iOS 17 is a surprisingly big update for the iPhone, and it brings a lot of features. Naturally, Apple didn’t have time to detail them, or mention them all, on stage at WWDC 2023, so you might have missed a few.
Fortunately, after digging through the iOS 17 release materials, we’ve rounded up a few features you should know about, even if Apple didn’t focus on them initially. All of them will make your iPhone more useful or fun to use, and they cover all parts of your iPhone.
Make sure you read our best iOS 17 features first so that you are familiar with the major new capabilities of iPhones before diving into more hidden things we have on this list.
Visual search now works in paused video
You may remember Visual Search from iOS 16 last year, which allowed you to analyze the subject of a photo, or tap and hold to remove it and save it as a separate photo. In iOS 17, you can now do this in videos by pausing the action, giving you more freedom to make fun edits or learn more about what’s being filmed.
Contact stickers work outside of the default phone app
Apple only offered customizable contact stickers in its Contacts and Phone apps, but that’s not the whole picture of the feature. You’ll be able to see these stickers in third-party communication apps, which means if you’re a WhatsApper or Google Voice user, for example, you should still see your carefully formatted card (and others’ cards) when you open a contact.
Live Voicemail filters spam messages
Perhaps, upon learning about Apple’s new live voicemail transcription feature in iOS 17, you feared your iPhone would bombard you with speech-to-text versions of the spam calls we all love to hate. Fortunately, Apple has gone a step further, and claims that Direct Voicemail won’t let annoying callers through but will reject calls instead.
FaceTime on Apple TV can use Center Stage
Your Apple TV can now host a FaceTime call with the help of your iPhone in Continuity Camera mode. However, Apple has questioned whether the iPhone supports Apple’s Center Stage feature, which appears on recent iPads and the Studio Screen. This will automatically crop and animate the video stream to keep you centered in the shot.
MagSafe standby mode is not required
Apple demonstrated its new StandBy mode for the Smart Display with iPhone on its MagSafe stand, and stated that the stand will remember the user’s preferred orientation of the phone between uses. This made us concerned that this fun new feature would be limited to users with Apple-certified accessories. The good news is that this feature will work with an iPhone connected with a regular Lightning cable. This is a relief for those of us without a MagSafe charge, or even a MagSafe on a compatible iPhone, such as the latest iPhone SE models.
Safari automatically closes private browsing tabs
Whatever you use it for, you probably want to keep everything you search for in Safari private browsing tabs to yourself. iOS 17 is here to help you with that by offering a biometric lock on your tabs, either in the form of Touch ID or Face ID, depending on what your iPhone offers. This should keep prying eyes away from your secrets, but also ensure that you can open your tabs and continue browsing with little downtime.
Sometimes there is no way to get around having to share passwords with other people. Apple’s iCloud Keychain is making this easier as of iOS 17 by letting you share end-to-end encrypted credentials with a select group of contacts, while giving everyone the opportunity to add and edit a shared set of logins. Maybe just make sure your Netflix password isn’t one of them.
This is useful. Apple now lets you share Find My-enabled devices, such as an AirTag tracker, with up to five other devices. This includes the ability to activate the item’s alarm noise and use subtle search to track it down, which seems very convenient the next time you lose your keys.
Reminders can help organize your shopping list
Nothing’s stopping you from using the Reminders app to keep track of the groceries you need to get on your next trip to the grocery store, but what Apple has now done is set up a special menu type designed to make that easier. After setting it up, reminder items added to the list will be sorted into groups based on their type. This way, you can pick up items on similar shelves together, rather than having to run store cycles due to the items’ placement in the list.
You can track your pet and its behavior (theoretically)
Apple does not offer a pet tracking app in iOS 17, but it does provide the ability to do so. With new APIs that allow monitoring of a pet’s body shape and subject tracking on a motorized mount, hopefully it won’t be long until someone picks up what Apple puts out and builds an app that can automatically check what your cat or dog is doing in the house.
You can set verification emails and emails to be deleted automatically
Clean Up Automatically is a new setting, found in the Settings app’s password options menu, that will remove texts and emails containing 2FA codes for your accounts once they’ve been used. This should help keep your inbox more organized.
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