Apple has added numerous features to the iPhone with iOS 17, and one of the most notable is Contact Poster, a way to create your own contact card digital call through images, colors and text.
Here's how it works: When you call someone from iPhone to iPhone and you're saved in their contacts, your contact card will appear on their screen. It replaces the much smaller notification and thumbnail image previously displayed and gives you the opportunity to be creative with how you want to show up to your friends, family or colleagues.
While setting up your contact card, you can also make changes to your avatar. Apple ID. If you head to Settings on your iPhone or Mac, for example, you'll see that your profile photo can be changed to match whatever you've set as your contact card, whether it's a new image you've shot or a particular Memoji . Go for it!
To find your contact card settings in iOS 17, follow these steps:
- First open the app Contacts on your iPhone.
- Tap your name at the top of the contact list.
- Choose Poster and contact photo.
What you'll see first are your contact poster options: if you want to share your name and photo, the first and last name you want to use, and whether you want to automatically share your posters with everyone in your contact list or if you want iOS to prompt you every time you make a call to someone in your contact list.
Now is your chance to get creative in terms of what other people see when you call them.
To create a new contact poster:
- Tap Edit and then the + symbol (further). If you swipe right, there's also a Create New option on the far right of your existing contact banners that you can use instead.
- At the bottom of the screen, select Camera (to create a new photo), Photos (to use an existing photo), Memoji, or Monogram (to use text) to select the type of contact poster you want to create.
When you use camera or photos to create a new contact poster:
- Take a new photo or choose one from your library.
- Swipe left or right or move between image and font styles.
- Tap the color swab (bottom right) to change the color of any effect. (It will not be available for your original photo or, logically, for a black and white photo).
- Pinch in or out of the photo to change zoom and trimming.
- Tap the text at the top to change the font style, weight, and color.
Use a Memoji to create a new contact poster:
- Choose a Memoji in the pop-up window or press + (plus) to create a new one.
- Once you've created your new Memoji or a variation of an existing one, you can choose an expression or tap the camera icon to extract an expression of your own and save it.
- On the next screen, you can tap the color swab (bottom left) to choose a background color, change the Memoji image and keep the expression (bottom right first icon), or turn the depth effect on or off (second bottom right icon).
- Tap the text at the top to change the font style, weight, and color.
When you use Monogram to create a new contact poster:
- Tap the color swab (bottom left) to choose a background color.
- Tap the text at the top to change the font style, weight, and color.
- Tap the letter(s) at the bottom right to change the large letters in the center of the poster. You can specify one or two characters (for example, your initials).
Whatever type of contact poster you are creating, Tap Done when you're happy with it and then click Continue on the preview screen.
You'll then be taken to the Contact Photo page, where you can choose to use your new Contact Poster to update your primary Contact Photo, the one used for your Apple ID across all your devices and in contact lists. contacts of other people. Press Skip if you don't want to do this or Continue if you do. (You can also select Choose a different photo from the Continue button.)
If you tap Skip or Continue, you'll return to the screen you saw when you first tap Photo & Contact Poster, and your new Contact Poster will be set up.
Change or edit your contact poster
To switch between the different contact posters you've made and personalize them:
- Go back to Contacts, tap your name, and then choose Contact Photo & Poster.
- Balance Edit again.
- Swipe left or right to choose a contact poster or customize to edit one.
Once you choose Personalize, you can choose Contact Photo or Poster, and you'll be taken back to the screens we've already seen. To delete a contact poster, swipe up on it, then tap the red trash icon that appears.
It's worth mentioning that Contact Banners work seamlessly with another new iOS 17 feature, NameDrop. NameDrop is intended to be a faster, easier way to exchange contact information with someone: hold your iPhone close to someone else's iPhone or Apple Watch, and assuming both devices have Bluetooth enabled, you should receive a message asking if you want to transfer your Contact information.
This message displays the contact poster you've set as the default, and of course, once contact information is shared, your contact poster also appears on the other person's iPhone.