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iOS 17.2 Is Here With A New Journal App And Spatial Videos
The update also includes a host of smaller features for Weather and Messages, plus a translation option for the Action Button.
Apple’s iOS 17.2 update has now arrived for recent iPhones. The update features Apple’s new Journal app, which includes prompts from data on your phone, as well as a new option to record spatial videos.
Apple has been dropping hints about the new journal app since the summer of 2023. It’s designed to encourage users to write about day to day events and accompany key moments with photos from your iPhone.
Meanwhile, there are also key additions to the camera, bringing Spatial Video to the new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, as well as improved telephoto camera focus. In addition, the new Action Button also gains some new abilities, including the ability to access the Translate tool. This will enable easier conversations across languages or help users to quickly translate a page.
Updates have also come to Apple’s Messages app. There’s a new catch-up arrow that’ll take you down to the first unread message within a thread and Contact Key Verification so you know who you’re chatting with.
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The Weather app will now tell you how much it’s expected to rain or snow, while an improved selection of widgets adds things like wind speed, air quality, and a “feels like” temperature. There’s also a new wind map and an interactive moon calendar.
The update also features a bunch of improvements and bug fixes, including AirDrop enhancements in the Wallet app, while older iPhones now get support for Qi2 wireless charging.
How To Download iOS 17.2
You can access the iOS 17.2 update by tapping the Settings cog on your iPhone and then heading to General > Software Update.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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