IPhone: iOS 17 preview: A meaningful upgrade for your iPhone – Times of India

Later this year — sometime in mid-September — iOS 17 is likely to drop for all iPhone users. As big are the announcements and the buzz around the new iPhones, a lot of Apple users look forward to the latest iOS update. Not every year Apple brings significant changes with the new version of iOS. These may not be big sweeping changes yet they change the way people use iPhones in a more meaningful way. iOS 17 does exactly that. On paper, it may not feel that there has been a ‘makeover’ but there are way too many features that enhance the iPhone experience. We have been trying the developer beta version to play around all the meaningful new features. Now that the public beta version of iOS 17 is available, here’s what you need to know about the important features coming to iPhones later this year:
Do more with the Messages app
One of the lesser-known — but extremely useful — feature that iOS 17 brings is OTP cleanup. Quite often the messages inbox is full of random OTPs that are just lying around after one-time use. iOS 17 has an automatic deletion feature that cleans up used one-time passcodes through AutoFill. It’s a really handy feature.

The most ‘important’ iOS 17 feature
An absolute game changer of a feature is Check In. Check In lets you tell family members or friends when you have arrived a destination. There’s an option to set up for a time duration and when you arrive at your destination safely or confirm all is well after the time is up, it lets friends/family know. Apple’s attention to detail is more than evident in the Check In feature. In terms of safety, it’s right up there with one of the best smartphone features around. Consider this: in case you haven’t reached your desired destination for over 15 minutes, Check In automatically asks you if you are fine. If there’s an issue and you don’t respond, it shares your current location with your family and friends to — you guessed it right — check in on you and see if you are alright. Not just that, it also shares your battery and network status to let them know if your phone is switched off or you are in a low network area.
Your contacts will now look cool on the iPhone
At first, the contact poster feature seemed a bit gimmicky. But the more we used it, the more fun it was. iOS 17 makes incoming calls look vibrant as you can customise contacts with photos, use filters, change the font, and add Memojis. iPhone-to-iPhone calls perhaps were never this bright and chirpy.

Video calls are more fun with iOS 17
In the last couple of years, a lot of people have done more video calls than ever before. iOS 17 brings Reactions like confetti, hearts, balloons, fireworks and then some more. These were already available with iMessage but now can be used with video calls as well. Apart from that, there is the option to customise the portrait background blur and use the Studio Light effect, which darkens the background so that more light is on your face.
Standby for more?
One feature that Apple did talk quite a lot about at the unveiling of iOS 17 at WWDC was Standby. When idle, Standby turns the iPhone into a display with useful information like date, and time, you can even see photos and then some more. The only catch is that you need a MagSafe charging stand or any other Qi-enabled wireless charging stand. Not sure how many people will end up using this feature but it does give a whole new look to the iPhone when not in use.

Name dropping is now a thing on iPhone
Yet another cool feature is Name Drop. Sharing your phone number or other contact information through iMessage, WhatsApp or even AirDrop is now passé. All you need to do is just hold your iPhone close to someone else’s iPhone and you can share a specific phone number or email address you want to with the other person. If you ever want to just receive someone else’s contact information, and not share your own, then you can simply tap Receive Only. Apple is giving the good old handshake treatment to the iPhone with Name Drop.
‘Ducking’ time this got fixed
iPhone users around the will rejoice as autocorrect is much smarter and better with iOS 17. Autocorrected words are temporarily underlined to give you an idea on what has been changed as you’re typing. And yes, it still shows “ducking” but a simple tap on space bar will let you say what you want to say — #IYKYK.
There is a lot more to talk about iOS 17 and as we said too many small but important changes Apple has made. It’s a fun update and will certainly make the iPhone experience a lot better than it already is.