39
votes
iOS 17 is available for iPhone users
Link information
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- Title
- iOS 17 release date: When to expect it - 9to5Mac
- Authors
- Michael Potuck, Zac Hall, Chance Miller
- Published
- Sep 18 2023
- Word count
- 426 words
Just a PSA, as it’s something I look forward to each year and sometimes I miss the actual release date / time!
One of the features I’m most looking forward to is the new transformer model for autocorrect on the keyboard.
Any features you all are looking forward to?
Live voicemail. There’s a button on the call screen which will send the caller to “voice mail”, except on device instead of being a network feature. This means you get a live transcription and can even pickup the call midway through the transcription. Seems like an great way to get the robots and call centers off your back with minimal cost.
Hahaha. Back to the days of answering machines. I wonder how many iPhone users are too young to remember that this is a thing that used to exist.
Hah, on-device voicemails - we are back to where we were 15 years ago finally! I had local voicemails on my phones and sorely missed it.
I’m going to be very interested to try that out - I regularly use both iOS and Android, and in my experience autocorrect is one of the places that there’s a real noticeable gap in Android’s favour.
Beyond that it doesn’t look like anything that’ll significantly change my usage - a few nice incremental updates, a bunch of stuff tied to FaceTime/iMessage that only really works with ecosystem lock in amongst your social group, and a vaguely useful looking home screen feature that might be nice if I happen to find a wireless charger that holds it at the right orientation and angle. All of which, to be honest, seems perfectly fine for the 17th generation of an operating system - we’re well past the time that I’d expect or even particularly want revolutionary change.
First impression is that the keyboard does indeed seem better, although it’ll take a bit more time to really compare - I’m noticing it getting a little too enthusiastic about modifying previous words in a sentence on occasion.
Unfortunately they seem to have tweaked the text selection at the same time and it’s now almost impossible to move the cursor back to edit/insert something without it selecting and replacing a whole word. Hopefully there’s a setting somewhere to force tap to just place the cursor and require long press to select, but I haven’t found it in the couple of minutes of looking I’ve done so far.
I've found that it's very willing to place the cursor without selecting except on words that it autocorrected. If you need to place the cursor on or in those words — and I know this isn't the quite the same — long-pressing on the space bar will let you freely move the cursor around and stick it wherever you want.
Good to know - I definitely don't pay conscious attention to what's being corrected and what isn't, so understanding that makes the behaviour clearer, even if no less annoying! Using it more there's a definite tendency for it to filter out some of my long presses as misclicks and jump the cursor back to the end of the line, too, so if I don't get used to it in a week or so I'm definitely going to need to figure out a fix.
I'll readily admit that it's likely to be a pretty narrow Venn diagram of people like me who are happy typing several hundred words on a phone, but do so by jumping around and editing for grammar and content as if it's a traditional word processor. Makes sense that the defaults aren't tuned for that, but I hope I can find a way to make it work for me.
Having run the beta for the last few months, the transformer model is soooo much better. It never tries to correct to a nonsensical word and the new autocomplete is pretty handy. Call screening is the other big one for me personally.
Updated yesterday and it’s remarkable. The autocorrect used to be extremely frustrating but now it feels like actual magic.
It says the autocorrect is personalized by device. It's already been doing that though. I know because there were some things I typed frequently in the past, and now it always thinks I want to keep saying those words, but I don't. Seems like they need a way for you to untrain it for these cases.
Agreed, I’d love a way to remove some of what it’s learned — there are still some words and phrases and acronyms that my phone tries to use that were common in my previous job, but I’ve now completely switched industry and don’t think I’ll ever need them again.
This is the tactical-nuclear option, but it looks like you can go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary.
In the words of the Apple support article linked above:
I think that will serve to "un-train" it like you're looking for.
@hobbes64 for your information as well.
Might as well link to Apple's official release post.
Very little I'm interested in iOS 17. Plenty of fine things I'll likely never use.
However, the big one for me is that the app bar in iMessage is now gone. I hated it so much.
Also in Messages, search is much improved which is very welcome. Message history has saved my ass on more than a few occasions but finding messages prior to iOS 17 could be a major pain.
I completely agree on the app bar! That thing felt so out of place.
Weirdly, it feels somewhat empty down there without it.
Whatever. I’ll learn to love it.
Oh gods, that's the thing I didn't know I wanted. I hated it so much.
I have made so many stickers of my cat. Absolutely essential feature
I just went to Software Update to check it out, it says my currently installed 16.6.1 is the latest version.
Turns out, my iPhone 8 is not supported. I missed that memo. Well that sucks.
iPhone 8 being EOL is so sad, the phone still feels modern and capable. Still, it's been ages since it came out.
EOL for feature updates, it should still continue to get security updates for at least another two years.
And app devs usually support at least 2-3 OS versions older than current which means a few more years of apps staying up to date. Even when the online apps stop getting updates for that OS, they’ll usually keep working anywhere between a few years and indefinitely. Plenty of useful years left in that phone.
My iPhone XS is probably next. Quite sad, it truly served me well. However, with the addition of USBC on the new iPhone 15, I think it’s time to switch.
It seems like they changed video scrubbing . You have to tap and then fast forward/reverse in safari? No more long push? Anyone else notice this?
Also, the Tips app may seem silly but it’s great for going through all the updates in a new iOoS release!
This has been the most exciting update since I switched to iphone. The call screening and contact posters are so good.
Crazy after so many years, we are still getting such huge updates.
Personally, I don’t think the update is that huge. What specifically makes you think so?
The autocorrect has been massively improved. I was bordering on just turning it off completely because of how much it would mess up my typing. Now it seems to work like magic. Contact posters is a super good idea, live voicemail will solve the spam call problem, name drop seems like something I'd use pretty regularly. And just a million other tiny nice to haves scattered around the default apps.
I appreciate a good “clean up” release where everything gets more polish. Autocorrect was getting pretty bad for me, with numerous egregious typos saved.
Just the removal of the iMessage application bar is already a massive QOL improvement in everyday life.
Disclaimer: It’s AirPods Pro 2 + iOS 17, but the adaptive noise canceling is amazing as long as you’re willing to be one of the “cool kids” who have their AirPods in all day. So many little noises I didn’t know were driving me crazy, just not there. It is wonderful.