New Features To Check Out On Your iPhone In iOS 17

Here are some of the new features of iOS 17 that you should check out once you have upgraded.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look some of the new features in iOS 17 for the iPhone. 
MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you can read more about it. Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts.
Now there are a ton of new features in iOS 17. I count more than 100. There are new things in just about every aspect and app that comes with your iPhone. Here are some things that you can check out as soon as you upgrade. 
First let's take a look at something called Contact Posters. So this what somebody else sees when you call them. So you set this up by going into the Contacts app on your iPhone. Then you tap on you rown contact there at the top and you look for Contacts Photo and Poster. Here's where you can configure it. So the first time you do it you'll see this. You go through it. Now you can customize your name. So what they see is your name. Then you can set either a photo or use a Memoji. I'm going to select a photo and it has up there at the top Suggested. I'm just going to use suggested ones with my face in it. I'm going to select this one and then I can go and use it like that or can swipe to choose kind of a filter for it. Once I get a filter that I like I can actually tap there's other options. A color option in this one. Color backdrop. I can select a different color for instance. Like that and then I can tap here and I've got depth effect or not. I can tap done. Then I'll see a preview of what it looks like. This is what it will look like when somebody else gets a phone call from me. 
Here you can see me do a Memoji right there. I'm going to use a Memoji instead. I'm going to tap this one that I created myself and I'm going to select a pose. So a good pose will just be like this one right here. Then Next. Then I'm going to pick a background color and from that I'm going to go and once I get a color I like then tap Done. Again it will show me a preview. I like that one so I'll continue. Then I also get to pick the contact avatar there. So I can crop, basically, a version of what it is I created right there and get it setup what I want. Position it and then choose and now I'm done. So I'll continue and this is what other people will see when I call them. 
Next we've got a feature called Standby Mode. This is what happens when you put your iPhone in Horizontal Mode like if you put it on your nightstand at night and you're using the MagSave charger and it kind of is just as easy to put it horizontal as vertical. When you do that it will go into a mode that looks like this and there are several different options. So you have this one that has a clock and some info, some widget info. You've got a Photos option. You've got a bigger clock right here. You can tap and hold and then go and swipe or tap these dots here on the right to choose from various things. There are different options for each one. So you can customize it to be like what you want. If we go to this one here I can tap and hold and I can go through some different options for a photos background one. For this one here, this is like the widget one. So there are a bunch of different widgets and I can tap and hold and select a widget, like a calendar widget for instance. 
Here's a small feature but I know a lot of people are going to love this. The is when you're editing your Home Screen, let's say you tap and hold and then drag something. You can now Undo. So you shake your iPhone, just like you're going to Undo anything and the Undo action here will allow you to Undo the move. This will work on a simple move like that or maybe something more complex. Like I'll drag this to another screen here and it is going to push an icon off onto a further screen. But I can shake, Undo, and everything goes back the way it was. You can see now I've got the wallet app back there on the first one. 
So here's a cool feature for the Phone App. If somebody calls you now and you let it go to voicemail you can actually see a transcription of the voicemail. So it is not going to actually speak the voicemail. You won't hear it. What happens is the phone rings and then you don't answer it or you tap the Voicemail button and it will go to Voicemail and now as they talk you'll see the text appear right here. So this is something I recorded earlier. You can see as I start to talk that is what the message is. Then you could decide at some point to accept the call. So you can tap that or you can tap Block if you're just getting spam at that point. Or just lock your phone and put it away if you just want to continue having it record the voicemail as normal. 
Now one of the things you're going to notice is the Call Interface has changed for the first time in a long time. So now when you make a phone call, like I will right here, and I put the call through, look at how the buttons are now all there on the bottom. The idea is that you can reach them easier with your thumb or single finger. So you can use that to end the call or you can, for instance, you know tap one of the other buttons, like maybe tap the audio button to send it to speaker or tap the keypad button or the mute button right there to use one of those. So everything is along the bottom and is easier to get to. But it is going to trip some people up right after they have upgraded. 
A lot of little tricks in Safari. One of them is when you go to a page that has an article on it you can now tap on the Reader View button up there. But there is now a Listen to Page button. It will speak the text for you. 
Here's another one that I quite like. You can now have separate Search Engines in Safari for regular browsing or for private browsing. So you can see there's a Search engine setting for a Regular Search Engine and you can set a different one up if you were using a Private window. 
Now here's a big one now in the Maps App. You can download maps. So you tap on your Profile Icon at the bottom right. Then you go to Map Downloads there. You can download a suggested map. In this case it is just my local area. Or I can search for an area or just start with the current location and I can pinch In and Out and swipe to select an area. Once I get the area I want it tells me how much space it is going to take up and I could tap Download and it will start to download this map. So then I have access to the map information for this area even when I don't have an internet connection. It could be really useful. Goggle Maps has had this for awhile. You have some options here about when they get updated and whether or not to optimize storage and things like that. 
There are a few new tricks when you do a Spotlight Search. One of the things I really like here is that you can now search for a shortcut and it will show up there. You can actually execute the shortcut. So here's my Resize Photo shortcut. I can execute it right here in Spotlight. I don't have to go to the Shortcuts App or a button on the Home Screen. You can also search for a Setting and some Settings, like I'm going to search for Bluetooth here actually will give you the On/Off switch right there in Spotlight. You don't have to go to the Settings App.  
Alright so there are more things you can now use Visual Lookup for. Here I am in the Photos App and there is some food. If I do Visual Lookup here it will allow me to lookup food and it will tell me what it is and also give me recipes for it. 
You can also do things with the little symbols that appear either on laundry labels. But also on your car's dashboard. So it will identify those items. 
Now if you have a subscription to News+ then a new feature is Crossword Puzzles. They are not just going to show them to you. You can actually play it. So it is a little game inside of the News App. So if I just start a search here you see Puzzles is right at the top and I'm going to get results here for both regular crossword and a crossword mini. If I select the regular crossword you can see it is interactive. I can see the clues. I can type letters there. There is a list there at the top. If I tap that little list button you can see all the different clues. So a crossword puzzle you can play everyday. 
One major new feature is Interactive Widgets. So we had widgets before, like the one you see here. But notice how there are buttons now. I can say, you know, tap the Call or Message button for the Contact Widget there. So you can put your important people there are widgets. You've got a Play button for music. I can even tap items reminders to dismiss them. If I look at the options for a widget you can see sometimes you have a Show Buttons option. So you may want to check that if you don't get those buttons there on a particular widget. 
 So as I said before there are tons of new features in iOS 17. These are just some of them. I'll be talking about others in future videos. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 6 Responses to “New Features To Check Out On Your iPhone In iOS 17”

Tom

2 years ago

Gary, Excellent video on the new iOS 17 software, a real must to “learn” before downloading. So much to learn to get the full appreciation of the changes. Looking forward to more videos and as always thank you for expertise and passion.

Jim

Very interesting. It will make me upgrade.

Chris O'Connor

I have an iPhone 8. I see an iOS update for 16.6 waiting to be upgraded, but not 17. Does this mean my phone isn't capable of running 17?

Gary Rosenzweig

Chris: That's right. Apple always publishes the list of compatible iPhones. See https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17/#:~:text=iOS%C2%A017%20is%20compatible%20with%20these%20devices.

Rich Brenner

Do you set update of MAC and iphone to automatically update or do you wait a few days after it is announced? I always check your site before I update.

Rich: Automatic. Security updates are no joke.

Comments Closed.

New Features To Check Out On Your iPhone In iOS 17

Comments: 6 Responses to “New Features To Check Out On Your iPhone In iOS 17”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information