iOS 17 is coming on September 18 after three months of beta testing. We already knew that there were some iOS 17 features that wouldn’t launch until later this year, but Apple has now published an in-depth breakdown with more details. According to Apple, there’s an array of new features coming to iOS 17 later this year via a separate software update.
New iOS 17 features coming later this year
When iOS 17 was announced at WWDC in June, Apple outlined three features that wouldn’t debut until sometime later this year:
- Journal app: This brand-new iPhone app lets you write about your experiences, find meaningful insights, and let journaling suggestions and writing prompts help you get started.
- Collaborate on Apple Music playlists: Invite friends to join your playlist, and everyone can add, reorder, and remove songs. In Now Playing, you can use emoji to react to the song choices. Favorite Songs playlist.
- AirDrop over internet: AirDrop transfers will continue over the internet when you step out of range.
In a new PDF breakdown published on the iOS 17 Preview website this week, Apple goes more in-depth on what’s still to come in iOS 17 this year. This list includes some features that were announced at WWDC but also some previously unannounced features that are apparently on the iOS 17 roadmap for this year:
- Stickers in Messages: The new Stickers experience provides you with a single home for all your stickers. Later this year, you’ll also be able to access all of this through the Tapback menu.
- Catch-up arrow in Messages: Easily jump to your first unread message in a group conversation by tapping the arrow visible in the top-right corner.
- Messages in iCloud improvements: Enabling Messages in iCloud will sync Messages settings such as Text Message Forwarding, Send & Receive accounts, and SMS filters across devices.
- Apple News widget: Play or pause a podcast or News+ audio story.
- Favorite songs Apple Music playlist: Quickly get back to your favorite songs in this new playlist. Find the Favorite Songs playlist in your Library or just ask Siri.
- Even more to favorite in Apple Music: Select your favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists. Your favorite music is automatically added to your Library and improves your recommendations.
- Intelligent form detection in PDFs: Fillable documents and forms can now be automatically identified across the system, like in Files, Mail, or scanned documents.
- Enhanced AutoFill: Populate information such as names and addresses on forms even faster, as powerful on-device language models identify fillable fields and enable AutoFill.
- Audio Focus in Fitness+: Prioritize the volume of either the music or the trainers’ voices so that you hear more of whatever is most important to you.
- Apple ID proximity sign-in: Signing in to set up a device is now easier than ever. Simply bring an existing signed-in and trusted iPhone or iPad into proximity, pair the devices by scanning the particle cloud, and you’re signed in automatically.
I’m intrigued by a number of these features, including the enhancements to Apple Music and the new “Apple ID proximity sign-in” feature. As 9to5Mac reported last month, Apple has already ramped up iOS 17.1 testing internally. It’s unlikely that all of these new features will be included in iOS 17.1, but iOS 17.2 and beyond are also in the works.
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