3 amazing new iOS17 features I’m excited about

(Image credit: Future)

published 26 April 2023

When the iPhone 15 launches later this year, it'll be packing the latest version of Apple's iOS – and iOS 17 will also be available for older iPhones. With WWDC 2023 imminent some details are beginning to leak, and there are three iOS 17 features in particular I'd really like to see.

The latest leak comes from a fairly reliable source, via MacRumors: the source previously leaked the existence of the yellow iPhone 14. And the features sound like the kind of minor but useful improvements you'd expect from a fairly mature operating system. We've already heard multiple reports indicating that iOS is not going to change massively this year; the emphasis is on tweaking rather than ripping it up and starting again.

What iOS 17 features do we want to see?

Feature number one is an improved lock screen, with new font size options and a share button so you can let others see your creations. As much as I like the Lock Screen it's a little bit frustrating in its lack of customisation, so anything that enables you to make the screen a little more you is definitely worth having.

Feature number two is in Apple Music, which is getting a redesigned interface to make it a bit more simple and will also have the ability to view song lyrics for the current track on your Lock Screen. A redesign would be welcome, especially if it includes the AirPlay pop-up: it can be a bit fiddly when you're sending music to smart speakers such as HomePods, especially if you're using speaker groups.

Last but not least there's the much-rumoured redesign of Control Centre, which I really hope is happening: it's another of Apple's software interfaces that's become quite cluttered over time, and I'd particularly welcome more control over which of your Home devices appear when you swipe: at the moment Control Centre seems to pick four at random and won't let you override its choices. I know it's a first world problem but it's still very annoying.

We should see a lot more iOS and iPadOS features at WWDC 2023, which takes place in June.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).