ALBAWABA - Apple’s week has been busy with the release of their much-anticipated Vision Pro headset, a re-release of both Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 without the disputed Blood-Oxygen sensors, and a welcomed change in App Store policies that allows purchasing options from outside the store, coming after a long legal battle. The tech giant is now preparing for tomorrow’s release of iOS 17.3.
The iPhone update had been anticipated for quite a while, the last iOS update marked 17.2 had been out for more than a month now, it introduced Spatial Video Recording, the new Journal App, changes to Apple Music and iMessage as well as keyboard tweaks.
With the next version being pulled out of beta a couple of times already, causing speculation on when it would actually be available, Apple swiftly mentioned it would be out on Jan. 22 in a recent event that shed light on the new Black Unity bands for the Apple Watch.
iOS 17.3 comes with a handful of changes, with the most notable, yet maybe less exciting, is the Stolen Device Protection; which is meant to add a new wall between thieves and stolen iPhones by asking for bio authentication using Face ID or Touch ID for many critical actions without an option to use an easily stolen passcode, examples of such actions include accessing passcodes and passkeys stored on iCloud, erasing all of device’s content, different Apple Pay transactions among many more.
Collaborative Music Playlists and Unity Bloom Wallpapers are among the most noticeable new features, with the former allowing multiple Apple Music subscribers to work on a single playlist, adding and reordering tracks as well as dropping animated emoji reactions to songs, while the latter comes as solidarity with and a new way of expression for the black community, Apple describes the new wallpapers represent Pan-Africanism and future generations uniting to address injustice with its colorful blooming flowers.
The new update notably adds back the ability to view and make wishlists on Apple TV and iTunes Store apps, a functionality that appeared missing in the last 17.2 update. No API changes are evident in the release.
iOS 17.3 will be available Monday for iPhone Xr and later, iPhone SE 2nd and 3rd generation.
