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iOS 27: All the New Phone and FaceTime Features

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The Phone and FaceTime apps didn't get as many new features as some of Apple's other apps, but there are a handful of capabilities that add utility and convenience.

iOS-27-All-the-New-Phone-and-FaceTime-Features.jpg

Phone App

The Phone app has one major update, and that's Call Context. When you call a company, the Phone app can surface relevant information from the Mail app.

If you call an airline, it might show your confirmation code for an upcoming flight, or your reservation code if you're calling a hotel. It doesn't listen to what you're saying, but instead looks at the number you're calling and links it to details in the Mail app.

Call Context is an Apple Intelligence feature that runs entirely on-device, and it requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. It also works when you make a phone call from your iPad or Mac.

FaceTime

FaceTime has a couple of new features, but the biggest is Dual Capture. On the iPhone 17 models and the iPhone Air, you can use the front and back cameras at the same time while on a FaceTime call.

The person you're calling is able to see your face and what's shown through the back camera.

You can turn on Dual Capture on a supported iPhone by tapping on the camera flip button. If you only want to show the back camera feed, you can tap to turn off the front camera view.

While streaming video with Dual Capture is limited to the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, and newer, anyone running iOS 27 can see a dual video stream on a FaceTime call because there are no hardware requirements for the receiving device.

There are a few other features worth knowing about:
  • Connection Quality - When you have a bad connection, FaceTime calls will now have better quality than before.
  • Wi-Fi/Cellular - In iOS 27, iPhones are better at transitioning from a Wi-Fi to a cellular connection and vice versa, so you'll lose connection less often when moving between networks.
  • Live Captions - Live Captions are now available in Traditional Chinese.
  • Communication Safety - Communication Safety blocks gore and violence in FaceTime and Messages instead of just nudity.
iOS 27 Launch

iOS 27 is being beta tested right now, and can be downloaded by developers and public beta testers. It will launch this fall alongside new iPhone models.
Read More

For more on the new features in iOS 27, we have a dedicated iOS 27 roundup.

Article Link: iOS 27: All the New Phone and FaceTime Features
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-27-phone-facetime/
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jole said:
This might not have anything to do with RAM. Could it be that they only support phones with dual HW video encoders?
Click to expand...
Probably doesn’t have anything to do with RAM.

I doubt it has to do much with hardware at all. Just more artificial product segmentation.

I’d love for an engineer to explain to me how I’m wrong and it’s impossible. But it seems totally possible and not even that difficult relatively speaking.
 
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Henrikr said:
To Apple: Can you please make FaceTime usable again? the UI is impossible to understand and whoever is in charge of this app should be fired. Really.
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And while you’re at it, fire the designers of the Health and Fitness apps. Impossible to find what you’re looking for. And the redesign of the Photos app doesn’t deserve any awards either.
 
CarAnalogy said:
Probably doesn’t have anything to do with RAM.

I doubt it has to do much with hardware at all. Just more artificial product segmentation.

I’d love for an engineer to explain to me how I’m wrong and it’s impossible. But it seems totally possible and not even that difficult relatively speaking.
Click to expand...
Honestly it’s most likely a hardware limitation. The iPhone camera system is directly linked to the CPU’s image system. The iPhone 17 series is probably designed to have the bandwidth for both cameras active at once. It’s completely reasonable that this isn’t the case for all other previous phones.
 
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MacRumors said:
Communication Safety - Communication Safety blocks gore and violence in FaceTime and Messages instead of just nudity.
Click to expand...
Wait....WHAT? FaceTime calls can be censored live? Has this been a thing for a while or is this something they are sneaking in? Not that I particularly want to see gore or nudity, but doesn't this fly in the face of Apple's privacy focus if something is actively monitoring and censoring calls?
 
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QuarterSwede said:
Honestly it’s most likely a hardware limitation. The iPhone camera system is directly linked to the CPU’s image system. The iPhone 17 series is probably designed to have the bandwidth for both cameras active at once. It’s completely reasonable that this isn’t the case for all other previous phones.
Click to expand...

Yeah it is possible that it is a hardware limitation due to the design they chose to use.

I’d give them more benefit of the doubt if they didn’t do this all the time with software features that have been proven to be possible yet Apple simply chooses not to do.
 
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