Apple has just released iOS 17.5 for iPhones. This is a big update, one of the last before attention turns to iOS 18 in four weeks’ time. There will be more updates after that time, but they will mostly focus on bug fixes rather than all-new features.
Which iPhones Can Run iOS 17.5?
All iPhones from the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max or iPhone XR from 2018 are compatible, plus any iPhone released since. That’s the iPhone 11 series, iPhone 12 series, iPhone 13 series, iPhone 14 series and iPhone 15 series. This also includes iPhone SE second- and third-generation models.
How To Get It
Open the Settings app, choose General, then Software Update. Here you can choose to download the new software now, that’ll usually mean it’s on your iPhone sooner. Pick Download and Install, and you’ll be golden soon enough. This is a biggish download, around 1.5GB on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, for instance.
What’s In The Release
Some of the key features of the new update have been widely trailed. For instance, there are new updates to the subscription service, Apple News+, which includes an offline mode which lest you access the Today feed and News+ tab even when there’s no internet connection available. It also introduces games for News+ subscribers, including one called Quartiles, which is a daily word game and Scoreboard which deals with player data for that and other games.
Tracking Notifications is a big new element, and now means that you’ll be notified if a compatible Bluetooth tracker is travelling with you unbeknownst. This applied to AirTags already but the big news is it applies to other trackers regardless of which operating system they use.
Then there’s Repair State. This is clever. It means that if you are sending your iPhone to be fixed, users need not turn off Find My when sending their iPhone to Apple to repair.
For European Union users only, there’s a big new feature, Web Distribution, which means apps can be downloaded on to the iPhone from the web. As always with the new EU features, you can bet other countries are looking carefully to see if they should follow suit.
