WWDC 2023 was one of the engaged Apple announcements in recent retentiveness , not only reveal the upcomingiOS 17,iPadOS 17,watchOS 10,tvOS 17andmacOS Sonomaupdates but a slew of Mac hardware include theMacBook Air 15and the long - awaitedApple Vision Pro AR / VR headset .
iOS 17 looks to be a especially exciting update with a wrapping of new features hail to iPhones later on this year includingLive Voicemail , Check In , Standby Modeand a newJournal app , but there are a few crucial features that would immensely improve the iOS experience that Apple did n’t announce on microscope stage at WWDC 2023 .
With that in mind , here are four big features I bid Apple added in iOS 17 . Hey , maybe I ’ll have better luck with iOS 18 next year …
New ring and notification sounds
This one might not be on many people ’s wishlists , but it ’s for certain on mine . The iPhone has a decent , if not more or less bland , pick of ringtones and text tones that user can take from , but that selection has n’t changed at all since the instauration of iOS 7 way back in 2013 ( with the one exclusion being a unexampled ringtone for iPhone X users in 2017 ) .
We ’ve all been in the scenario where we ’ve heard an iOS text timbre and hit for our phones , only to find it ’s someone nearby , correct ? That would n’t materialize as often with a heavy library of tones to choose from .
Apple ’s decision to not insert new tones over the old age could be a tactic to drive substance abuser to head to the iTunes Store and pay for other ringtones and text whole tone – the problem is that it ’s full of those terrible early 00s ‘ comedy ’ tones and alerts that are anything but rummy in 2023 . What about more nuanced , pleasing school text tone and ringtones ? It ’s an understated increase that can really refreshen the iPhone experience .
RCS support in Messages
iMessage is undoubtedly one of the highlights of iOS , and the argument of low vs green bubbles ( when texting an Android smartphone ) has been raging for years . Apple is adamantine that iMessage wo n’t be available for Android anytime presently , so what ’s the alternative ? grant to Google , that ’d beRCS funding .
In its simplest form , RCS offers all the sort of feature of speech you ’d expect from iMessage , include sending high - res images and videos without MMS fee , the ability to text without a live cellular connection , end - to - end encryption and much more . It even include little thing , like the power to give an iMessage group chat – something not currently potential for Android users , result in a mess of ( sometimes undesirable ) messages they ca n’t do anything about .
If Apple were to incorporate RCS in place of the stock SMS system , it ’d make talk and partake content with Android users much easier and more secure . C’m on Apple , be hardy .
ChatGPT integration
Siri has a bit of a report for not being quite as apt or helpful as competing practical assistants like Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa , often serving up WWW result for fair simple queries that the rival have no issue answering . Apple has work on Siri ’s capacity over the years , but even in 2023 , it ’s still not the go - to personal assistant .
ChatGPT , or some proprietary variation of the natural language chatbot , could vastly improve just how helpful Siri could be on a daily footing . Not only could it converse more naturally with you , but it could furnish more detailed responses without the need to display connection page .
It ’s something we ’re already see in text form fromGoogle Bardand Bing ’s ChatGPT - inspired helper with clean telling results much of the time , and it ’d be majuscule to get this moved onto voice - to - voice chat . If anyone could do it in a privacy - focused way , it ’s Apple .
Third-party app stores
Alternatives to Apple ’s App Store on iPhone may sound confusing and a bit superfluous , especially given that the App Store has over 1.6 million iPhone and iPad apps available to download at the tap of a push button , but the approximation does have some appealingness . Some have argued that Apple are basically the porter of iOS and the App Store and , as such , anything that give-up the ghost against their tight rule is n’t admit on the political program . That ’s great for security , but not expectant for rivalry .
Third - party app stores could serve get around this result , allowing company like Epic Games ( who famously had a fall out with Apple resulting in Fortnite being removed from the App Store ) to get their popular titles back onto iPhone .
In fact , the EU has outlined such rules for smartphone markets ahead of legislating going into upshot in 2024 , so I ’m surprised that it was n’t announced as part of iOS 17 at WWDC 2023 – though Mark Gurman believe that , initially at least , it ’ll be limited to users in Europe with the US and the rest of the world still lock to Apple ’s official App Store .
If that is the suit , it might be a quiet addition to the software during the beta process . I ’ll for certain be prevent my heart peeled !
What would you have like to see introduced in iOS 17 ? Let me know your thoughts onTwitter .
