iOS 17 and iPadOS 17: 25 changes to discover

Update of June 17: addition of 5 new features, see end of article to discover them

During the WWDC conference in early June 2023, Apple announced the arrival in the fall of the same year of the following new OS: iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10 and macOS Sonoma. Let’s focus on the first two in the context of this file which aims to summarize all the important novelties they bring.

Remember, however, that iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 are not compatible with all iPhones and iPads. The two following articles detail precisely which machines support one or the other update:

Finally, before moving on to our list, let’s clarify that at this point, iOS 17 is in the first beta available for developers. Here we detail how to install iOS 17 beta.

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What’s new for iOS 17 and iPadOS 17?

Here is a first draft of the iOS and iPadOS 17 novelties that have marked us:

• Design: animations when launching an app or returning to the home screen are faster
• Shortcuts: faster display of text input options when a shortcut is launched
• New Diary app: Journal is a Day One-style diary app that invites you to write on a daily basis to improve your mental well-being. NB: Journal is announced for availability later in the year, so it will probably not be there when iOS 17 is released at the end of summer, but rather in the fall. See the detail here
• NameDrop: new AirDrop function for quickly sharing a contact between two iPhones, simply by bringing one closer to the other, as explained here
• Audio to text: like Slack, iOS automatically offers you the text transcription for any audio message
• Safari Profiles: you like Firefox, you can use different profiles for Safari, so as to compartmentalize cookies, browsing history, extensions, tab groups and bookmarks
• Apple Offline Maps: as in Google Maps, you have the possibility of downloading the cartographic information of an area, that of an upcoming route for example, to consult it without internet access
• “Hey Siri” or “Siri”: to trigger the home voice assistant, you can now say “Siri” or “Hey Siri”. A setting allows you to return to the old operation where only the phrase “Hey Siri” calls the assistant
• Apple Notes and links between notes: the note taking app supports linking between notes
• LiveStickers: use your own photos to create animated stickers
• iMessage Stickers: stickers are now available everywhere on the iPhone or iPad in the keyboard, if the third-party app used is compatible
• Posters: new contact display screen, with different customization options. These Posters are visible in Contacts, during a NameDrop exchange or during an incoming call
• Improved answering machine: any voice message left on voicemail during a call is automatically transcribed into text, in real time, for possible reading without even listening to the audio
• Voice modeling: you can let iOS or iPadOS 17 model your voice so callers can hear your written messages as if you had dictated them orally. Feature exclusive to iPhone 12 and newer models
• Apple Music: transition fades are finally here, as announced in our columns
• StandBy: when posed in landscape mode, the iPhone enters StandBy mode, a new display mode with widgets, clock and other information remaining visible on the screen
• Audio/video message for FaceTime: leave an audio or video message for a correspondent who does not answer on FaceTime
• Verification codes: double authentication verification codes received by email in the Mail app are automatically inserted in Safari when trying to connect to a service
• Clock : the app supports multiple timers simultaneously
• Keyboard predictions: the keyboard on iOS and iPadOS predicts your word and sentence endings. Press the space bar to enter the prediction
• Lock screen (iPadOS 17 only): the lock screen customization possibilities that appeared on iOS 16 last year are available on iPad with iPadOS 17
• Health (iPadOS 17 only): the Health application arrives on iPad
• Protected Private Browsing (new addition) : all your private browsing activity in Safari is protected by Face ID, passcode or Touch ID automatically
• Private browsing and extensions (new addition) : all Safari extensions are disabled in Private Browsing by default. You can enable them specifically for private browsing in the settings
• Sensitive content (new addition) : iOS alerts the user when receiving an AirDrop file containing nudity, with the possibility of accepting or not the file
• HomeKit and connected lock (new addition) : HomeKit tells you who has used the smart lock in your home and at what time
• Shared passwords (new addition) : in Keychain Access, groups of passwords or single passwords can be shared with others

We will be updating this article throughout the summer to try to provide you with the most exhaustive list possible of new iOS and iPadOS 17. In the meantime, for those who have already installed the beta update on iPhone or iPad, do not hesitate to tell us in the comments what is THE best novelty according to youabsent or present in our batch presented above.