Apple's newest iOS update is out and chock full of little updates and surprises.
After too many betas to count, iOS 10.3 is on the scene. It brings Apple's new file system and in-app reviews program to the public, reorganizes iCloud settings, introduces the Find My AirPods feature, and adds new SiriKit features — along with a host of other little details.
We've put together a rundown of everything new in iOS 10.3 for your perusal — here you go!
Apple ID Ch-ch-changes
The Settings app has been completely reorganized when it comes to your Apple ID, iCloud, and iTunes accounts — they now all live in a Apple ID prompt at the top of the screen. You can go here to change your Apple ID photo and other settings; customize your iCloud, iTunes, and App Store accounts; set up Family Sharing; choose what gets backed up to your device; and view the various devices associated with your account.
Meet Your Apple ID
Though many of these Apple ID features have existed in the past on the web, many settings and customizations are now available on your iPhone for the very first time. Here's how to view and change them.
- How to change your Apple ID's settings
- How to view any iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch connected to your Apple ID
- How to create an Apple ID
- How to reset your Apple ID
View your iCloud options
Primarily new to the iCloud section is a revamped iCloud Storage section, with a color-coded storage key, though Apple has also reorganized backups, Mail email aliases, and sharing location with friends and family.
- How to manage your iCloud Storage
- How to make an iCloud backup
- How to manage iCloud backups
- How to choose what your iPhone backs up to iCloud
- How to create iCloud email aliases
- How to share your current location with friends and family
Find my AirPods
If you're one of the lucky people who currently owns a set of AirPods, you'll now be able to find wayward buds that go missing with Apple's Find My iPhone app. Here's how to use it!
New Siri features and updates
With iOS 10.3, Siri gets a few new tweaks: You can now use Siri with supported third-party apps to check the status of your accounts and pay bills, and schedule rides in advance with apps like Uber. In addition, if you have a car whose app supports Siri, you'll be able to check its fuel level and lock status, and honk the horn or turn on the lights.
Lastly, if you're a cricket fan, you'll be able to check sports scores and statistics for the Indian Premier League and International Cricket Council.
CarPlay tweaks
If you're a CarPlay user, there are a few small updates to Apple's car interface. First, you can now find EV charging stations in Apple Maps when searching for a place to top up; Apple has also made it easier to quickly launch apps when in the CarPlay interface.
- Whats new for CarPlay in iOS 10.3
- How to use Apple Maps in CarPlay
- How to quickly launch apps in CarPlay
App updates
As with most iOS updates, Apple has taken the time to slip some updates into several of its stock applications. This time around, Music, iTunes, Maps, Calendar, Podcasts, Safari, and Mail get a few new perks.
Apple Music and iTunes updates
The Music app gets a few new features: The Now Playing screen now lets you access Up Next at the bottom of the scroll, and when you press the More (…) button, Apple has added a side arrow indicator next to the album name and art to indicate that you can get to the full album view by pressing it. (You've always been able to do this, but the visual indicator may help more users in finding the visual for the album.)
For Apple Music users, the service now offers more curated playlists and new music categories.
On the iTunes side, you'll now be able to rent movies from the service on any device — iPhone or Apple TV included — and watch them on any other device. Goodbye and good riddance, "rent twice to watch on both my iPhone and Mac" nonsense.
Maps
Maps gets two nice little features in iOS 10.3. First, you can press firmly on the weather indicator (using a 3D Touch-compatible device) to view an hour-by-hour breakdown of the day's weather, and press fully to enter your current area's full weather listing in the Weather app.
The other feature plays off iOS 10's "Find My Car" feature in Maps, with Apple now letting you search for "parked car" to find where your iPhone last last saw your vehicle.
Calendar, Mail, and Safari
A few small updates here: Calendar lets you reject and report unwanted invitations as junk — a nice fix to the Calendar spam issues of the past few months — while Mail adds a few navigational improvements to Conversation view, and Safari web apps will now pay attention to your systemwide reduce motion settings.
Podcast away!
The Podcasts app still has a long way to go before it can surpass third-party options, but there are a few nice updates with iOS 10.3: Podcasts now support 3D Touch gestures, and the app offers a Notification Center Today widget to play recently updated shows. In addition, you can now share shows or episodes in Messages and play them back inside the Messages app — no secondary app required.
In the Home(Kit)
I know iMore editor Mikah Sargent is excited about iOS 10.3's HomeKit improvements, which allow the Home app to trigger pre-programmed scenes with physical HomeKit switches and buttons. In addition, the Home app will now show battery level for accessories that rely on portable power.
Other changes
There are a few miscellaneous iOS 10.3 perks that aren't quite as visible to the average user:
- iOS 10.3 now uses APFS, the company's new file system infrastructure. Here's Rene with a great explainer on how AFPS will affect you going forward.
- Third-party apps can now change icons after installation (with the user's permission). This allows both the user and developer to set custom styles for their icons — including, yes, obnoxious holiday-themed ones. (Unfortunately, this change still doesn't allow calendars like Fantastical to dynamically change their date.)
iOS 10.3 allows app developers to change an app's icon. Here it is in action in Streaks. pic.twitter.com/n5t0HGyxdc
— Quentin Zervaas (@qzervaas) March 27, 2017
- When you open and close an app, you might notice a slight change to how the app appears on your screen: App corners have now been slightly rounded.
- Apple is now using differential privacy on your iPhone's iCloud user data to improve its services — this is very similar to what the company did with macOS Sierra 10.12.4. This is an opt-in procedure; if you don't want your data anonymized and shared, you don't have to.
- Apps can now use a standardized in-app reviews pane that allows you to rate the app right from the pop up. In addition, developers can now reply to written reviews — allowing dialogue between users and app makers inside the store for the first time.
Found any other cool iOS 10.3 features?
Anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!
Reader comments
What's new in iOS 10.3
my ios 10.3 update is in progress, in the meanwhile, availing the opportunity to add something, at first, i am a huge lover of music and have ipod touch 6th gen and jabra sport elite just to enjoy ultimate music experience but i wish there would be more built-in options aside of equilizers like 3D voice arena or tweaks to make sound more crisp. please add those add-ons as well. You can also copy feature of the famous jetaudio (android app) that are just awesome, in whatever way you want to play with the music, you can with jetaudio.
thank you
Hey, I think Rene mentioned that there might be an issue with iOS 10.3 on 32 Bit devices like my iPhone 5, and he thought Apple would be issuing a quick fix. Do you have any update on that issue?
What's the issue? I have a 5 and it's been fine, I just don't feel any of the extra "zippiness" that's been reported.
That was probably during the beta phase, it will have been fixed now
Updated iPhone 6s to 10.3... just noticed a slight bluish frame when resetting phone... that black screen with apple logo in the middle... it used to be all black... bug?
Sent from the iMore App
I updated this morning and went from 185.42 GB of free memory to 191.46 GB. I am having some issues with apps not loading right. First it was my IMDB app but it seems to be ok now but my local NPR station (KJZZ) app loads but just freezes. I assume they have not updated that app yet so Ill wait and see how things work in a few days.
Update bricked my iPad Pro 9.7" :(
Restore from iTunes fails, Online support couldn't help, so booked into an Apple Store for Saturday afternoon (earlier appointments were available, but I can't get there until then).
"Apple is now using differential privacy on your iPhone's iCloud user data to improve its services — this is very similar to what the company did with macOS Sierra 10.12.4. This is an opt-in procedure; if you don't want your data anonymized and shared, you don't have to."
This reads weird. "if you don't want your data anonymized and shared, you don't have to" does that mean if I don't "opt-in" it's sent normally without anonymization, or it isn't sent at all unless I opt-in to have it anonymized then shared?
Also iOS 10.3 - no noticeable changes like that only a few maybe when we get the iOS 11 there will be a big change from what we used to see & trust me apps open a lot faster in iOS 10.3 tried this with snapchat on my older device (iPhone 5s)
iOS 10.3 looking clean and a bit faster but I didn't notice any change in the app multitasking screen , besides I recovered about 2gb space after updating and then I think i lost some contacts after updating to the new file system
You shouldn't have lost any contacts, are they synced to Google or iCloud?
I can't seem to get my iPad (4th gen) to detect the update :(
Me either.
If you're on the Public Beta, I believe the last Public Beta is equivalent to the release so you wouldn't receive any update.
If not, then it should come through within the next 24 hours, try restarting your device as well, and also try checking through both your Data and Wi-Fi if you have an iPad with Data
DannyJJK- I have an iPad 4, no public beta 10.3 installed, but it didn't detect that 10.3 was available for download. I've restarted several times, as recently as last night, no change. I have one of those T-Mobile free for life sims that's on there for emergency use and data is usually disabled. So normally I'm on WiFi. Not sure what's going on.
Any signs the 30% battery bug is now fixed at last?
That bug was fixed in 10.2.1
I updated to 10.3 with no issues. So far, the most noticeable part of the update is apps opening quicker and smoother, quicker animations. I noticed that right away :). I also recovered 5 GB of data due to the APFS update.
5GB? Can I ask, what device you have, and how much used versus how much total space do you have?
I got a little over 2GB with my iPhone 7 Plus with 128GB. Haven't installed it on my iPad Pro 9.7 yet. Also 128GB, so interested to see if it's the same change.
3GB space in my case, iPhone 6s! :D
Just updated. I usually wait a week or so but wanted to get Find My AirPods and the new Car Play. So far so good.
I have also Upgraded to 10.3 with no Problems so far.
Normally I rush to the settings to update. This update really isn't all that exciting for me. I think I'll wait a day to see what everyone is saying before I jump in. I'll have to update eventually obviously. Just not in a rush to do so now.
Agreed. I'm holding off a day or two specifically because this introduced the AFP (?) file system. Want to see how that effects apps and usage before I take the plunge bc I heard there's no reverting back to the old file system, even with a backup.
It's APFS, and yes, that's the main reason I'm waiting a few days.
It doesn't affect it at all except for in performance. APFS definitely improves the performance of applications and such. I'd highly recommend updating.
Much snappier! Glad I updated. Also check out Settings/General/About/Applications to see which Apps haven't been updated by their developers to 64bit so won't be supported in future versions of iOS.
im afraid i may have some apps on that list. does it matter if i go to 10.3? or should i stay away so i don't have to worry about some of my apps not working?
I've been using it since Public Beta 2 and it's just become better and better. I've no issues with any app at all. In fact everything is a bit faster as they cycled through the betas and it's a lot better than 10.2.1.
No worries, 10.3 only shows you which app is not 64bit, it will not stop any app from running. I got only Google Earth in that list. Hope Google update the app to 64bits soon.
\\
That just tells me I have 72 applications. Doesn't say anything about 64 bit or 32 bit.
I'm new to iOS and have yet to be burned so I went ahead and installed it already. So far so good, no problems to report.
It's a minor update, they usually don't have anything exciting so this is nothing new. Minor updates generally consist of small tweaks, bug fixes and performance improvements, the next major update will be iOS 11
10.3 has, like, 14 pages of security fixes... so if you want to stay on an older version of iOS and leave your device vulnerable to a bevy of exploits because it's "not that exciting" then go ahead.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207617
10.3 has exploits. There will always be exploits. Most exploits in iOS require the user to do something stupid. I'll be alright. You keep pushing that FUD
Exploits don't always require you doing anything stupid, it could be as simple as viewing a website which contains an ad that has malicious code that takes advantage of the exploit. Security isn't trivial, you should ALWAYS update when security fixes are available
This is a full operating system upgrade. Not a security patch. In the world of IT you don't ALWAYS upgrade on day one.
10.3 is a _minor_ OS upgrade, not a full OS upgrade. It consists of bug fixes, performance improvements and most importantly, security patches.