iOS 17: Release Date, Features and Supported iPhones

iOS 17 has a lot of expectations to meet. In 2022, iOS 16 added many of the features people wanted. A battery percentage indicator and a touch-up to the default keyboard were subtle but good additions. iOS 16 also brought lock screen customization and lock screen widgets. iOS can now use AI to intelligently separate you from the background of a photo, drag it and drop it wherever you want. There is also the Continuity Camera feature, which lets you use your phone as a webcam.

As discussed before, iOS 16 also has some features inspired by Android. In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about iOS 17. When is the iOS 17 release date? What are its features? Which devices support iOS 17? The answers to all these questions are in this article.

When Will iOS 17 Come Out? 2023

The next-generation version of iOS, iOS 17, may be announced at the Apple WWDC 2023 event in June. It will probably be made public on September 12, 2023. iOS versions are usually announced in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference. A launch date for all models is usually September, when the new iPhones come out. The iPhone 15 series will ship with iOS 17 out of the box and is expected to be released in mid-September 2023.

What Will the iOS 17 Features Be? 2023

1: Interactive home screen widgets

Home screen widgets look good and the design is quite modern. However, the functionality side is lacking. A simple tap to clear reminders, or the ability to edit notes with 3D/Haptic Touch, would be a great addition. You can already control music from the widget.

If widgets were more interactive, it would reduce the need to open the main app for small tasks. Simple sliders could be a great addition. A widget for easily viewing and replying to emails, answering messages, or viewing Tweets and Reddit posts would make iOS widgets much better.

2: Home screen customization

You will not see an iOS post without mention of customization. There is no theme store, so we cannot easily apply themes to radically redesign the user interface. Even if Apple does not want to add a fully user-supported store like MIUI or ColorOS, a theme store limited and controlled by Apple, with a few designs every few months, is not a bad idea.

Apple does not readily let you customize your iPhone, because they currently have a reputation for standing out with their software. You can tell it is an iPhone at a glance from the user interface design. If they let people apply random themes, they could lose that instant recognizability.

If not a theme store, the ability to effortlessly edit icons and icon sizes would be a nice addition. We also need the option to change the app grid layout and the ability to place apps wherever we want. Although some of this is possible with third-party apps, it becomes incredibly clunky and time-consuming.

If you want to apply your own icons, it is a tedious and lengthy process, because you need to download the icons you want, create a shortcut for each app one by one with the Shortcuts app, and then apply them individually.

3D / Haptic Touch is still quite lifeless, and they could add an option to update apps with 3D Touch or other subtle tweaks. More widget sizes and icon sizes would also improve the aesthetics of the user interface, but that will probably not happen.

iOS 16 has a lock screen switcher. A long press reveals the rest of your lock screens, and you can switch between them. If they add more customization, iOS 17 needs a similar feature for the home screen.

3: Improved Multitasking

iOS can multitask with the Dynamic Island on the 14 Pro, and for other iPhones it is only picture-in-picture mode. Android phones have long had Split Screen multitasking, a feature missing on iOS.

We still do not have resizable floating windows on iOS. This feature has various use cases, such as reading a post while taking notes, editing photos while scrolling your Twitter feed, or chatting in a messaging app while watching a video or playing a game.

Some skins have a sidebar where you can quickly launch your pinned apps or recent apps. You can also pin multiple apps to it and launch them at the same time. Adding a sidebar, in the vein of a macOS Dock, would still greatly improve multitasking capabilities.

It is disappointing that Apple's chips have so much horsepower. Expecting a feature similar to Stage Manager is not realistic. We will probably not see the items and the amount of multitasking that exist on Android either.

4: Stability

iOS 16 had a few problems with image quality control. Hardware issues aside, there were several visual bugs such as disappearing widgets or random phone crashes and freezes. App crashes and user interface inconsistencies, along with font and design errors, were widely reported.

Thermal problems were widely reported, and as a result standby drain increased. Overall battery life is also worse. Random Wi-Fi disconnections, AirDrop bugs and black wallpapers are a few of them. Apple generally has a reputation for delivering stable software with fewer bugs than Android, but iOS 16 destroyed that reputation.

For iPhone 14 Pro users, there were many bugs in the Dynamic Island feature. iOS 16 became by far the most unstable version, surpassing the notorious iOS 13 in terms of instability. Many iOS users would be happy with a new release that offers fewer new features but focuses on stability and bug fixes instead.

5: UI/UX Redesign

Expecting a radical redesign with new icons and fonts, and a theme refresh, is probably pointless because that probably will not happen for a long time. iOS 7 was a comprehensive UI redesign, followed by iOS 8 and 9, which modernized the look of the icons. Since then, all icon changes have been quite subtle.

UI design started with skeuomorphism, which represents real-life objects to remind people of an app's function. Later the design moved to flat 2D icons, general minimalism and glassmorphism design, with Gaussian Blur, Bold Fonts and aesthetic System Apps.

It is interesting to note that macOS design has not gotten stuck on 2D apps but is evolving toward a new morphism. macOS icons are not skeuomorphic, but they have a near-3D shape, depth, shadows and gradients. This looks refreshing, and it would be nice to see iOS adopt a neumorphic design with icons that have depth, shadows and gradients.

6: Background tasks

A long-standing complaint about iOS is the way it handles background tasks. In all Google apps such as Google Photos or Drive, uploads and downloads do not happen in the background. Downloading large files from Safari does not work in the background either.

Game updates, Spotify playlists, Netflix shows and so on do not download content when the app is minimized in the app switcher. The reason is Apple's ultra-aggressive background task management. It helps the battery but hinders productivity, annoys users and wastes time.

A background upload/download API exists, but there is still a certain time limit on how long apps are allowed to run in the background. Since some people prefer this system for whatever reason, a simple toggle in the Settings app to turn off this aggressive background task management would be great.

They could give you a warning window about the battery effects. iPhones with 6 GB of RAM carry out some background tasks, but the overall system is undoubtedly hit-or-miss. iPhones with 4 GB of RAM have some of the worst background tasks on a 2022-model phone.

7: RCS Support for iMessage

iMessage is a messaging tool that is primarily popular in the US and is only available on iPhones. This benefits Apple because it creates a lock-in mechanism, and people buy iPhones to stay in group chats due to peer pressure. Adding RCS support would make messaging better for everyone. Apple still supports the insecure and outdated MMS/SMS standard.

8: Universal Battery Widget

The current battery widget shows you the battery percentage of your other ecosystem devices, such as your iPad, Apple Watch or MacBook. Letting you see the remaining battery of all your devices in a single widget would be quite convenient.

9: Predictive (T9) Dialing

T9 dialing, or text prediction, has existed on Android phones forever. When you type a number into the dialer, predicted contacts appear on Android phones. On iOS nothing appears; the contact name is displayed only after you have typed the entire number.

10: Better Siri

Siri on iOS is functional but barely meets the minimum requirements of a perfect virtual assistant. Because Apple claims it does not collect your data, the assistant cannot understand you.

A virtual assistant can only be good if it understands you and collects as much data as possible. Because of their so-called privacy-focused approach, Apple cannot do that. Improvements to Siri are long overdue. We sincerely hope that Siri becomes smarter and relates your latest conversation to what you said before.

Which Devices Support iOS 17? 2023

The iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X may lose support next year. iOS 16 dropped support for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and support lasted five years.

Apple may continue to support all phones starting with the iPhone XS, but may not support the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X. The list below shows all the devices guaranteed to receive the update.

• iPhone 14 series
• iPhone 13 series
• iPhone 12 series
• iPhone 11 series
• iPhone XS and XS Max
• iPhone XR
• iPhone SE 2020
• iPhone SE 2022