iOS 17: Worth Installing? (2024)

It has now been nearly three weeks since Apple officially launched iOS 17. So in that case, is it worth installing, especially if you’re still on iOS 16 or even an older version of iOS 16. Here are my thoughts on it:

Performance: iOS 16 wasn’t the best software version for performance. For the most part, it wasn’t that bad, but sometimes, my phone would end up feeling laggy or slow, even though I have the 14 Pro Max. But on iOS 17, performance actually feels smoother than ever before. Scrolling on the Home Screen feels like butter now. Of course, there is the occasional hiccup when pulling down the Notification Center, but besides that, things generally feel much smoother compared to iOS 16. It essentially feels like a new phone!

Geekbench 5(Because I don’t like Geekbench 6) Benchmark results on iOS 16.4.1 vs iOS 17.0.2. Notice how iOS 17 has a noticeably higher single core score than iOS 16.

Haptic Touch: One of my favorite features on iOS 17 is surprisingly Haptic Touch. In the past, I always wished 3D Touch was still a thing, as I never got to experience it when it was still used on iPhones. Haptic Touch was usable before, but it felt much slower compared to how 3D Touch would’ve been. But now that iOS 17 introduced a faster version of Haptic Touch, things feel much snappier than before. It’s still not as fast as 3D Touch, but it’s a lot closer than it was before.

Combined with the performance improvements on iOS 17, my 14 Pro Max feels even faster and smoother than when I first got it a few months ago.

StandBy: I’ve used this feature about 2–3 times, and I think it’s a really nice feature. In case you aren’t aware, StandBy is a feature introduced on iOS 17 that essentially turns your iPhone into an alarm clock. You can also swipe in between different clock faces. I find it very cool, and it can even change the color of the numbers to red when you’re in a dark room.

My screensaver for the StandBy mode feature(it looks so cool!)

Auto correct: Apple announced that iOS 17 has brought upgrades to the autocorrect that bugs us all sometimes.