WWDC 2023 was one of many busiest Apple bulletins in current reminiscence, not solely unveiling the upcoming iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, tvOS 17 and macOS Sonoma updates however a slew of Mac {hardware} together with the MacBook Air 15 and the long-awaited Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional AR/VR headset.
iOS 17 appears to be a very thrilling replace with a swathe of recent options coming to iPhones later this 12 months together with Stay Voicemail, Test In, Standby Mode and a brand new Journal app, however there are a couple of essential options that might vastly enhance the iOS expertise that Apple didn’t announce on stage at WWDC 2023.
With that in thoughts, listed below are 4 large options I want Apple added in iOS 17. Hey, perhaps I’ll have higher luck with iOS 18 subsequent 12 months…
New ring and notification sounds
This one may not be on many individuals’s wishlists, but it surely’s actually on mine. The iPhone has a good, if not barely bland, choice of ringtones and textual content tones that customers can select from, however that choice hasn’t modified in any respect because the introduction of iOS 7 means again in 2013 (with the one exception being a brand new ringtone for iPhone X customers in 2017).
We’ve all been within the state of affairs the place we’ve heard an iOS textual content tone and reached for our telephones, solely to search out it’s somebody close by, proper? That wouldn’t occur as usually with a bigger library of tones to select from.
Apple’s choice to not introduce new tones through the years could possibly be a tactic to power customers to go to the iTunes Retailer and pay for different ringtones and textual content tones – the issue is that it’s filled with these horrendous early 00s ‘comedy’ tones and alerts which are something however humorous in 2023. What about extra nuanced, pleasing textual content tones and ringtones? It’s an understated addition that may actually refresh the iPhone expertise.
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RCS help in Messages
iMessage is undoubtedly one of many highlights of iOS, and the controversy of blue vs inexperienced bubbles (when texting an Android smartphone) has been raging for years. Apple is adamant that iMessage gained’t be obtainable for Android anytime quickly, so what’s the choice? In line with Google, that’d be RCS help.
In its easiest type, RCS presents all of the sorts of options you’d anticipate from iMessage, together with sending high-res photos and movies with out MMS charges, the flexibility to textual content with out a stay mobile connection, end-to-end encryption and far more. It even contains small issues, like the flexibility to depart an iMessage group chat – one thing not presently potential for Android customers, leading to a slew of (typically undesirable) messages they will’t do something about.
If Apple had been to combine RCS rather than the usual SMS system, it’d make speaking and sharing content material with Android customers a lot simpler and safer. C’mon Apple, be courageous.
ChatGPT integration
Siri has a little bit of a popularity for not being fairly as intelligent or useful as competing digital assistants like Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, usually serving up net outcomes for pretty easy queries that the competitors haven’t any difficulty answering. Apple has labored on Siri’s capabilities through the years, however even in 2023, it’s nonetheless not the go-to private assistant.
ChatGPT, or some proprietary model of the pure language chatbot, may vastly enhance simply how useful Siri could possibly be each day. Not solely may it converse extra naturally with you, but it surely may present extra detailed responses with out the necessity to show net pages.
It’s one thing we’re already seeing in textual content type from Google Bard and Bing’s ChatGPT-inspired assistant with pretty spectacular outcomes a lot of the time, and it’d be nice to get this moved onto voice-to-voice chats. If anybody may do it in a privacy-focused means, it’s Apple.
Third-party app shops
Options to Apple’s App Retailer on iPhone might sound complicated and a bit pointless, particularly provided that the App Retailer has over 1.6 million iPhone and iPad apps obtainable to obtain on the faucet of a button, however the thought does have some enchantment. Some have argued that Apple are basically the gatekeepers of iOS and the App Retailer and, as such, something that goes towards their stringent guidelines isn’t allowed on the platform. That’s nice for safety, however not nice for competitors.
Third-party app shops may assist get round this difficulty, permitting firms like Epic Video games (who famously had a falling out with Apple leading to Fortnite being faraway from the App Retailer) to get their fashionable titles again onto iPhone.
Actually, the EU has outlined such guidelines for smartphone markets forward of laws going into impact in 2024, so I’m shocked that it wasn’t introduced as a part of iOS 17 at WWDC 2023 – although Mark Gurman believes that, initially no less than, it’ll be restricted to customers in Europe with the US and the remainder of the world nonetheless locked to Apple’s official App Retailer.
If that’s the case, it could be a quiet addition to the software program through the beta course of. I’ll actually be preserving my eyes peeled!
What would you’ve favored to see launched in iOS 17? Let me know your ideas on Twitter.