iOS 11.2.5: All the New and Hidden Features

BY Khamosh Pathak

Published 23 Jan 2018

iOS 11.2.5 New Features and Changes

For a minor update, Apple has been testing iOS 11.2.5 for a long time. After seven developer betas, the update is finally live for all users. It fixes a major bug and adds new Siri functionality. Here’s everything that’s new in this update.

ChaiOS Bug Fixed

The one big reason you should hit that update button as soon as possible. ChaiOS was an exploit that would crash your phone when someone sent you a malicious link. Because this exploit worked using Messages app’s preview functionality, it would execute, overload the CPU and crash your phone even before you had a chance to pick your phone up and delete the message. Thankfully, in iOS 11.2.5, this bug has been fixed.

Siri Plays The News

You can now ask Siri something like “play the news” and Siri will start playing short audio news podcasts from publishers like CNN, NPR, Washington Post and more. Currently, this feature is only available in US, UK and Australia. You can get this functionality by changing your device’s region to the US.

This feature is similar to what Google Assistant has had for a couple of months now. I have a feeling that getting this feature right was one of the reasons HomePod was delayed. While this is certainly nice to have on the iPhone and iPad, this feature will shine on the HomePod (getting the news in the morning when you’re brushing your teeth, for instance).

Business As Usual

As this is a small point update, there’s not much else to talk about. Early benchmarks show that the performance for newer devices is about the same. The battery life is still going strong. After we’ve spent a couple of days with the release, we’ll know if there’s any change for battery life and performance for older devices that suffered from Batterygate.

Also, Apple’s promised update that will give users control over the battery and performance ratio is still far out.

Are you running iOS 11.2.5? What’s the performance like on your device? Share with us in the comments below.