iOS 11 is bringing new features to your iPhone and iPad, and we have all the details of the major changes you’ll see very soon.
The iOS 11 release date is tomorrow, Tuesday September 19, and it’s going to be a big update for your current iPhone and iPad.
Apple’s new software update gives your smartphone a refresh, even if you don’t upgrade to iPhone X or iPhone 8. It feels new thanks to several iOS 11 features.
What’s it like? Is it worth the downloading right away? Is it bug-free enough to download on day one?
We’ve added our thoughts on every major iOS 11 feature.
iOS 11 launches tomorrow (Tuesday September 19) which is a week after the iPhone 8 and iPhone X launch event. It’s coming out of beta after a four-month test phase.
We don’t know exactly what time Apple will release the final software, but it usually comes in the morning in the US and early evening in the UK so we may have to wait a few more hours for the official release.
You could’ve gotten it early. Developers enrolled in Apple’s developer program could download iOS 11 beta, which came out in early June.
The public could test it out, too, as Apple launched the iOS 11 public beta on June 26,2017, and it worked on both the iPhone and iPad .
Your best bet now is to wait for the official release date, which is tomorrow. iOS 11 launches three days before the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus come out.
iOS 11 includes several iPhone X-exclusive features you won’t be able to find on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus or anything older, in fact.
Apple is combining emoji with animations, and it takes advantage of the iPhone X’s 3D face-scanning TrueDepth camera array. The result is Animoji. It tracks the muscles in your face to animate the emoji. All of you Messaging text messages will benefit (or suffer, depending on your view of expressive emoji).
Face ID and home-button-replacing gesture swiping will also be an iPhone X-only feature. Face ID replaces Touch ID as a biometric sensor, and it’s going to take time for people to learn how iOS 11 replaces the home button on the new flagship Apple phone.
Portrait Lighting, an iPhone X and iPhone 8-exclusive feature, is an option Apple added to its existing background-blurring Portrait Mode photos. It uses the dual-lens depth-sensing camera and machine learning to pull off lighting conditions: Contour Light, Natural Light, Stage Light, Stage Light Mono, and Studio Light.
iOS is an especially big upgrade for the iPad, which can be considered a laptop replacement (for some people) thanks to revamped iOS multitasking. Both the iPad and iPhone get a much-needed Control Center reorganization, too.
Apple Pay will support peer-to-peer money transfer and there are new camera modes, Siri is smarter, and iOS 11 (finally) thrusts Apple to the forefront of augmented reality innovation with ARKit.
Here the highlights of iOS 11 beta and how it’ll change your existing iPhone and iPad.
The new iPad Pro 10.5 and iPad Pro 12.9 are becoming laptop replacements for many people, and iOS 11 makes that a reality thanks to improved multitasking.
iOS 11 includes a dock just like a Mac computer, and it follows you from app-to-app along the bottom. It’s hidden, but you can always swipe up to access it.
The bottom app dock also shows up in the multitasking menu, which is now laid out in a grid. It’s easier to jump between apps now, just like on any MacBook.
Drag and Drop also debuts on iOS 11, and instantly launches apps into split-screen mode when you drag them to the side of the screen.
You can also transport items across a halved screen: text, photos, hyperlinks, files, etc. This – not the iMac Pro – is Apple’s answer to a touchscreen computer.
iOS 11 makes the iPad feel closer to a laptop than merely a super-sized iPhone, and it’s something that no Android tablet, not even the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S3, offers today.
Drag and Drop for iPhone may be a possibility in the future, but as of iOS 11 public beta, it’s currently disabled. There’s hope for the future, though.
iOS 11 gives Apple the largest AR platform in the world – overnight, thanks to so many iPhones and iPads out there. It’s an instant boon for augmented reality fans and developers alike.
That’s why the developer-focused Apple ARKit is a big deal for everyone, not just app makers. It hints at the biggest features to come from the iPhone 8 three months from now. Get ready for a futuristic life in augmented reality.
What is Apple ARKit on iOS 11 exactly? Developers will be able to place virtual objects into the real world using your iPhone or iPad and its camera.
It’s like a really advanced version of Pokemon Go, but with many more possibilities.
In fact, Pokemon was one of several AR demos Apple showed off. But we were even more impressed with what Peter Jackson’s studio Wingnut AR demoed.
Its complex AR showcase involved a battle between an outpost and spaceships, and it all happens on an otherwise peaceful, empty living room table.
Speaking of tablets, Ikea is reportedly a launch partner for the iOS 11 AR feature, letting you place imaginary furniture in rooms down to the millimeter.
Apple just created a new playground for millions of existing devices and put the Microsoft Hololens and Google Tango on notice.
Apple Pencil is a great little tool for the iPad Pro series, but our one complaint in our iPad Pro 9.7 review was that you can’t use it everywhere you’d like to in apps.
That all changes with iOS 11. Instant Markup lets you draw on PDFs and photos and Instant Notes lets you jot things down ASAP – right from the lock screen.
All of your Instant Notes on the lock screen are saved in Notes, so don’t worry. And drawing on Notes near existing text cleverly now moves the text out of the way.
Document Scanner in Notes defeats the need to painstakingly scan important documents that you need to sign.
It scans, crops edges, removes tilt and glare and lets you fill in the blanks or sign away with an Apple Pencil.
Apple is making a big productivity push with the iPad Pro 10.5-inch, and iOS 11 is doing its part with tweaked keyboard shortcuts.
It combines letter keys with numbers, symbols and punctuation marks (currently found on the second keyboard layer), letting you access them with a new flicking gesture.
Flicking these secondary numbers and symbols downward is easier than having to switch back and forth between the two layers. We kind of wish it were coming to the iPhone 7 Plus, too.
Apple is debuting a new Files app in iOS 11 that lets you sort through all of your files. Your can browse, search and organize them all in one place.
Apple Files not only has recent files from your iPad, but on other iOS devices, in iCloud Drive and from other services, including Box, Google Drive and Dropbox.
It’s just one more way Apple is trying to make the iPad Pro a de facto computer for people who don’t need a MacBook 2017 or iMac Pro .
iOS 11 is making iMessages even better than it already is with seamless iCloud syncing across your iPhone, iPad and Mac.
That means two things. First, when you delete a conversation bubble on an iPad, it’ll also disappear on your iPhone and MacBook Pro. Great.
Second, it frees up all of your iMessage storage, a real problem for rabid texters who have been with Apple since iMessage first launched.
Whether or not you know it, iMessages take up a bunch of space in your iPhone and iPad. It’s all of that ‘Other’ storage in yellow if you ever look in iTunes.
Soon, with iOS 11, you’ll be able to back up all of your iMessages to iCloud as they get archived to Apple’s secure internet servers. That’s a big relief.
Apple Pay is expanding to include person-to-person payment features when you upgrade to iOS 11. It’s exactly what Venmo and PayPal do right now, but via an app-free solution.
Apple Pay payments use Touch ID for authentication and iMessages to send payments between friends or other contacts who owe you money.
With so many contactless payment options on iOS right now, including Gmail and Facebook, there’s no reason to avoid paying back your friends.
We didn’t get an iTunes refresh at WWDC 2017, but iOS 11 is giving us a brand new App Store on the iPhone and iPad.
The Today tab leads things off by refreshing its app picks daily and telling stories behind the top apps. The format feels very much like what Apple did in Music last year.
Don’t worry, every app will still have a product page, but iOS 11 is putting a lot of focus on the new ‘Games’ and ‘Apps’ tabs to spotlight the best in those areas.
Apple says the new App Store on your mobile devices is ‘designed for discovery’ and is a way to make app downloading exciting again, like it was nine years ago.
It’s not confirmed, but it’s been hinted that iOS 11 could support lossless audio, all thanks to the new Files app.
Adding FLAC lossless audio support to iPhones and iPads would finally give us a way to listen to uncompressed songs without having to convert everything to Apple’s ALAC standard.
