The FaceTime video responses that Apple introduced in iOS 17 are pretty cool – fireworks when you give two thumbs up, etc. – but you don’t necessarily want them to go off on every call. Now it looks like Apple is about to make the feature less prominent.
From MacRumorsWith the introduction of iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4, third-party video calling apps can disable responses by default. In other words, during a serious phone call with your boss, you won’t suddenly see balloons filling the screen.
That “default” is the crucial part: right now, these responses are enabled the first time you launch FaceTime or any other video app. You can disable them (and they will remain disabled for that app), but you should remember to do so.
The move also means that third-party developers will have more control over the effects applied at the system level. If The edge According to reports, one telehealth provider has already taken the step to inform users that they have no control over these responses.
Available soon
This extra flexibility is made possible by a so-called API or Application Programming Interface – a way for apps to communicate with operating systems. It would mean that the iOS or iPadOS setting no longer dictates the setting for every other video app.
The changes have been noticed in the latest beta versions of iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4, although there’s no guarantee they’ll remain there when the final version of the software comes out. It is not yet clear whether the same update will also be applied to macOS.
iOS 17.3 was released on January 22, so we don’t have to wait much longer for its successor. Among the iOS 17.4 features in the pipeline, based on the beta version, we have apps for game streaming and automatic transcriptions for your podcasts.
Apple hopes that a new version will encourage more people to actually install iOS 17. Adoption has been slower than iOS 16, with users citing bugs and a lack of new features as reasons for not applying the update.