After two public betas and a lot of wait, the iOS 10.3 update is finally here. There have been a lot of under the hood tweaks that add to the overall performance and stability. However, there’s one major change that comes along with iOS 10.3.
New features added
Siri
- Support for scheduling with ride booking apps such as Uber
- Cricket scores and statistics for IPL and other ICC events.
Other minor improvements and fixes
- Rent once and watch your iTunes films across your devices
- New Settings unified view for your Apple ID account information, settings and devices
- Hourly weather in Maps using 3D Touch on the displayed current temperature
- Support for searching “parked car” in Maps
- VoiceOver stability improvements for Phone, Safari and Mail
The one BIG change
- Apple has shifted the file storage systems from the old Hierarchical File System (HFS) to the new Apple File System (APFS).
- The newer file system is faster and more secure.
“Apple’s new APFS is designed to scale across these new types of devices and take advantage of flash or SSD storage. It’s also engineered with encryption as a primary feature, and even supports features like snapshots so restoring files on a Mac or even an iOS 10.3 device might get a lot easier in the future.” (The Verge)
NOTE: You can visit Apple’s Support website to find a complete list of all the updates included in iOS 10.3.
How to Update to iOS 10.3?
Over the Air
- Make sure you have a functional wifi or 3G/4G data connection.
- On your iOS device, go to Settings > General > Software Update
- Click on the update to download and install.
Via iTunes
- Connect your iDevice to iTunes on a Mac or PC
- Click on the device icon that comes at the top of the iTunes window.
- In the details panel, choose the update. Click to download and install.
NOTE: Updating from the device directly will use only 650 MB data as it downloads just the software “patch” needed to upgrade your device to iOS 10.3. On the other hand, using the iTunes method will download the entire software, which is about 4 GBs.