Have you upgraded to iOS 17 yet? Any iPhone since the Xs and Xr is compatible. There are a slew of new features that can help you be more productive, flexible, and focused.

If you’d rather wait until the first major update, I’m told iOS 17.1 will likely arrive by early next week.

Live Voicemail

When a call comes in, you don’t have to answer. You can still let it go to voicemail, or force it by clicking the Side Button twice, or by tapping the Voicemail button .

If the caller decides to leave a message, you can view a live transcription, just like a conventional answering machine, and decide whether to pick up. On the Lock Screen, a voicemail transcript will appear after you’ve used Face ID or Touch ID to unlock your iPhone. Or, while using your phone, tap the Voicemail button  in the Dynamic Island or on the Status Bar to jump to the call.

On the Live Voicemail screen, there are options to Pick Up the call as well as to Message a caller in your contacts or Block a caller not in your contacts.

You can toggle this feature in Settings > Phone > Live Voicemail.

Screen Distance

Do you suffer from eye strain when you look closely at your iPhone or iPad for too long? Using Screen Distance, your Face ID-equipped device can notify you when your device is too close and require you to back away. Apple recommends at least 12 inches between eyes and device.

This feature is enabled by default for children under 13 in a Family Sharing group. Anyone can toggle it in Settings > Screen Time.

Links in Notes

During my cross-country bike trip last year, I used Notes on my iPad to compose my journal. However, it was inconvenient to embed links to webpages of sites I saw or visited.

Whereas the Mac version of Notes has long supported embedding links in text, the iPhone and iPad versions finally just got this feature. To link text to a webpage, select some text and choose Add Link from the menu. Then, type or paste the address of the page.

You can also link to other notes in one of two ways:

  • Follow the instruction above, type the name of a note in the Link To field, and select a title from the list of search results below. The link will carry the text you selected.
  • In the body of your note, type “>>” and search/select the note you want to link. This will embed the title of the linked note. If you change its name, the link text will update as well.

Listen to Webpage

Following up on Speak Text on the Screen, now in Safari you can easily have Siri read a webpage and even know how long the reading will take. Just tap the aA button on the toolbar and choose Listen to Page. Or, ask Siri to “read this.”

On next visit, the button becomes Listening Controls, where you can play/pause, skip forward/back, change the speaking rate, or end listening. To find out how long the reading will take, go to your system audio controls in Notification Center or Control Center.

There’s lots more to come in this iOS 17 tip series, plus more promised features yet to be delivered by Apple. What new capabilities have you discovered? What do you love and what’s bugging you?