iOS 17 is the seventeenth major release of Apple's iOS operating system for the iPhone. It is the direct successor to iOS 16. It was announced on June 5, 2023, at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference alongside watchOS 10, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. It was made publicly available on September 18, 2023, as a free software update for supported iOS devices (see the supported devices section). It was succeeded by iOS 18 on September 16, 2024.
Early development iOS 17's internal codename is Dawn. Apple initially intended iOS 17 as a "tuneup release", similar to iOS 12, Mac OS X 10.1, Mac OS X Jaguar, and Mac OS X Snow Leopard, allowing them to focus on their new Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset, though they added major features later in the development cycle.
System features
Home Screen Widgets on the Home Screen and lock screen are now interactive. For example, a user can turn on lights or open shutters of a house by pressing the corresponding button of the Home widget, mark a task complete by pressing directly on a reminder in the widget, etc. Spotlight search now allows users to change system settings directly from the search results. For example, if a user searches for "wifi" from the Home Screen, the switch to turn the Wi-Fi off or on appears in the search results. The brightness of the wallpaper image changes depending on the dark or light mode, instead of being the same on both. Resized photos are now automatically extended to the top with a gradient that fills the missing space. Live wallpapers return after being removed from iOS 16, though they must now be selected separately from other photos and only animate when the phone is turned on.
StandBy StandBy is a new feature automatically enabled when the phone is charging while horizontally oriented. It displays information via widgets in intelligent stacks, live activities, photos, the date, the clock, etc. The appearance of this information changes according to the ambient light, with dimmer and less flashy colors appearing at night.
Autocorrect and text prediction The keyboard's autocorrection and dictation are powered by a new on-device transformer model, which is advertised to be more accurate and personalized to users' writing styles. Unlike previous versions of iOS, it can learn not to autocorrect swear words. Autocorrected words are underlined and can be reverted with a tap. Word predictions are shown inline as gray letters that are added when the spacebar is tapped. As of iOS 17.2, the option to turn off inline predictions without turning off predictive text was added, which allows the user to switch autocorrect to that of its functions in versions prior to iOS 8.
Translation Ukrainian was added for translation available system-wide, in Safari web pages, and in the Translate app, bringing the number of languages available to twenty.
AirDrop With the addition of NameDrop, by tapping an iPhone or Apple Watch against another iPhone, users can start a file transfer, a shared activity with SharePlay, or exchange a customizable contact card. (Using NameDrop with an Apple Watch requires iOS 17.1 and watchOS 10.1.) As of iOS 17.1, AirDrop file transfers can continue over the Internet if users leave AirDrop range.
Siri Users can now simply address Siri by its name instead of having to say "Hey Siri" to activate it. Subsequent questions asked to Siri do not require the user to repeat the "Siri" command. The user can now say "Hey Siri, send a message" and then choose the application to use through a drop-down menu. After the first change, Siri will remember the choice and speed up the operation. Users can ask Siri to read a page in Safari. Additionally, the ability to find a lost Apple TV remote with Siri was added.
AutoFill The information saved by the user in Contacts can be used to automatically and securely fill in the fields of a form of a PDF or scanned document. Scanning documents take place in Notes.
Accessibility A new feature called Personal Voice uses machine learning to let users recreate their own voice as a text-to-speech model. Using Point and speak, the phone will read what is written on the push-button panels of household appliances. A feature called Assistive Access is an extremely simplified iOS user interface that can be activated from the Accessibility settings, useful for people with cognitive disabilities.
Networking A user can now connect an iPhone to a private 5G or LTE cellular network, using an eSIM or physical SIM that has been specifically provisioned for that network. There is also a new setting for cellular networks that allows users to disable cellular data usage statistics if they do not care which apps are consuming data.
System settings In addition to an updated UI that shows more categories, the iPhone Storage section in the Settings app now shows the space occupied by data shared between multiple apps from the same manufacturer. In the Haptic Touch duration settings, there is a third duration that is even shorter than the other two available in iOS 16. A new option for Focus mode notifications was added called Silence Notifications. This option lets the user choose if they want to mute notifications always or only when the device is locked. In iOS 17, the default notification sound was changed from "Tri-tone" to "Rebound", which is noticeably quieter. As of iOS 17.2, the ability to change the default sound effect for third-party apps was added, including the previously default "Tri-tone" option.
Charging iPhone 15 models support Qi2 wireless charging. This was later added to the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 models in the iOS 17.2 update.
DockKit
The DockKit framework was introduced in iOS 17, which lets iPhones work with motorized stands and gimbals licensed through the MFi Program.
App features
Phone With Contact Posters, users can now customize the appearance of the incoming call screen shown to other iPhone users. Customization options are similar to iOS 16's revamped lock screen, with the ability to pick a custom picture or Memoji as the contact photo, and change their name's font and color. On the incoming call screen, a new Live Voicemail button sends the call to voicemail and shows a live transcript on-screen, so the user can decide whether to pick up the call. Other improvements: Different ringtones for each SIM. Increased number of memorized numbers in call history to 2,000. Users can choose which SIM to use to call all unknown numbers. The buttons to end a phone call, mute the microphone, etc. are positioned at the bottom instead of being in the center of the screen, so they are more accessible when using the phone with only one hand. Added more than 20 new ringtones and 11 new alert tones, while moving the previous main ones into the classic section.
Messages The Messages app has a new "Check In" feature. The user must pick a contact and set a destination, and Check In notifies the contact once the user reaches the destination safely. If the user stops moving towards the destination and does not respond to prompts, the user's location, route, and battery level are automatically shared with the contact. The contact otherwise has no access to the user's location, and this information is end-to-end encrypted. Other improvements: The Messages app also shows a transcript of voice messages. Emojis and photo cutouts (created through the "remove subject from background" tool) can be used as stickers, and stamped on bubbles in iMessage conversations or in other apps. In iOS 17.2, a new feature called contact key verification was added. This adds an extra layer of security to iMessages, as these keys are exchanged by users when they meet up in person or can be automatically shared with FaceTime, and if at any point a device not registered with the key sends a message, the other user will be notified.
Journal Journal is an end-to-end–encrypted journaling app that lets users log their daily activities. The app was not available at launch and was added in the iOS 17.2 update.
Apple Music A new feature called a "Collaborative Playlist" allows a group of users to add and remove songs from a shared playlist. (This was removed in iOS 17.2 beta 4, but later re-added in 17.3.) A new Crossfade effect between played songs, supporting a range between one second and 12 seconds. Animated album artwork in music player: albums that support animated album artwork will now show that animation in the music player on Apple Music. In iOS 17.1, the "Love" system in Apple Music was replaced by a "Favorites" section that comes with expanded functionality. In iOS 17.2, a Favorite Songs Playlist was added. With iOS 17.2, users can now disable Listening History in a focus mode.
Apple Maps Maps can now be downloaded for use without an Internet connection. It is possible to see in real time the availability of charging points for electric vehicles, in particular how many free slots there are at that particular charging point, the type of connection, etc. Users can search people on the map by name if they have shared their location.
Safari Safari supports Profiles to keep a user's browsing activities separate when they are at work or school from those at home or personal. Individual Safari extensions can be enabled or disabled by profile. Pages previously opened in Private browsing mode require Face ID to be reviewed. Any extension that can read info on a page the user visits is disabled by default when private browsing. Known trackers are blocked while private browsing and tracking IDs in links are automatically removed. In the Safari settings, users can set a separate search engine to use in private mode. Users are able to listen to an entire page as audio read from the phone. The browsing history now shows favicons next to the site name and description. Added support for JPEG XL and HEIC image formats. AV1 hardware decoding on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Notes Users can create links between notes to quickly jump from one note to another. Users can view and annotate PDFs directly within the app.
Reminders The list of a reminder can now be organized into sections. The Grocery list now automatically sorts grocery items into sections. There is a new column view.
Photos Users can search for recipes on the Internet using a photo containing food. Dogs and cats are automatically recognized and categorized within the people section. When a user zooms in on a photo, a button automatically appears to crop the photo without having to go into photo editing first. In the search box, users can type the name of an object to find the exact frame in the video where that object appears. Visual Lookup is now able to recognize in photos the symbols of the various lights in the car, the symbols in the labels of clothes, etc.
Camera The Camera app has two new optional settings: "Level" shows a horizontal line that turns yellow when the subject is aligned to the horizon, and "Lock white balance" can disable automatic white balance adjustments when recording a video. Deferred Photo Processing: the Deep Fusion post-processing process is performed in the background, instead of taking place at the same time as the "shot" and only when the camera is not in use. This ensures significantly higher recording sessions, without shutter blocks, allowing the user to capture new photos at any time.
Weather A wind map has been added. The Weather app now lets users compare today's weather with yesterday's. Moon phase: a new section shows the current state of the moon, the time until the next full moon, the times of moonset and moonrise and the lunar calendar.
Health The Health app lets users log and label their mood, and see how their mood correlates to various lifestyle factors over time.