8 New iOS 11 Features Apple Didn’t Mention

During Apple’s latest keynote speech, the company’s executives took turns unwrapping some of the latest, greatest, and most powerful gadgets, including an all-new Siri-powered HomePod speaker, powerful new iPad Pro models, refreshed iMacs, MacBooks, and more. Additionally, Apple’s software engineering chief, Craig Federighi, gave us a sneak preview of just a few of the wicked-awesome features coming to iOS 11 this fall.

Unfortunately, given the jam-packed nature of WWDC this year, Federighi didn’t have time to show us all of the exciting new features baked into the upcoming update — but rather, he flashed a banner across the main display for all in attendance to see, outlining dozens of additional iOS 11 features. Here are eight of the most noteworthy among them.

8. Type to Siri

If you’re in a jam and you’d rather type to Siri instead of verbally summoning her, Apple has baked in a neat new Accessibility feature in iOS 11 which will allow you to do exactly that. This a great feature for people, like myself, who struggle with their speech and enunciation, as well as those whose accents have proven difficult for Siri to understand.

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7. QR Code Scanning

While Apple only mentioned that iPhone users in China will be able to scan QR codes using their device’s camera in iOS 11, the US developer beta of iOS 11 does in fact allow QR code scanning for your convenience.

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6. Searchable News

Apple’s News app in iOS 11 has been updated with a Spotlight search-style tab which, when tapped, will enable you to enter text relevant to your topic of interest — thereby saving both time and energy, and sparing you the task of having to scroll and fumble around the app to find what you’re looking for.

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5. Business Chat

Apple has been progressively trying to penetrate the vast enterprise market with its iOS mobile devices, and iOS 11 will accordingly introduce a new feature specifically for consumers to interact directly with businesses. "Business Chat is a powerful new way for businesses to connect with customers directly from within Messages. Using Business Chat, your customers can get answers to questions, resolve issues and complete transactions on their iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Customers can find your business and start conversations from Safari, Maps, Spotlight, and Siri."

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4. SMS Fraud Extension

Inherent with Apple’s iron-clad stance on privacy and security, the company has baked an SMS fraud extension feature into iOS 11 Messages, which will help identify and flag potentially malicious texts that may find their way into your inbox. With scammers and nefarious actors running rampant these days — trying any which way to get their hands on your most sensitive information — this is certainly a welcomed security feature that’s bound to come in handy when you need it most.

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3. 3D Touch Tab Switching in Safari

Switching between open browser tabs in the iOS Safari browser will get a whole lot easier come iOS 11, thanks to Apple’s inclusion of a new 3D Touch-based tab switcher, which will reportedly invoke a drop down menu of options when pressed.

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2. Screen Recording

We’ve all heard of taking a screenshot on our iOS device, but iOS 11 enables the ability to actually record short videos of your onscreen activity. To be fair, this feature isn’t entirely new to iOS; it was actually introduced years ago, but was only available to users who connected their device to a Mac and knew how to manipulate Apple’s QuickTime video player — in other words, it was super-complicated. But fortunately, iOS 11 will allow users to get the job done cord-free.

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1. One-Handed Keyboard

For users who prefer to navigate their iPhones one-handedly, Apple has baked several new features into iOS with you in mind. One of these features will include a reconfigured keyboard, which will shift all letters and keys towards the left- or right-side of the screen to allow easier typing with one hand. Just 3D Touch the Globe or Emoji keyboard button, and tap the right or left keyboard icon.

Notably absent from the list of additional features is FaceTime Group calling, which was just one of several features that didn’t make their way into iOS 11. Fortunately, there’s still a huge chance that even more new features will be discovered in iOS 11 once developers start combing through it this week.