On my home desk is an iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 17 on a MagSafe charger. The screen shows a giant clock that every so often fades into an alert for a new message from my friend. I can swipe up and down to change the style of the clock between one that looks chic to one that’s more artistic and another that’s straight out of the ’80s. Apple calls this screen StandBy, and I adore it. StandBy is different from using your phone’s always-on display. It transforms the iPhone into a bedside clock or a smart display showing photos and widgets. It’s versatility is compelling because it feels contemporary and looks more like a miniature iPad than my iPhone.
The new feature is one of many additions coming in iOS 17 that Apple announced last month and just publicly launched in beta. Though iOS 17 was largely overshadowed by Apple’s Vision Pro headset announcement, there are many new features worth your time and attention in this upcoming iPhone update. The software is in beta and you shouldn’t install it onto your primary iPhone as you may experience the occasional bug or glitch.
For me, nearly everything in iOS 17 falls into one of four categories that I made up: delightful features, intuitive improvements, personal additions and helpful tools. Those sound like Jeopardy categories, but they all add up to an iOS that’s a major quality of life improvement.
Like the last few years of Apple software updates, iOS 17 doesn’t alter your iPhone in major ways and instead adds a bunch of customizations and features you can choose to use or just plain ignore. There are still features I’d like to see Apple add, like an onscreen volume button for the iPhone’s virtual Apple TV remote. The final version of iOS 17 will be out this fall, likely when the rumored iPhone 15 is announced. For a more comprehensive deep dive into everything that’s new in iOS 17, check out my previous story here.
Name Drop lets you share your contact poster with another iPhone simply by bringing them close together.
There’s also another personal addition, aimed at people with pets. The Photos app can now identify and find pet photos better. If I type the word “cat” into the Photos search field, it pulls up all the photos of cats on my phone. Locating pet photos isn’t exactly new, but apparently it works better in IOS 17. For the record, I had 562 cat photos on my phone, which sounds like a lot, but I would’ve thought there were more.
Also, when you pull up a photo of a cat, there’s a new Visual Lookup icon with a tiny cat silhouette on it. There’s a similar icon for dog photos, too. The new icon doesn’t add any functionality but it’s just a nice touch.
You can finally choose which photos show up on the homescreen with the Photos widget for albums.
There’s now a Photos widget for albums. Once you add the widget to your home screen, you can edit it to show photos from a specific album. Like the swipe to reply in Messages, why hasn’t this been on my iPhone before now?
iOS 17 helpful tools
Live Voicemail is a nifty new call-screening tool for the iPhone.
Over 16 years, the iPhone has evolved from being three revolutionary devices in one, as defined by Steve Jobs, into an essential part of our daily lives that serves dozens of different roles, like showing you the weather, letting you hail a ride or letting you pay for a meal. iOS 17 adds even more useful tools, and one of the most conspicuous is live voicemail transcription; basically a modern day equivalent of screening phone calls using an answering machine in the ’80s, ’90s and early-2000s.
As someone who reviews both iPhones and Android, it reminds me of the Call Screen feature on Google Pixel phones. Essentially, when someone calls and starts to leave you a message, you’ll see a live transcription of the voicemail as the person speaks. You can pick up the call to talk to them at any time. I don’t get a ton of phone calls from people I don’t know, but this can go a long way toward minimizing the anxiety that rises when I get a call from an unfamiliar number.
One of the best improvements is also one of the smallest. If there’s a long thread of new messages, a tiny arrow will appear on the right side, which when tapped brings you to the first unread message in a series.
Messages gets a new arrow button that lets you instantly jump to the first unread messages in a conversation. It’s great for long threads where you need to catch up fast. Just tap the arrow to go to the first unread message.
And then there’s Check In, which lets a friend know automatically when you’ve arrived at a destination safely. It’s location sharing taken to another level, and I found it easy to use. In my tests, I found it straightforward, especially since it’s right there in that new Messages pop-up menu.
Check In is a streamlined way to share your location with a friend to ensure you get to your destination safely.
iOS 17 arrives in full this fall
iOS 17 still has a month or two of testing and tweaks before it’s fully ready for prime time, but I’m impressed with it so far. Like previous iOS releases, there are far more features, tools and improvements that are still waiting to be discovered. But if you have an old iPhone lying around (iOS 17 works with the iPhone XR and newer), or don’t mind dealing with a few glitches here and there, it’s worth downloading the public beta. iOS 17 pushes your iPhone experience forward not by being a radical reimagining of phone software, but rather by refining and expanding on a number of features we already enjoy.
