Apple

iOS 11.3: 8 Reasons to Get Excited & 3 Reasons Not To

Published

6 years ago

03/01/2018

Apple’s upcoming iOS 11.3 update is an extremely exciting milestone upgrade for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. There’s a lot to be excited about, but there are also a few things that have the potential to disappoint you.

The current version of iOS 11, iOS 11.2.6, is a maintenance upgrade. It comes with a couple of important bug fixes including one for a iPhone crashing issue. It’s a solid update, but it’s much smaller than the update Apple’s currently got in beta testing.

iOS 11.3 is the company’s third milestone upgrade for its iOS 11 operating system. Apple’s milestone upgrades always come with a long list of changes and a mix of new features, fixes, patches, and enhancements. iOS 11.3 won’t be any different and it’ll be a major release for all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models capable of running it.

Apple hasn’t confirmed an iOS 11.3 release date though it says iOS 11.3 will arrive in “early 2018.” In other words, we could see the iOS 11.3 update to emerge from testing in March.

If you’re excited about iOS 11.3’s changes, you don’t want to wait for Apple to officially pull the update from beta. You can try the iOS 11.3 update on your device right now.

The iOS 11.3 update is available via a developer beta or public beta. An Apple Developer account will cost you, but the Beta Software Program is open to anyone with a valid Apple ID.

The iOS 11.3 beta is certainly tempting, but it’s not for everyone. Early software can and probably will cause problems on your phone or tablet.

There’s also no way to get back to anything older than iOS 11.2.5. Once you make the move to iOS 11.3 beta, you’re stuck with iOS 11.2.5 and iOS 11.2.6. That’s a big deal for those of you getting fantastic mileage out of an older version of iOS.

If you don’t want to put pre-release software on your phone or tablet, make sure you track the iOS 11.3 update as it progresses toward a final release.

We’ve been using the iOS 11.3 beta on some of our devices and today we’re going to take you through some of iOS 11.3’s most exciting changes.

We’re also going to take you through a few things that have the potential to disappoint you when the iOS 11.3 update arrives later this year.

Messages on iCloud

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One of our favorite features from the iOS 11.0 beta will finally arrive inside Apple's iOS 11.3 update.

Nothing is official until Apple pulls the iOS 11.3 update from beta, but as of right now, iMessages on iCloud is on board iOS 11.3. Hopefully it sticks around this time.

Messages on iCloud was included in the initial iOS 11 beta, but Apple pulled the feature (probably for additional testing) before the public release. The company promised to deliver it in a future iOS 11 update and it looks like said update is iOS 11.3.

If it sticks, iOS 11.3 will allow iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users to store their iMessages in the cloud. As many of you know, messages can take up a ton of room on internal storage. If you choose to keep messages for longer than 30 days, they're probably taking up multiple GBs of space.

Messages on iCloud will allow you to quickly, and easily, free up storage space on your phone. It'll also allow you to save messages that might get deleted otherwise.

We recently had to stop saving messages for longer than 30 days in order to free up some space on an iPhone 7 Plus.