
Developers can define the background color of commands created for their app. For example, for the Books app, the commands to open the current book and listen to the current book appear in an orange box like the color of the Books app.
Fitness
Apple Fitness+ can give users custom workout plans, set workouts or meditations to play consecutively, or separately change the volume of the music and the instructor's voice.
Home
The Home app now includes an activity history for up to 30 days, so you can see who's accessed your locks, doors and alarm sensors, and when.
Security and privacy
One-time verification codes received in Mail can be filled in with a tap without leaving Safari.
Link-tracking protection detects user-definable tracking parameters in link URLs and automatically removes them. It is automatically enabled in Mail, Messages, and when browsing with Safari in Private Mode.
Shared group passwords allows the user to create groups of passwords to share with family and friends. Users can recover passwords for up to 30 days. After changing the lock screen passcode, the old code can be used for 72 hours to reset the new passcode if it is forgotten. There's also a button to expire previous passcode immediately.
iOS 17 contains several changes for app permissions. When an app wants to add an event to the user's Calendar, the event is added without the app being able to read the entire contents of the calendar. When apps ask to access the user's entire photo library, the user can share specific photos with apps while keeping the rest of the library private.
A sensitive content warning detects nudity in photos and videos received in AirDrop and other apps, obscuring them with a blur effect before they are displayed.
Lockdown mode can block the iPhone from connecting to 2G cellular networks and from auto-joining insecure wireless networks, and it disables more APIs in Safari susceptible to being attacked, such as IndexedDB, File API, FileReader API, WebSpeech API, WebLocks API, and more.
Apple's simultaneously-announced watchOS 10 gains support for Lockdown mode, and the mode is automatically enabled on Apple Watch when it is enabled on a paired iPhone.
Known issues
iPhone 15 Pro thermal issues
Apple insisted that the overheating issue was related to a software bug and was not related to the new hardware or design in the iPhone 15 Pro models, which introduced a new titanium frame with an aluminum substructure to replace the stainless steel frame from the past several Pro models. Since iOS 17.0.3 was released, new reports have surfaced of other overheating issues not related to fast-charging.
Shutdown issues
Some users reported that their iPhones turned off temporarily at night, interrupting alarms and other iPhone features. This affects both iPhone 15 models and older devices as well, suggesting that the bug is related to iOS 17.
Supported devices
iOS 17 requires an A12 Bionic SoC or later and at least 3GB of RAM. It drops support for iPhones with A11 Bionic chips, officially marking the end of support for 5.5-inch iPhones.
Devices with either A12 Bionic and A13 Bionic chips have limited support and devices with A14 Bionic SoC or newer are fully supported.
iPhone XS & XS Max
iPhone XR
iPhone 11
iPhone 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max
iPhone SE (2nd generation)
iPhone 12 & 12 Mini
iPhone 12 Pro & 12 Pro Max
iPhone 13 & 13 Mini
iPhone 13 Pro & 13 Pro Max
iPhone SE (3rd generation)
iPhone 14 & 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max
iPhone 15 & 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max
Due to iOS 17 dropping support for the iPhone X, this is the first version of iOS to drop support for an iPhone with Face ID and no home button.
Alongside dropping support for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone SE (2nd and 3rd generations) are the only supported devices to feature a home button and the exclusive smaller 4.7-inch display.
Release history
The first developer beta of iOS 17 was released on June 5, 2023. Unlike previous years, the developer beta program is open to anyone with a free Apple Developer account, without requiring a subscription.
See also
iPadOS 17
macOS Sonoma
tvOS 17
watchOS 10
Notes
References
17
2023 software
Products introduced in 2023
Mobile operating systems
Proprietary operating systems