iOS 17 will finally let you ducking swear when you want to

There are two reasons I use the long-in-the-tooth Gboard keyboard on my iPhone instead of the stock keyboard:

1. Predictive text on the iOS keyboard got really bad for some reason. It corrects words that were previously typed the right way and recently started randomly capitalizing words.
2. It won't let me fucking swear when I want to. Every time it tries to correct it. Even manually typing out "f u c k i n g" it goes "Ah ha! Ducking! Got it for you, sir!" Fuck that.

But that's changing with iOS 17. The updated iOS keyboard has a rebuilt autocorrect system that "leverages a transformer language model" for more accurate corrections plus the ability to look back over the entire sentence to fix grammar that it might've missed as a correct word earlier. And it will finally learn new words, including swear words. It'll even do inline predictive text for whole sentences, learning from how you type so it'll be more like what you would write instead of what the machine learning algorithm thinks you should write.

Source: Apple

And while I'm excited about little things like that, there's also some other neat stuff in iOS 17. Like the new Contact Poster feature that lets you share a full-screen image as part of your contact information that will ring up full screen on the phone of who you're calling. It leverages the same stuff that Apple used for making cool personalized wallpapers in iOS 16, so you can layer a personal photo and text.

Also neat is the new Live Voicemail feature, which will transcribe and display in real time a voicemail being left and allow you to pick up the call right away if you decide it's urgent. For those of us that are old enough to remember screening calls with the home answering machine, it's like that except via text instead.

There are also automatic arrival notifications for when you're sharing your location with somebody and transcriptions for audio messages sent via Messages. But the biggest feature for Messages, at least for the younger crowd and those familiar with WhatsApp and Telegram, is the addition of Stickers. You can make stickers from the Live Cutout feature from photos (and Live Photos) emoji and memoji, add 3D effects to them, use them as reactions, and more. No longer do you only have the six pre-defined options.

Other neat bits: AirDrop can share your contact information and send large files over the internet even after you part ways. There's a Journal app so you can write down the stuff that made your day and role in some photos and music. When charging sideways, the lock screen will turn into a smart display with widgets. You can log your mood in the Health app. "Hey Siri" now just responds to "Siri". iPads can get more interactive widgets and customize their lock screen as on the iPhone.