iOS 17 was officially announced at WWDC, and it is the largest annual Apple software update for iPhone users. This year, iOS 17 contains new features for Messages, FaceTime, and tools. Below we show everything you need to know about this system, its most prominent features, and what it offers to users.
iOS 17 beta
As of June, iOS 17 is only available to developer beta testers, but there is a big change in the developer beta testing process this year. In previous users, iOS developer betas were only available to registered developers who paid $99 per year.
But for iOS 17 this year, Apple is making the beta versions available to anyone who signs up for a free developer account, and the $99 annual subscription is not required.
But Apple says that these beta versions are “for developers” for a reason, as the iOS 17 beta contains a number of bugs and performance issues and will have a significant impact on battery life, and the availability of the iOS 17 developer beta for free does not mean that you have to run it to install it .
However, sometime this month, Apple will release a public beta of iOS 17, which will still contain bugs and quirks but to a lesser extent than the developer betas.
Supported iOS 17 devices
It's worth noting that iOS 17 requires the A12 Bionic chip or later, which means that the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus — all of which were first released in 2017 — won't get the update this year. Here's the full list of supported devices. iOS 17:
Apple touts that the goal of iOS 17 is to make your iPhone "more personal and intuitive," and it has a wide range of new features to accomplish this.
Where iOS 17 includes a new feature called "Contact Posters," which allows you to customize how your profile appears when you interact with other iPhone users, and you can set up your contact to include profile pictures, special typography, font colors, and more.
And for FaceTime audio and video calls, Apple added voicemail support for the first time, so if you call someone, you can leave them a message explaining why you called them, and when they call you, they can leave their voicemail.
Also for FaceTime, Apple has added a variety of new reactions. This includes things like hearts, balloons, fireworks, lasers, and rain. These effects can be activated with certain gestures and are also compatible with third-party apps.
StandBy is one of the most notable changes for iPhone users this year. When you place your iPhone horizontally on the charger, it will display a new custom smart view style interface with easy-to-use widgets for things like the time, calendar, alarms, and more.
For fans of home screen widgets, iOS 17 includes a big update with support for interactive widgets. This means that you can now interact directly with the widgets themselves, instead of having to go directly to the app itself. For example, you can interact with play and pause controls. Music app widget directly on the home screen of the iPhone, and in conjunction with that, Apple also added home app widgets for the first time as well.