iOS 17 could bring the biggest Control Center redesign in years

Control Center
(Image credit: Future)

Control Center is one of the areas of iOS and iPadOS that many of us use on the daily but don't pay all that much attention to. Apple could be about to change all that with a revamp now touted for the iOS 17 update.

That iOS 17 release is expected to be shown off during WWDC23 in June, and we've already been told to expect some quality-of-life improvements. Now, a new leak suggests that Control Center will experience "major" changes, possibly the biggest to date.

If Apple follows its usual release schedule iOS 17 will be announced in June but not ship to the public until September, likely alongside the new iPhone 15 lineup.

Unknown improvements are coming

This latest leak comes via a MacRumors forum member who has a solid track record with these things. This is the same person that shared details of the iPhone 14 Pro and its Dynamic Island before it was announced in September 2022, suggesting that their connections are solid.

According to them, some "major" changes are on the way although they reportedly stopped short of explaining what those changes would be. WWDC23 kicks off on June 5, so we might have to wait until then to find out what Apple has in store.

Control Center has largely gone unchanged for years, with Apple refusing to make the kinds of changes people have been crying out for. Examples include the ability to change what some of Control Center's buttons do, or how they behave when tapped. Overall, many would welcome more customizability, but it remains to be seen if that's what we'll get come update time.

Today, Control Center is where people go to change their display brightness, alter the volume, and interact with things like the Camera app and the flashlight.

Apple's usual cadence includes an initial beta being made available to developers during WWDC, with more betas made available throughout the summer until that September release window.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.