iOS 7.1 Arrives Bringing CarPlay Support, Visual Tweaks, Siri Improvements And More

Apple has just released iOS 7.1, the first major update for iOS 7 since its launch back in September 2013. The update has been available to developers for some time now, and brings a lot of small but interesting changes to Apple’s mobile OS, including continued visual tweaks of the all-new iOS 7 design.

The update adds official support for CarPlay, which has been the talk of the town recently thanks to its official unveiling at the Geneva Auto Show. Three car makers have already demonstrated their CarPlay vehicle integration, including Volvo, Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz.

In addition to CarPlay, you can now manually control how long Siri listens to you by holding down the home button while you speak and releasing it when you’re done. This replaces the ‘listen until you’re done talking’ behavior that Siri exhibited previously.

There have been some visual tweaks as well to things like the shift keys on the keyboard, the in-call buttons, lock screen icons and more. Here are the release notes:

CarPlay

iOS experience designed for the car

Simply connect your iPhone to a CarPlay enabled vehicle

Supports Phone, Music, Maps, Messages, and 3rd-party audio apps

Control with Siri and the car’s touchscreen, knobs, and buttons

Siri

Manually control when Siri listens by holding down the home button while you speak and releasing it when you’re done as an alternative to letting Siri automatically notice when you stop talking

New, more natural sounding male and female voices for Mandarin Chinese, UK English, Australian English, and Japanese

iTunes Radio

Search field above Featured Stations to easily create stations based on your favorite artist or song

Buy albums with the tap of a button from Now Playing

Subscribe to iTunes Match on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to enjoy iTunes Radio ad-free

Calendar

Option to display events in month view

Country specific holidays automatically added for many countries

Accessibility

Bold font option now includes the keyboard, calculator, and many icon glyphs

Reduce Motion option now includes Weather, Messages, and multitasking UI animations

New options to display button shapes, darken app colors, and reduce white point

Other

New Camera setting to automatically enable HDR for iPhone 5s

iCloud Keychain support in additional countries

FaceTime call notifications are automatically cleared when you answer a call on another device

Fixes a bug that could occasionally cause a home screen crash

Improves Touch ID fingerprint recognition

Improved performance for iPhone 4

Fixes display of Mail unread badge for numbers greater than 10,000

Continued user interface refinements