iOS 17 Release Date, Features, and Supported Devices

iOS can now use AI to intelligently separate you from the background of a photo, drag that, and drop it anywhere you like. There’s also a continuity camera feature, which lets you use your phone as a webcam.

The lock screen has customisable fonts, and you can add your preferred wallpaper from your photos. You also got an optional depth effect for the wallpapers. Live text is currently supported for videos. Select iPhone models also got the ability to use FaceID in landscape mode. The Material you heavily inspire the lock screen colour palette.

The Freeform whiteboard app, Apple Music Sing, and end-to-end iCloud encryption were recently launched with the iOS 16.2 update. Unfortunately, Apple removed the Parallax effect option from static wallpapers; and it has been missing since the launch of iOS 16.

Every year, Apple has been adding long-requested features to iOS that were already present on Android flagships. The iPhone 14 Pro lineup of phones now has Always On Display. Battery percentage and keyboard haptics were long overdue. Widgets were introduced with iOS 14 in 2020, and Apple was too late to join that party.

Focus Modes and Live Text were introduced with iOS 15, and Live Text was a feature with the Google Lens app for a long time. As discussed earlier, iOS 16 has some features inspired by Android too. In this post, we’ll cover all you need to know about iOS 17; and explore what Apple might borrow from Android this time.

iOS 17: 10 Changes we’d like to see

1: Interactive home screen widgets

The home screen widgets look good, and the design is pretty modern. However, the functionality aspect is missing. A simple strike to clear out reminders or the ability to edit notes with 3D/ Haptic Touch would be a fantastic addition. You can already control Music from the widget.

If widgets are more interactive, it will reduce the point of opening the parent app for menial tasks. Simple sliders can be a great addition. A widget to conveniently view and reply to emails, reply to messages, or view Tweets and Reddit posts will make iOS widgets much better.

2: Homescreen customization

You won’t see an iOS post without the mention of customization. There’s no theme store, so we can’t conveniently apply themes to redesign the user interface radically. While Apple might not want to add a full-blown user-powered store like MIUI or ColorOS, a theme store that’s limited and controlled by Apple with a few designs every few months is not a bad idea.

Apple does not easily let you customize your iPhone because they currently have a reputation for standing out with their software. You’ll know it’s an iPhone after a glance at the UI design. If they let people apply random themes, they might lose this instant recognition.

If not a theme store, the ability to effortlessly edit icons and icon sizes would be a welcome addition. We also need the option to change the app grid layout and the ability to place apps wherever we want to. While some of this is possible with third-party apps, it gets incredibly clunky and time-consuming.

If you want to apply your icons, it’s a cumbersome and lengthy process since you have to download the icons you wish to, create a shortcut for every app one by one with the Shortcuts app, and then apply them individually.

3D/ Haptic Touch is still pretty lacklustre, and they can add an option to update apps via 3D Touch or other subtle tweaks to make it worthwhile. More widget sizes and icon sizes will improve the aesthetics of the UI, too, though it probably won’t happen.

iOS 16 has a lock screen switcher. Long pressing will reveal the rest of your lock screens, and you can switch between them. If they add more customisation, iOS 17 needs a similar feature for the home screen.

3: Improved Multitasking

iOS can multitask with the Dynamic Island on the 14 Pros, and it’s just the picture-in-picture mode for other iPhones. Android phones have had Split Screen multitasking for a long time, a feature missing on iOS.

We still don’t have resizeable floating windows on iOS, either. They’re handy features. This feature has several use cases, like reading a post while typing notes, editing photos while scrolling through your Twitter feed, chatting on a Messaging app while watching a video or playing a game, etc.

Some skins have a sidebar where you can quickly launch apps you pinned or your recent apps. You can also pin multiple apps to it simultaneously and launch them simultaneously. Adding a sidebar that’s a toned-down Dock of macOS will still massively improve the multitasking capabilities.

It’s disappointing that Apple’s chips have so much horsepower, yet the software is the bottleneck since you can’t take advantage of it. It’s unrealistic to expect a feature similar to Stage Manager. We probably won’t see the elements and the amount of multitasking on Android, either.