Apple Officially Delays These Two iOS 17 Features into 2024
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In case it’s not apparent from this week’s release of iOS 17.2, some of the promised features on Apple’s iOS 17 roadmap won’t make it to your iPhone until after we ring in the new year.
As has been the norm over the past few major iOS releases, when Apple unveiled iOS 17 during its June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it announced all the features that would be coming during the entire lifecycle of iOS 17. While we knew many of these wouldn’t make the cut or iOS 17.0 in September, Apple had promised they’d all arrive “later this year” — meaning by the end of 2023.
By and large, Apple has delivered on nearly all of those advertised features. When iOS 17.0 was released, we were still waiting for Apple’s Journal app, Collaborative Apple Music Playlists, AirDrop Transfers over the Internet, Message enhancements such as Stickers tapbacks and a catch-up arrow, Favorite Songs in Apple Music, and iMessage Contact Key Verification.
While iOS 17.1 checked off a few of those, most of the big ones arrived in iOS 17.2 this week — with two notable exceptions.
In the early betas of iOS 17.2, Apple teased us with Collaborative Playlists, but ended up pulling the feature by the fourth beta. This led many to believe it wouldn’t make it into the final release — and they were right. Apple was reportedly concerned that it might be ripe for abuse by spammers and wanted to take some extra time to lock it down before releasing it to the public.
The good news is that Collaborative Playlists have returned in the first beta of iOS 17.3, which was released yesterday with a new Stolen Device Protection feature. However, the bad news is that we’re not going to see a public release of iOS 17.3 before January — at the earliest.
If there’s any doubt, Apple has also confirmed this in its iOS 17 Features PDF, which now includes a footnote beside “Collaborate on playlists” that says it’s “Coming in an update in 2024.”
However, that’s also not the only feature that’s been delayed into next year. The same footnote is also listed beside “AirPlay in hotels,” a feature Apple announced at WWDC that would allow you to easily connect your iPhone to a hotel’s Wi-Fi and begin streaming to the TV in your room simply by scanning a QR code.
While the reason for the delay of this second feature isn’t entirely clear, it’s more likely a logistical problem than a technical one. A report earlier this year said LG was preparing to deliver compatible TVs to participating hotels. However, these still need to be installed, and the networks need to be upgraded to deliver the seamless experience of not only connecting to the TV but also to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network. Much like the Hotel Keys feature in iOS 15, there are a lot of moving parts involved here, and it’s also unclear how many hotels Apple wants on board before it officially rolls out the feature.
Oddly, while Apple’s iOS 17 page has tagged that feature with a badge that indicates it’s not coming until 2024, it hasn’t (yet) done the same for the collaborative playlists feature. However, the more detailed PDF makes it clear it’s not in the cards for this year, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the timeframe and the unlikelihood that we’ll see any more iOS 17 updates between now and December 31.
