It seems like almost every year Apple crows that the latest iOS update is the greatest one yet. Yes, when you incrementally add features and fix bugs, every new version is fundamentally better than the previous one. But is more than that: This is a substantial upgrade that dramatically transforms iPad productivity while offering a host of new features that have the potential to make the world around us both safer and more entertaining than ever before. The hype is justified. Editor's note: This review has been updated with links to articles that take you deeper into specific iOS 11 features. The day you buy a new iPhone or iPad should be a time of joy. When all was said and done, I still needed to restore my iCloud backup and reload apps from the App Store, but the process was measurably smoother than ever before. Control Center, the interface that lets you make quick changes to your iPhone with a quick swipe up from the bottom of the screen, is completely redesigned in iOS 11. Gone is the old three-page interface, replaced with a single page of icons, buttons, and sliders. You can customize Control Center now—for example, to add a button to enable Low Power Mode or remove the button for HomeKit. Jason Snell The new Control Center right is customizable via the Settings app left. I especially have come to like the slider controls for volume and brightness. With iOS 11, Apple has addressed one of my biggest complaints with notifications on my lock screen and in Notification Center by bringing them in to alignment with one another. With iOS 11, the lock screen and Notification Center are merged together, with the current time, currently playing audio, and current and recent notifications, all scrollable. Jason Snell The App Store app is completely redesigned, with a large feature area containing articles about apps, and a simplified app detail screen. But with iOS 11, consider it messed: The App Store app has been completely redesigned. But more impressive is the , with full-on articles spotlighting the app and game of the day, as well as other featured items. In iOS 11, the App Store is a richer, more fun experience—and, I suspect, a more effective tool for selling us more apps. In this mode, app notifications are blocked, as are phone calls and texts from all but the people you choose. This is an especially nice feature on the larger iPhone Plus models. Jason Snell You can activate the one-handed keyboard right via a new element at the bottom of the keyboard picker left. Notes also now includes OCR optical character recognition technology, so when you scan or hand-write text rather than typing it on a keyboard , your device will figure out that text and make it searchable. The Maps app is adding lane guidance, which is a welcome addition—but also one that Google has offered in Google Maps for some time. Jason Snell Apps like PCalc left and Carrot Weather right have been updated to include AR features. Other AR applications both silly and useful will fill iOS devices this fall. Similarly, the new Files app looks great. Third-party apps can hook into Files, which means that every possible cloud-storage service you can think of—Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive, even SFTP and SMB servers—should be able to hook into Files and appear as a peer to iCloud and local storage. Jason Snell The iOS 11 Files app is a file browser for iCloud Drive and other cloud services. Only then will we know if AirPlay is a boon or a bust. Jason Snell The iOS 11 multitasking view on an iPad, complete with a new Dock bottom and the redesigned Control Center right. Everyone who uses iOS 11 will notice that the Dock at the bottom of the home screen has been redesigned and the name labels on apps removed , but on the iPad the Dock not Control Center is accessible by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. This enables fast switching between apps, but also provides a palette of app icons that can be dragged out into the iPad interface to create multitasking pairs. Dragging an app into a more central area or onto the border between two existing apps will place it into Slide Over rather than Split View. While apps in Slide Over behave more or less as they did in iOS 9 and 10, they now appear as a floating window rather than an overlay that comes in from the right side. Jason Snell Two apps side by side in iOS 11, with the Dock swiped up at bottom and the Files app providing quick access to recent files. Apps that are in a pair stay together until you unlink them, allowing you to create several pairs of apps and switch among them. Jason Snell iOS 11 lets you drag and drop items between apps—but only on the iPad. For iPhone users, this feature is limited to dragging data around within an app. But on the iPad, you can drag data between apps. This feature actually surpasses my expectations, because not only can you drag items between on-screen apps, you can actually begin dragging data and then use the multitasking view to move to a different app, then drop it there. There are a few other great changes that iPad users will love. You can now set Notes to open automatically when you tap on the lock screen with an Apple Pencil, which essentially turns your iPad into an on-demand notepad. And on the 9. Once you get used to it, it makes typing symbols and numbers far more fluid than when you had to toggle to a different keyboard, tap a key, and then switch back to the standard set of letters. The new, customizable Control Center is a winner. Do Not Disturb While Driving will make the roads safer. And ARKit threatens to kick off a revolution in augmented-reality applications. This is all great stuff.
