Show your ID with an iPhone

But fine print galore!

Apple announced a slew of new features coming to new iPhones, via an update to the iOS operating system Monday, and some of them are really exciting.

But check the fine print first before you start jumping up and down.

Open your car door with your iPhone!

Have your Driver’s License or State ID stored in your phone.

Check into a hotel and open your room with the iPhone. Or open other doors as well.

Those are my three favorite headlines from WWDC2021, where the new iOS15 operating system for iPhones was introduced. It will be made available to the general public in the fall, usually a week before the release of the new iPhone.

But about that fine print.

The car feature was actually introduced last year, but it only worked with new BMWs. This year: digital car keys “require a participating car manufacturer and will be coming later this year,” says Apple. Translation: a handful of new cars will work with this, not your current Toyota or Chevy.

The hotel keys will start with 1,000 Hyatt properties. Beyond that, “support for new keys requires an iPhone running iOS 15 and a compatible door lock for apartments, offices, and hotels that will be available through third parties.” Or, this ain’t starting tomorrow.

That Driver’s ID?

It will only be available in “participating states,” but no detail on where those might be. In addition, Apple says it’s working with the Transportation Security Administration “to enable airport security checkpoints as the first place customers can use their digital Identity Card.”

Love it. Can’t wait. One less thing to pull out. Can we get passports in there too?

All in all, Apple offered several new features that sound useful and add to the iPhone experience.

FaceTime = Zoom

It opened with a presentation about FaceTime, the video calling service that has taken a backseat to Zoom in the pandemic era. So now Apple wants to make FaceTime more like Zoom, with improved sound, the ability to share screens and finally, the ability for users of non-Apple devices to take FaceTime calls. It’s about time.

Read text in Photos and share

Apple is cloning Google’s Lens feature to read text from photos and do something with it, which is fantastic. Apple’s example: “users can search for and locate the picture of a handwritten family recipe, or capture a phone number from a storefront with the option to place a call.”

I loved how Apple showed the ability to take a photo of a whiteboard presentation, highlight the text and send it to yourself in an e-mail. That’s more efficient note taking. And I’m hoping Apple will be to use this technology to dramatically improve searching to find photos.  

Digital Legacy

Keeping track of our digital lives after we move on is a real problem, and Apple announced a solution. We’ll be able to add a beneficiary of sorts to our accounts so they’ll have access either now or a future date.

For those of you keeping track, Apple’s next operating system for Mac computers will be called Monterey, following the most recent Big Sur and Catalina. You know San Francisco has got to be next, right?