72 Hours with the iOS 11 beta on an iPhone

iOS 11 is official as Apple opened up the curtain on it during the WWDC 2017 opening keynote this past Monday. So as they have done in the past, registered developers get the beta now, and a public beta is launching later this month. I have spent about 72 hours or 3 days with iOS 11, and while it is the first beta, I am here to report back on some of the new features.

I am testing out the first beta of iOS 11, on an iPhone 7 Plus and as a disclaimer, I would not recommend installing the first beta on your primary device. As while it is stable, it is not near where the final version launching this Fall will be.

With that being said, iOS 11 is not like the major redesigns we have seen in the past–But rather it brings with it a lot of small updates. Moreover, even more, updates have come under the hood, like a full augmented reality development package called ARKit. The first most noticeable feature in the update would be a fully redesigned Control Center. Instead of two separate panels, one for utilities and one dedicated to music, you have one panel that is pretty customizable. At first, the new Control Center is seen as a significant change and not very clean, but I can say that after a few days of use, it comes together.

Being able to have everything on one panel makes it easy to multitask with the different settings. However, the real joy of this redesign stems from the ability to add more options in. You can even remove ones you do not use; For instance, the timer can be swapped out for screen recording. You can even use 3D Touch to access more with each button. For example, while you can open the Apple TV Remote app with a press, using 3D Touch allows for a full remote in the Control Center panel.

While Control Center lives on the bottom of the screen, Notifications live on the top and have been rethought. Pulling it down brings you to the lock screen and displays the most recent ones. However, an “Earlier Today” graphic with an upwards arrow appears and allows you to see all the other notifications that have come through; Swiping to the right brings you to the widgets screen which was shown off prominently in iOS 10.

Apple Music is getting an update, and it is a social one, similar to how there can be collaborative playlists on Spotify. There is a now profile and handle that you get with the service and you can choose to share playlists publicly. Those you connect with on the platform can also share their playlists with you. You can share an up next system to have a live shared track list as well. Messages gets a subtle update, with the app drawer becoming a bit more organized. As all of the Messages App will live on the bottom of the screen and it seems cleaner.

Apple also added more Location controls in Settings, a new Files app, a fully redesigned App Store, significant improvements to Siri, and much more. This is just my first impressions after 72 hours with iOS on the iPhone. So, you bet that more coverage is coming soon, including videos, a closer like at the App Store redesign, and the “Pro” features that are coming to the iPad Pro.