iOS 17’s primary focus should be boosting speed and reliability, with minor but useful new features such as interactive widgets, Siri in the Dynamic Island, etc.
- What’s happening? An anonymous tipster has unloaded a barrage of alleged iOS 17 details, a mostly maintenance update focused on speed and stability.
- Why care? Details were leaked by the same tipster who accurately predicted the Dynamic Island features ahead of the iPhone 14 Pro launch.
- What to do? Read the tweetstorm on the @analyst941 Twitter account.
iOS 17 could bring these new features to your iPhone
Before we get to the gist, we should point out that @analyst941 doesn’t have an established track record, even though the account accurately predicted details about the iPhone 14’s Dynamic Island feature. With that said, here are the supposed new iOS 17 features the source mentions in their Twitter thread:
Performance and stability
The source claims that iOS 17 will focus on performance, efficiency, stability and long-term support for older devices.
System requirements
Despite a recent report claiming iOS 17 may drop support for the iPhone X and other devices powered by the Apple A10 chip, the source claims that the operating system will support all the same models as iOS 16, including all A11-powered phones like the iPhone X and iPhone 8. iPadOS 17 might lose support for A9 and A10-powered iPads, which will be decided in a few weeks.
As mentioned earlier, iOS 17 won’t have any tentpole new features as the main focus will be bug fixes, reliability and performance improvements.
Interactive widgets
Widgets in iOS show you snippets of information, but they’re not interactive. For example, you can’t mark a message as read in the Gmail widget. iOS 17 should bring interactive widgets with “one-tap buttons, sliders and more.”
Control Center
As previously reported, iOS 17 should redesign the Control Center. The source expects major changes for the Control Center interface, customization, etc.
Dynamic Island
The source says that the iPhone’s Dynamic Island will become more useful. Apple’s marketing department has apparently “pressured” the development team to add more features to the Dynamic Island, including moving Siri’s interface into this area (on supported devices). It seems the final decision’s yet to be made as “Apple may or may not go with the Dynamic Island version of Siri.” The source also adds that “many more notifications” will integrate with the Dynamic Island.
Camera app
iOS 17 could introduce changes in the Camera app. The source doesn’t reveal the changes, which were apparently planned for the iPhone 14 Pro’s release, but warns that they could be specific to the iPhone 15 models (probably to account for new camera features like deep optical zoom).
Always-On display
Apple will apparently implement additional settings and toggles for the Always-On display feature, but the source wouldn’t expand on this claim with details.
Focus filters
New filters for Focus modes in the Settings app.
Notifications
Unspecified notification changes and “additional options in Settings.”
Custom Accessibility Mode
This will apparently enable complete control over the iOS user interface layout, making it ideal for older persons and younger children. 9to5Mac previously unearthed Custom Accessibility Mode screens from the iOS code.
Wallet
iOS 17 will expand support for digital car keys via the Wallet app.
Health
The Health app will undergo some visual changes, the source claims, with a special focus on the app’s Favorites section.
Search
The Spotlight search feature in iOS 17 will be “heavily improved.”
Augmented reality
Apple’s ARKit framework for building augmented reality apps will be “an absolute behemoth” in iOS 17. Of course, Apple is heavily rumored to preview its first AR/VR headset at WWDC, and the ARKit framework could be the main sauce. “Don’t take that lightly,” the source adds, “a metric ton of” changes in ARKit is expected.
Tidbits
The source also shared these iOS 17 tidbits, including features not to expect:
- Lock Screen: Some new Lock Screen controls should be added to the Settings app (this could be as simple as consolidating all the controls under a new Lock Screen section in Settings (similar to macOS Ventura’s System Settings app).
- Home Screen: iOS 17 will not allow you to place Home Screen icons wherever you like, like on Android. These will still snap to a predetermined grid.
- Sound management: The source has yet to hear anything about independent control of the ringer, notification and system sounds in the revamped Control Center.
- Keyboard: There will be no number row for the onscreen keyboard.
If you’re wondering what I’ve leaked so far, I basically confirmed the “single” pill cutout in software on the iP14 (rather than 2 cutouts) and the basics of dynamic island a week or so before launch. Including the return of the battery percentage which was added in 16.1 instead.
— 941 (@analyst941) April 11, 2023
iOS 17 preview is coming at WWDC23
Apple will preview iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10 and macOS 14 at its annual conference for developers, WWDC, which takes place June 5-9.
The WWDC keynote in the morning and the State of the Union talk in the afternoon on June 5 will give fans and developers a good overview of the most significant new features and under-the-hood changes coming to Apple’s software platforms.
If you missed my footnote, The iPhone 15 Pro’s will still have capacitive touch buttons, contrary to rumors, the development team is working too closely with new hardware to turn back now. The components are ready and it’s too late for that nonsense.
— 941 (@analyst941) April 13, 2023
The company will restart the beta cycle by releasing the first developer previous of iOS 17 and other updates the same day. People who aren’t Apple’s registered developers will need to wait two weeks or so for public betas to arrive.
According to the source, the first few beta cycles could be “rough” for devices with 3 gigabytes of RAM, like the iPhone X and standard iPad models. This will improve as subsequent betas become more stable and efficient.