The best new feature of iOS 17 isn’t the new live voicemail transcriptions, interactive widgets, or even new system-wide stickers. No, the coolest addition is the new bedside-friendly StandBy mode.

StandBy (also known as Nightstand Mode) turns your iPhone into an alarm clock, a clock radio, or a calendar. But it's not just for sleeping (and waking up). iOS 17 StandBy can take over your iPhone's entire screen when you dock it, turning it into a handy status board, as we'll see in a moment. StandBy is also getting a bunch of developer tools to integrate it with other hardware, leading us to think Apple may even have a standalone home hub version in the works. Let's take a look.

"StandBy is really cool, and it's like 'a little operating system within an operating system' because it's packed with little quality of life features," tech tips writer Muhammed Abdulhadi told Lifewire via email. "It has its own music-playing interface. And really smooth animations, you can still get to your control center with it, and if you click on a widget that opens an app when you lock the screen, it goes right back to StandBy mode."

Using StandBy is a quintessential Apple experience. You just place your iPhone on a charger in landscape orientation and it turns on. It’s the same as the Apple Watch’s Nightstand mode. Well, that’s the same. Unlike the watch version, StandBy is super customizable. And unlike the Apple Watch’s lame watch faces, the StandBy options are all beautiful.