iOS 11 is the eleventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 10. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 5, 2017, and released on September 19, 2017. It was succeeded by iOS 12 on September 17, 2018.
Overview
iOS 11 was introduced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 5, 2017. The first developer beta version was released after the keynote presentation, with the first public beta released on June 26, 2017.
iOS 11 was officially released by Apple on September 19, 2017. It brought many changes to iOS. Some major highlights were: The lock screen and Notification Center were combined, allowing all notifications to be displayed directly on the lock screen. The control center was completely redesigned, combining all pages into a single unified page. It also brought the ability to rearrange the position of the controls, some of which could be used with 3D Touch for quick access to additional options. The App Store received its first major design overhaul since iOS 7 to focus on editorial content and daily highlights. A "Files" file manager app allowed access to files stored locally on-device and in iCloud and other cloud services. With this addition, users could also for the first time save files downloaded using Safari right on their iPhone without any third-party apps. Siri was updated to translate between languages and use a privacy-minded "on-device learning" technique to better understand a user's interests and offer suggestions. The camera introduced new settings for improved portrait-mode photos and utilized new encoding technologies to reduce file sizes on newer devices. In a later release of iOS 11, Messages was integrated with iCloud to better synchronize messages across iOS and macOS devices. A previous point release also added support for person-to-person Apple Pay payments. It introduced the ability to record the screen, which could be enabled by adding it to the control center in Settings. It also introduced rudimentary forms of drag-and-drop functionality. Support for augmented reality. Allowing users to "place" virtual objects in the real world and interact with them using their iPhone.
For the first time, certain new features were only available on iPad. Some of these features were: An always-accessible application dock that could be access by dragging up from the bottom of the screen. Cross-app drag-and-drop allowing users to share photos, files, and links easier than ever. Adding a new easier way to split-screen apps by simply dragging an app from the dock on to another already open app. The "split" could then be resized to make one app bigger or small depending on what the user wanted.
iOS 11 was also the first version of iOS to drop support for 32-bit apps and for 32-bit processors, meaning iOS 11 only supported devices with a 64-bit processor. Upon installing iOS 11, if a user tried to open a 32-bit application that had not yet been updated to 64-bit, iOS would simply refuse to run it. iOS 10.3 included a popup upon launching a 32-bit application to warn users about the upcoming change and a new menu in Settings that allowed users to quickly identify what apps on their device would not be compatible with the iOS 11 update.
System features
Lock screen
The lock screen and Notification Center are combined, allowing users to see all notifications directly on the lock screen. Scrolling up and down will either show or hide notifications.
Control Center
The Control Center redesign unifies its pages and allows users to 3D Touch (or long press on devices without 3D Touch) buttons for more options. Sliders adjust volume and brightness. The Control Center is customizable via the Settings app, and allows more settings to be shown, including cellular service, Low Power Mode, and a shortcut to the Notes app.
Siri
The Siri intelligent personal assistant has a more human voice and supports language translation, with English, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Spanish available at launch. It also supports follow-up questions by users. Users are also able to type to Siri.
Siri is able to use "on-device learning", a privacy-minded local learning technique to understand a user's behavior and interests inside different apps, to offer better suggestions and recommendations.