Not since the introduction of the original iPhone in 2007 have we seen such a major change in the way phone calls work.

Perhaps the most useful new features in iOS 17 are the Phone, Messages, and FaceTime apps. Together, they offer a new set of tools that let you, the recipient of the call/message, control how people can contact you. Actual phone calling has declined in favor of messaging over the past decade, and it’s easy to see why. But iOS 17’s new features make calling — and voice messages — a little less annoying.

“Live voicemail transcriptions can be very useful because they provide real-time information about incoming voicemails. Users can quickly assess the urgency and relevance of a call without listening to the entire message, saving time and enabling better decision-making,” Nikita Sherbina, co-founder and CEO of digital communications company AIScreen, told Lifewire via email.

A phone call is almost always an intrusion. With a text message, you can choose when to read it. With a phone call, the caller decides. You have to answer the call, or at least decline. At the same time, we seem to have lost the taste for chatting on the phone. I have friends who would rather spend ten minutes searching for an email or chatbot option than simply call the local pizza place to place an order.