With the release of iOS 11, Apple has done quite a few changes in the Settings app. We shall go through the most common changes and additions in the Settings app.
- Before that, it is necessary to mention that the appearance of Navigation Bar has changed. The title is bigger than usual and more towards the left, probably aligned naturally. And upon scroll, the big title becomes small(the actual size of the navigation title – in previous versions), it is set in the middle, and the animation is quite good. And this change is not a feature present in Settings app alone, but it can be used by anyone. More importantly, developers need not spend time in this animation since apple has it by default. In deeper levels of hierarchy – the appearance was found to be mixed: Control Centre had the new one, but other screens like General Settings had the old one.
- In the “Notifications” settings – there is an option to choose whether the notification preview should be shown or not. This is to help some users who wish to see the details of the notification in the notification centre itself. So, while implementing push notifications, it is to be kept in mind that the preview is optional. This can be changed for the apps specifically also. So, users can avoid seeing the preview for some apps and let other apps show the notification previews.
- Now, the messages can be synced to iCloud and accessed from any other device. Syncing can be enabled or disabled depending on how the user prefers.
- There is an option in FaceTime to enable capturing live photo during video call. This is an improvement done in the FaceTime app and users can enable/disable it. Other videos also can have this feature to pick a particular moment without any disturbance in the image.
- Photos and Camera settings were under the same roof in the previous releases, but they have been separated in this release. One main reason would be to differentiate them both since there are many settings when they are clubbed together. The respective features have been retained, with the addition of enabling/disabling QR Code scanning for camera. And in photos, if there is low space in app, full resolution photos are automatically replaced with optimized versions and corresponding full resolution versions are stored in iCloud. Although, this relies entirely with the user – to enable it or not.
- There is an option for the text to be highlighted during speech.
- In Safari settings, there is a new option – Try to avoid cross-site tracking. More about this is expected to be told in the WWDC sessions to come.
- There are two changes in Control centre settings – Access on Lock Screen, Access within Apps – have been removed, and by default they are enabled. They can be disabled in the App settings for every app. The second is a major change where we can customize the elements to be present in Control centre as in Android Mobiles. We can choose the basic accessories like torch, timer, calculator, camera, alarm notes, etc.
- In the iTunes and App Store settings, we can switch off the app-rating and review manually for all the apps. This stops the apps from asking the user regarding the rating and review. There is a new option – Offload unused apps – which uninstalls the apps that are not used for quite some time. But their data is stored and kept.
- There is a new setting added to the list – Accounts and Passwords. Here the passwords for specific apps are stored and can be viewed and changed. Also, personal accounts can be managed like Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, etc.
- There are a few changes in the Accessibility part of General Settings – In Display Accommodations, inverting the colors was present already but enabling it would invert them to dark theme which might affect some of the apps. But now, there is an option – Smart Invert which reverses colour, except for images and apps containing dark themes. As always one can choose the older one – Classic Invert. The second significant difference would be in accessing Siri – now we can access Siri by type – by enabling Type to Siri option.
- Apple has also changed the names and locations of some of the settings. Under ‘Do not disturb’, the term ‘Manual’ is replaced with ‘Do not disturb’ which looks more apt. Storage and iCloud Usage is changed to iPhone Storage. Also, the UI for the storage details has changed and now looks more appealing graphically rather than just a few numbers denoting the statistics. Siri is now Siri & search. With this change, there is the introduction of suggestions and lookup for searches using Siri. This can be handled specifically for each of the apps. Also, the emergency SOS is moved to main settings screen.
- Finally, there is a major change in the Settings app – the social account apps like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo have been removed from the Settings app. If the user wishes to sign in via any of these social accounts, he would be redirected to Safari and login from there. This probably might come as a drawback for many apps. Although, Apple has introduced another feature – Password Autofill in apps, to enable the app to pre-fill the user’s password. This might fill the void created by the removal of social account apps, at least to some extent.
These are the features that are changed in the settings app with the iOS 11. In the upcoming weeks, we will see in detail about the other changes that might be significant to the users and the developers with the release of new iOS 11.
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Sriram K
iOS Developer,
Mallow Technologies.