Newsletter
Alongside announcing the date for the next iPhone event today, Apple has also pushed out the eighth betas for iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. This should be near the end of the beta cycle, with perhaps one more update before a release candidate is released on September 12 or 13.
That also means that this beta should be pretty stable, so if you’re looking forward to jumping in on the beta, now is a good time to do so.
So far, it’s just the developer beta that’s available. But the Public beta will likely be released later today. As we’ve seen recently with the betas for iOS 17.
What changes does iOS 17 bring?
Initially, many thought that iOS 17 was going to be a pretty small update, and bring some quality of life improvements and that’s it. But Apple actually announced quite a few new features for the iPhone with iOS 17.
First up is StandBy. This is a simple one. Have your iPhone charging and then turn it into landscape orientation, and it’ll act like a smart display. Showing you things like the time, some notifications, the weather and even some photos. They are basically larger versions of the stock widgets on iOS.
Another change with iOS 17 is the Name Drop feature. It uses AirDrop to then drop your contact information with others. So you can now tap your phone with someone else and exchange phone numbers and other contact info. It’s a really cool feature to add to AirDrop. Apple is also adding custom call screens. So now when you call someone, they’ll see the call screen that you picked out and designed. It’s like an advanced caller ID of sorts.
These are just a few of the updates that are part of iOS 17 right now. And there’s likely some specific changes for the iPhone 15 as well. Just like last year we had a specific feature for the iPhone 14 Pro and its new Dynamic Island.