What’s New in iOS 11

iOS 11 brings big changes to how you use your iPad, but it also features numerous tweaks for all iOS devices. The Notification Center and Lock screen have merged, Control Center is customizable and more compact, and you can now directly manipulate files stored locally on your device. Let’s dive in…

General

iOS 11 features a number of refinements that don’t fit in any specific category:

• No more 32-bit apps: iOS 11 no longer supports 32-bit apps, so if you depend on older apps that haven’t been updated in a while, be aware that they may not work. See Stop! Attention! Achtung! to learn how to discover incompatible apps before updating to iOS 11.
• Aesthetic: Many apps have new looks, including Calculator, Mail, Messages, and Wallet. Mail, Messages, and other apps now have the big, bold text look that Music and News adopted in iOS 10. Also, signal bars are back, replacing the dots.
• Instant Markup: Marketed as an iPad feature, Instant markup also works on the iPhone, and it lets you quickly mark up screenshots and other graphics.

  When you take a screenshot in iOS 11, by pressing the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously, it now appears as a thumbnail in the lower-left corner of the screen. Take multiple screenshots in rapid succession and those thumbnails stack. Tap the thumbnail or stack to draw on the screenshot(s) (Figure 1).

  Instant markup is also found in Share sheets. For instance, in Safari, tap the Share icon to bring up the Share sheet and tap Create PDF to create a PDF of the current webpage that you can draw on. See Create PDF.

  

• Inline drawing: Many apps now let you draw in them. For example, while composing a new Mail message, tap inside the message area to reveal the popover and choose Insert Drawing to draw directly in the message.
• Quick Start: When setting up an iOS 11 device from scratch, you can place another iOS 11 device near it to transfer many settings automatically.

  During setup, when prompted, place your old iOS device near the new device. You should see a Set Up New iPhone (or iPad) prompt on the old device and a code that looks like a blue cloud on the new device, which you will scan with the old device after tapping Continue—you may need to unlock the old device first (Figure 2).

  

  When prompted on the new device, enter the passcode from the old device. Be sure to keep the old device near the new one and unlocked until you’re told that Automatic Setup is complete. Quick Start transfers your Apple ID, iCloud, and Wi-Fi logins to the new device, but you’ll still have to set up Touch ID manually.

• Location: Apple has changed the meanings of the Location Services icons in the status bar. See Understand Privacy Settings.
• Media player: The system media player has been redesigned. Notably, the volume indicator now stays out of the way of your media when you adjust the volume (Figure 3).

  

• Rating prompts: Tired of annoying app review prompts? In iOS 11, developers have to use Apple’s interface, which can prompt you only three times per year, lets you rate the app without leaving it, and will never bother you again after you rate the app. It can also be turned off entirely by disabling In-App Ratings & Reviews in Settings > iTunes & App Stores.
• 3D Touch: You can no longer access the App Switcher by pressing on the left side of the screen.
• Emergency SOS: In iOS 11, you can quickly call emergency services by pressing the Sleep/Wake button five times and swiping right on the SOS icon. You can configure who you call and notify in Settings > Emergency SOS. See Deal with Emergencies.

iPad

The iPad is a major focus of iOS 11, with a number of features specific to Apple’s big-screen iOS devices:

• Dock: The Dock has been refactored for the iPad to more closely resemble the Mac Dock. It now holds up to 15 apps, and it has a section on the right that displays Handoff and recently used apps. The new Dock is persistent, and can be accessed from most applications by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. It also plays a key role in the iPad’s new multitasking features. See Manage the Dock.
• App Switcher: The App Switcher is now optimized for the iPad. Instead of swiping through one app at a time, the iPad App Switcher displays several apps at once, along with the redesigned Control Center (Figure 4). See Multitask on the iPad.

  

• Slide Over and Split Screen: These multitasking features have been overhauled to be more flexible. See Multitask on the iPad.
• Drag and Drop: The iPad now lets you use drag and drop in several interesting ways. For instance, if you have, say, Safari and Notes both open in Split Screen, you can drag URLs from Safari into Notes. Also, you now add a second app to the screen by dragging it from the Dock to the right side of the screen. See Drag and Drop.
• Instant Notes: If you have an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil, you can place the Apple Pencil on the Lock Screen to quickly jot down a note. See Work with Instant Notes.
• Keyboard Flick: Keys on the iPad’s onscreen keyboard now feature secondary characters that you can type by flicking down on the key instead of pressing it. For instance, you can flick down on “r” to type a 4. Note that this isn’t available on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, since it already has a full-size keyboard. See Keyboarding on the iPad.
• Aesthetic changes: In landscape mode, the time display on the Lock screen is centered again. Also, Lock screen widgets always display as one column, instead of two in landscape mode as they did in iOS 10.
• HDR movies: On 2017 iPad Pro models, HDR-enhanced movies are now available from the iTunes Store. See the TidBITS article HDR Movies Now Available for 2017 iPad Pro Tablets.

To learn more about these new features, see Special iPad Features.

Lock Screen

The Lock screen sees some major changes in iOS 11:

• Goodbye, Notification Center: The Lock screen replaces Notification Center in iOS 11. Instead, you swipe up on the main Lock screen to see previous notifications.
• New Locking Mechanism: So what happens when you swipe down from above the screen? Instead of pulling down Notification Center, it now takes you back to the Lock screen, though it doesn’t necessarily lock your device—Apple calls this the Cover Sheet, but it’s practically identical to the Lock screen.
• Redesigned media player: The Lock screen media player has been redesigned to look more widget-like.

For more on the changes to the Lock screen in iOS 11, see Explore the Lock Screen.

Control Center

Control Center sees some enormous changes in iOS 11. Refer back to Figure 4 to see how it looks:

• Back to One Page: In iOS 10, Apple split Control Center into two pages—three if you had HomeKit Accessories. Apple has completely redesigned Control Center in iOS 11, merging everything back into a single page.
• Minimalist Controls: You may find the new Control Center baffling at first. Apple has shrunk the old controls down into a set of minimalist controls, which often reveal more controls and information if you press them.
• Customization and new toys: Control Center can now be customized in Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls. Apple has also added a number of new widgets, including Apple TV Remote, the new Do Not Disturb while Driving, Low Power Mode, Screen Recording (finally!), and more.

See Take Control of Control Center to learn how to use it.

Home Screen

The Home screen sees a couple of small changes in iOS 11:

• Move multiple apps at once: Once you drag an app to move it, you can tap as many app icons as you like to move them all at the same time.
• Dock: The Dock no longer shows app names under the icons.

For more, see Hone the Home Screen.

Files

The iCloud Drive app has been replaced by the new Files app, which not only manages your iCloud Drive files, but also files stored locally on your device and even in other cloud services. It also lets you use tags to label and sort files and folders (Figure 5). See Say Hello to the Files App.

Siri

Siri sees its largest changes since iOS 9, with a new look, new voices, new capabilities, and new artificial intelligence features:

• New voices: Apple has redone Siri’s voices to sound more natural and less robotic. For example, Siri now uses different inflections while speaking.
• Artificial Intelligence: Siri now uses on-device learning to understand you better. Siri also works throughout iOS to help recommend things you may like. For instance, Siri may suggest Safari searches it thinks you’ll be interested in, words in the QuickType keyboard, and relevant articles in News.
• Translation: You can now ask Siri something like, “How do you say ‘Welcome to Costco, we love you.’ in Spanish,” and it will speak out the translation.
• More Results: Siri can now offer multiple choices when responding to a query, including alternative sources.
• Personal DJ: If you subscribe to Apple Music, Siri will pull your music preferences from it so you can say “Play something I like” and Siri will play a song at random that it thinks you’ll like. You can also ask Siri questions about the currently playing song, like “Who’s the drummer on this song?”
• SiriKit additions: Developers can now create app plugins that let Siri modify lists, display QR codes, and start workouts. See Use Third-party Apps with Siri.
• One Siri to rule them all: Siri data now optionally syncs across all the devices associated with your Apple ID, so you’re always talking to the same Siri.
• Type to Siri: There’s a new accessibility setting in Settings > General > Accessibility > Siri that lets you type queries to Siri instead of speaking them. Unfortunately, with this setting enabled, you can no longer speak to Siri by pressing and holding the Home button, since this only allows typing, but Hey Siri still lets you speak with Siri.
• Disable Siri: You can disable Siri in Settings > Accessibility by setting Press and Hold to Speak to Off.

Speak to Siri teaches you the basics of Siri and suggests commands to try.

Keyboard

Text editing gets some nice tweaks in iOS 11:

• Text selection is fixed! Perhaps the greatest feature of iOS 11 is that text selection works as it should. The insertion point no longer goes bonkers while trying to select text on certain webpages. If you’re just trying to select a word, sentence, or paragraph, it won’t try to select the entire page or other nonsense. Finally!
• Password autofill for apps: Previously, iOS could store usernames and passwords, but it could fill them only in Safari and some apps. Now you can insert those login credentials from any app via the QuickType keyboard. See Autofill Passwords.
• One-handed typing: Typing on an iPhone with one hand can be vexing, especially with the large Plus models. Touch and hold the Emoji or Globe key to reveal a popover that lets you push the keyboard to the left or right of the screen for easy one-thumb access. See Type One-Handed.
• Dictation: If you have multiple language keyboards enabled in Settings > General > Keyboards, you can quickly switch between dictation languages. See Dictate Text.
• Number pad: The number pad has a new look in iOS 11 (Figure 6).

See Command Keyboards for tips and tricks for the onscreen keyboard.

HomeKit

Not much has changed on the surface with HomeKit, Apple’s home automation framework, but there are some big changes under the hood which could drastically increase the number of supported devices:

• AirPlay 2: Apple is updating its AirPlay protocol and including it in the Home app, so you can use it to send audio to multiple devices at once. However, as of iOS 11.0, this doesn’t seem to be fully implemented.
• Zones: The Home app now lets you assign rooms to zones, like Upstairs and Downstairs. For instance, you could tell Siri, “Turn off my upstairs lights.”
• Multi-person automations: HomeKit automations can now trigger based on the locations of multiple people. So you could set up an automation that turns the lights off if both you and your partner are away from home.
• Faster Bluetooth response: Bluetooth HomeKit accessories will respond faster in iOS 11 once their manufacturers update their firmware.
• Enhanced device setup: When setting up an accessory, instead of waiting for the accessory to appear in Home, you first scan the accessory and then choose it on the screen. Device manufacturers can now also use QR codes and NFC tags for setup. Additionally, accessory setup now seems to be more reliable than it was in iOS 10.
• Relative time offsets: Now you can set an automation to not only trigger at sunrise or sunset, but 15-minute increments before or after. So you could turn your Good Morning scene on 30 minutes before sunrise.
• Additional conditions: You can now use time and people’s locations as conditions for automations. For instance, you can have an automation trigger when everyone’s left the house, but only after sunset. Or you can have an automation trigger at a certain time, but only if everyone’s home.
• Timers: You can set an action to trigger for only a set amount of time, like turning your porch light on for five minutes when you get home.
• New devices: HomeKit now works with sprinklers and faucets. Also, device manufacturers no longer need to get Apple’s approval before manufacturing a HomeKit device, so existing devices on the market could potentially gain HomeKit support. And hobbyists are now allowed to use HomeKit on their own non-commercial projects.

See Control Your Home to learn HomeKit fundamentals.

App Store

The App Store has been completely redesigned in iOS 11, with more emphasis on curated content and daily featured apps. See There’s an App (Store) for That.

Camera

The Camera app gets a few improvements in iOS 11:

• Better photo and video compression: In iOS 11, photos are now stored in the standard High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) and videos are stored in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), which uses drastically less storage space.
• New filters: The Camera app now includes several new filters to stylize your photos.
• QR codes: The Camera app can now (finally) read QR codes! Just point the camera at a QR code and a notification appears with the code’s contents, whether that be a contact, an email address, web address or something else. You can even join a Wi-Fi access point automatically if it has a QR code you can scan (Figure 7)!

  

• Improved Portrait mode: If you take photos with an iPhone 7 Plus or other device that supports Portrait mode, you’ll enjoy better image quality and low-light performance, as well as optical image stabilization.

See Capture Camera Basics for more on using the Camera.

Maps

Maps in iOS 11 features a few welcome new features:

• Indoor Maps: Maps now features maps of selected indoor places like airports and malls (Figure 8).

  

• Speed Limits: Maps shows you the current speed limit while navigating.
• Lane Guidance: Maps will let you know which lane you need to be in so you don’t miss your exit.
• VR Flyover: If you have an iOS device with an A9 or later processor, navigate to a city that supports Flyover, and you can tap the new Flyover button to see a VR view of that city.

See Find Yourself, Your Stuff, and Your Friends to learn about Maps, Find My iPhone, and Find My Friends.

Messages

Messages sees far fewer changes than it did in iOS 10:

• App drawer: Remember Messages apps? iOS 11 features a redesigned app drawer so they’re easier to access and less likely to be forgotten (Figure 9).

  

• Message effects: Messages has four new effects: Echo, Spotlight, Love, and Celebration. See Use Screen Effects.
• Person-to-person Apple Pay: Apple has promised a new Messages app to enable person-to-person Apple Pay payments, but it’s not implemented in iOS 11.0. We’ll update this book in the future to discuss it.
• Messages in iCloud: Apple also said earlier this year that the Messages app in iOS 11 will be able to store iMessage conversations in iCloud and sync them across your devices, but this feature, too, is missing in iOS 11.0. I will update this book with information about that feature when it’s available.

See Master Messages to learn the ins and outs of the Messages app.

Photos

Apple focused mainly on Live Photos and Memories for Photos in iOS 11:

• Live Photos: You can now edit the video portion of a Live Photo, and even change the still photo by choosing a new key frame from the video. There are also three new effects you can apply to Live Photos: Loop, Bounce, and Long Exposure. See Work with Live Photos.
• Memories: The Memories feature has been enhanced with more selectors, so it can create collections around things like birthdays and the family dog. Also, Memories videos now look better when viewed in portrait orientation. Finally, you can now block Memories of a day or place.
• Animated GIFs: Photos can now play animated GIFs, and there’s a new Animated smart album to help you corral them.

See Get to Know Photos to learn more about working with the Photos app.

Notes

Notes has received a lot of love from Apple in the last few iOS updates, and that continues in iOS 11:

• Document scanner: Notes can now use your iOS device’s camera to scan a document, automatically detecting its edges and deskewing it.
• Formatting improvements: You can now insert simple tables, and there are now dedicated buttons to format text. You can also indent and outdent lists, and there’s a new monospaced type option. Finally, you can change the background paper style to ruled or grid lines.
• Pin notes: You can pin a note so that it stays on top of your list of notes.
• Instant Notes: Not exclusive to the iPad, you can create Instant Notes on any iOS 11 devices from the Lock screen if you add Notes to Control Center. However, if you have an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil, you can create or edit Instant Notes with a tap. See Discover Control Center Functions and Work with Instant Notes.
• Handwriting recognition: While sketching in Notes, if you jot down some words, Notes will recognize them and include them in search results and note names (Figure 10). It works with printing as well as cursive, but it works better with printing.
• New typeface: No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks—Notes has a slightly different typeface.

  

To learn more about these new features, see Additional Apple Apps.

Settings

There are a number of new settings in iOS 11:

• Do Not Disturb while Driving: The iPhone is great in the car, but it also distracts drivers and causes car accidents. The new Do Not Disturb while Driving feature can block text messages while you’re driving, sending an automatic response explaining why you’re not answering. See Enable Do Not Disturb While Driving.
• Siri settings: The Siri and Spotlight Search Settings menus have been merged. Find them under Settings > Siri & Search.
• Safari: There’s a new entry under Settings > Safari called Prevent Cross-Site Tracking that’s on by default. I recommend leaving it on, as it prevents websites from tracking your internet journeys.
• Shut Down: You can now shut your iOS device down from Settings by choosing Settings > General > Shut Down.
• Social accounts: Special entries in Settings for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo are gone. Those apps will now have to integrate with iOS like all other apps.
• Storage Optimization: iOS now offers a number of storage management recommendations under Settings > General > iPhone (or iPad) Storage. See Control Device Storage.
• Offload Unused Apps: You can now set iOS to automatically Offload Unused Apps in Settings > iTunes & App Store. iOS will automatically uninstall apps that haven’t been used in a while, but will retain the apps’ data, so you can access them again after reinstalling them from the App Store. See Control Device Storage.
• Disable Auto-Join for Wi-Fi access points: While viewing a Wi-Fi access point under Settings > Wi-Fi, tap the info icon to reveal a new Auto-Join switch that you can turn off.
• AirPods: You can now customize the double-tap action for each individual AirPod, so double-tapping on the right AirPod can activate Siri and double-tapping on the left can pause your music. To do so, connect your AirPods to your device, go to Settings > Bluetooth, tap the info icon next to your AirPods, and change the settings for Left and Right.
• Background App Refresh: You can now disable Background App Refresh while on mobile data. See Manage Data Usage.
• Accessibility: There are new Accessibility settings to answer calls automatically and a new Smart Invert feature that doesn’t invert the colors of images. See iOS Accessibility.
• Location: All apps listed under Settings > Privacy > Location Services now offer a While Using option.
• Share Your Wi-Fi: If you’re using an iOS 11 device and another iOS 11 device tries to connect to your Wi-Fi network, you’ll receive a prompt that lets you send over the password by tapping Send Password (Figure 11).

  

• iCloud Storage: You can now share iCloud storage with those in your Family Sharing circle. Also, the 1 TB tier has been upgraded to 2 TB for the same price. See All in the Family Sharing.
• Ringtones: You can now buy ringtones directly from iOS, under Settings > Sounds & Haptics. For more, see the TidBITS article iTunes 12.7 Giveth, but Mostly It Taketh Apps and Ringtones Away.
• Trust: You must now enter the passcode on the iOS device before you can “trust” a connected computer.

Other Apple Apps

Other Apple apps see small changes:

• Clock: You can now set timers down to the second.
• Health: You can now sync Health data via iCloud, and can optionally share your health data with Apple. Graphs have been redesigned. The Today and Health Data tabs have switched places.
• Mail: Message threads in Mail now collapse read messages by default—you can change this behavior with the Collapse Read Messages switch in Settings > Mail.
• Music: The Music app is more social—you can create a public profile so your friends can see what you’re listening to, and you can share playlists on Apple Music. Also, there’s a new API so developers can tap into Apple Music.
• News: The News app now uses Siri to recommend stories and sources based on your preferences. The Explore tab is gone—instead, there’s a Spotlight tab for editor-curated stories and a Following tab for your favorite sources.

See Additional Apple Apps.

Under the Hood

There are some behind-the-scenes changes that aren’t immediately noticeable, but could lead to some powerful new apps:

• ARKit: Augmented Reality (AR) uses the input from a camera to overlay virtual elements on live images of the real world. ARKit is a new framework to make AR apps better and easier to create. Objects placed with ARKit can interact with real-world objects like floors and are affected by room lightning. See my TidBITS article ARKit: Augmented Reality for More Than Gaming.
• Metal 2: Apple’s 3D graphics framework has been updated, which should make apps like 3D games run better.
• Core ML: Machine learning is the focus of Core ML, which Apple claims will make artificial intelligence easier for developers to implement.
• Core NFC: For years, iOS devices have included Near Field Communications (NFC) chips, but they could be used only for Apple Pay. Now, Apple is granting developer access to these chips, so, at least in theory, you’ll be able to use NFC tags to automate actions.

iPhone X

The upcoming iPhone X will abandon the Home button, and provide an almost entirely edge-to-edge display, with the notable exception of a “notch” at the top of the screen, which contains the phone’s sensor package. To each side of the “notch” are “ears” (Figure 12).

Here’s how the iPhone X will change how you interact with the iPhone:

• Unlock: The iPhone X will use Face ID in lieu of Touch ID, which uses an array of sensors to identify your face and unlock your phone.
• Cover Sheet: Swipe down from the left ear.
• Control Center: Swipe down from the right ear.
• Return to the Home screen and multitask: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return to the Home screen. Stop mid-swipe to bring up multitasking.
• Siri: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button.
• Apple Pay: Double press the Sleep/Wake button.