Apple today unveiled iOS 16, which includes the most significant upgrade to the Lock Screen in the company's history, as well as new sharing, communication, and intelligence capabilities that will transform how iPhone owners interact with their devices. iOS 16 offers iCloud Shared Photo Library, which allows users to easily share a collection of photographs with family, as well as tweaks to Messages and Mail, which make it easier to keep in touch, and substantial improvements to Live Text and Visual Look Up.
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, said, "iOS 16 is a substantial release with enhancements that will revolutionize the way you enjoy iPhone." "With exciting new features that make it more personal and helpful, we've reimagined how the Lock Screen looks and works," says Apple. "We've also introduced iCloud Shared Photo Library for families, streamlined communication with new capabilities in Messages and Mail, and harnessed enhanced intelligence with updates to Live Text and Visual Look Up."
A Personalized Lock Screen Experience
With iOS 16, the Lock Screen becomes more personal, elegant, and useful. The subjects of images are elegantly arranged in front of the clock on the Lock Screen with a new layering effect, producing a feeling of depth. With expressive text styles and color choices, users may vary the appearance of the date and time.
The Lock Screen includes widgets inspired by Apple Watch complexities, allowing you to quickly access information like upcoming calendar events, weather, battery levels, alarms, time zones, Activity ring progress, and more.
Apple collections such as Pride and Unity to commemorate key cultural occasions, a Weather wallpaper to observe real weather conditions as they change throughout the day, and an Astronomy wallpaper to enjoy views of the Earth, moon, and solar system are all available in a new Lock Screen gallery. Users may also use their favorite emoji or color combinations to create Lock Screens. Users may switch between their favorite Lock Screens with only a swipe if they have numerous Lock Screens.
Live Activity is a new feature on the Lock Screen that allows users to remain on top of activities that are happening in real-time, such as a sports game, workout, ride-share, or food delivery order.
Notifications have been modified to slide up from the bottom, allowing users to see their customized Lock Screen clearly.
Find Balance with Focus
Focus is now more powerful, quicker to set up, and integrates with the Lock Screen, allowing users to associate a Lock Screen wallpaper and widgets with a certain Focus. Users may just slide to the matching Lock Screen to activate a Focus. Apps like Calendar, Mail, Messages and Safari may employ Focus filters to display just the material that is relevant to a user's Focus, assisting them in finding a better balance.
One Place for Family Photos with iCloud Shared Photo Library
iCloud Shared Photo Library provides a new option for families to share images in a seamless manner by creating a distinct iCloud library that up to six members may work on, contribute to, and enjoy. Users may share existing images from their own collections, as well as share photos based on a start date or persons in the photos. A new setting in the Camera app allows users to automatically share photographs to the Shared Library. Users will also receive intelligent recommendations to share a photo with others from the Shared Photo Library. Every user in the Shared Photo Library may add, remove, edit, or favorite the shared photographs or videos, which will then display in their Memories and Featured Photos, allowing everyone to recall more full family experiences.
Updates to Messages
Users may modify or remember recently sent messages, retrieve communications that have been accidentally erased, and mark chats as unread so that they can return to them later. 2 Furthermore, SharePlay is coming to Messages, allowing you to enjoy synchronized content such as movies or songs with shared playback controls while conversing in the app.
New Tools for Mail
Users may now plan emails ahead of time and even stop the delivery of a message before it reaches the inbox of a recipient. If a user forgets to add a key portion of their message, such as an attachment, Mail will alert them. With Remind Later, users may resurface a message at any moment, and Follow Up ideas automatically remind users to follow up on an email if they have not gotten a response. Mail also has the most significant search update, which employs cutting-edge approaches to give more relevant, accurate, and thorough results. When users start searching for emails, they see recent emails, contacts, documents, and links.
Live Text and Visual Look Up Enhancements
Live Text is an iOS app that recognizes text in photographs using on-device intelligence, and it's now expanding to incorporate video. Users may pause a video at any point in the video and interact with the text. Users may also change currencies, translate text, and do other things with Live Text.
Visual Look Up expands on photographs by adding a new feature that allows users to press and hold on to an image's topic to lift it from the backdrop and insert it in applications like Messages. Birds, insects, and monuments are all recognized using Visual Look Up.
Wallet Adds Apple Pay Later, Order Tracking, and Other Features
Apple Pay Later is a convenient and safe way for Apple Pay customers in the United States to divide the amount of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments over the course of six weeks, with no interest or fees. 3 Apple Pay Later, which is integrated into Apple Wallet and developed with customers' financial health in mind, makes it simple to monitor, manage, and reimburse Apple Pay Later payments from inside the Wallet. Users may sign up for Apple Pay Later in Wallet or when checking out with Apple Pay. Apple Pay Later is accessible at all locations. The Mastercard network accepts Apple Pay online and in-app. 4 Users may also receive comprehensive receipts and order tracking information in Wallet for Apple Pay purchases made at eligible merchants using Apple Pay Order Tracking.
Wallet's support for keys and IDs have been enhanced. Users may use their ID in Wallet to verify their identity and age in applications that need it. Only the information required for the transaction will be supplied to the app, and the user may review and have permission to share it using Face ID or Touch ID to provide a private and secure experience. Users may also securely share their house, hotel, business, and auto keys in Wallet via chat applications like Messages, Mail, and others.
The Next Generation of CarPlay
CarPlay has revolutionized how consumers interact with their automobiles, and the next edition of CarPlay goes even farther by connecting with the hardware of the vehicle. CarPlay will be able to distribute material across several screens in the vehicle, resulting in a unified and consistent experience. Users will be able to do things like controlling the radio or modifying the climate directly through CarPlay, and CarPlay will smoothly depict the speed, fuel level, temperature, and more on the instrument cluster using car data. Users will be able to customize their driving experience by selecting from a variety of gauge cluster styles, and with the addition of widget compatibility, users can get at-a-glance weather and music information directly on their car's dashboard. More details regarding the next iteration of CarPlay will be released in the coming months, and car announcements will begin late next year.
Additional Features
- Safari now has shared Tab Groups, which allow you to share a selection of websites with friends and family while also allowing you to see what others are looking at. Passkeys, which are unique digital keys that are easier to use, more secure, never kept on a web server, and stay on the device so hackers can't steal them in a data breach or deceive users into providing them, make browsing on Safari even safer. Passkeys are designed to replace passwords and leverage Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, as well as iCloud Keychain for end-to-end encryption across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. They'll function across applications and the web, and users may use their iPhone to check in to websites or apps on non-Apple devices.
- Apple Maps now supports multi-stop routing, allowing users to plan up to 15 stops ahead of time and have their routes immediately synced from their Mac to their iPhone when they're ready to travel. Users may see how much their route would cost, add transport cards to Wallet, monitor low balances, and replenish transit cards all without leaving Maps.
- Family Sharing makes it simpler to create an account for a child with the appropriate parental restrictions in place straight away. It offers age-appropriate limitations for applications, movies, books, music, and more, as well as a simplified procedure for setting up a new device that seamlessly applies current parental controls. When a youngster requests additional screen time, parents may accept or deny the request via Messages.
- Dictation is a unique on-device experience that lets users switch between speech and touch with ease. Users may use the keyboard to type, tap on the text field to move the cursor, and input QuickType suggestions without having to interrupt Dictation. Dictation also comes with automated punctuation and emoji dictation.
- Siri now allows users to start shortcuts as soon as an app is downloaded, without the need for any prior configuration. When sending a message, users may include emoji, select to send messages immediately (skipping the confirmation phase), and hang up the phone and FaceTime calls totally hands-free by just saying "Hey Siri, hang up."
- The Home app makes it easier for users to navigate, organize, and view their accessories, and enhancements to the underlying architecture offer users more efficient and reliable control of their smart home. A software update to iOS 16 will bring support for the Matter smart home connectivity standard once it becomes available later this fall, enabling a wide variety of accessories to work together seamlessly across platforms, helping fulfill the true vision of a smart home.
- The Fitness app is available to all iPhone users to help track and meet fitness goals, even if they don’t have an Apple Watch. iPhone users can set up a daily Move goal in the Fitness app and see how their active calories will help close their Move ring. iPhone motion sensors can track steps, distance, flights climbed, and workouts from third-party apps, which can be converted into an estimation of active calories to contribute to users’ daily Move goals. Users can also share their Move ring with friends for additional motivation.
- Drugs have been added to the Health app, allowing users to create and manage a prescription list, set up schedules and reminders, and track their medications, vitamins, and supplements. Users in the United States may simply aim their iPhone camera at a label to add medicine, learn about the medications they're taking, and receive an alert if their prescriptions have any possible important interactions. 5 Users may also simply produce a PDF of accessible health records from linked health institutions immediately from the Health app, and share their Health data with loved ones. 6
- My Sports is a new feature in Apple News that allows you to simply follow your favorite teams and leagues, receive news from hundreds of top publications, access scores, schedules, and standings for the biggest professional and collegiate leagues, and view highlights all in one place.
- Game Center now has a revamped dashboard that displays all of your friends' game activities and achievements in one location, making it simple for you to play with or compete against them.
- Personalized Spatial Audio enhances the listening experience by making it even more accurate and immersive. Listeners may construct a customized profile for Spatial Audio using the iPhone's TrueDepth camera, which gives a listening experience tailored especially for them.
- Safety Check, a new privacy tool, can aid users whose safety is threatened by domestic or intimate partner abuse by immediately revoking any access they've provided to others. It comes with an emergency reset feature that allows users to sign out of iCloud on all of their other devices, reset privacy rights, and limit messages to the device in their hand. It also assists users in understanding and managing the persons and apps to whom they've granted access.
- Accessibility updates include Door Detection, which helps users who are blind or have low vision to use their iPhone to navigate the last few feet to their destination, and Apple Watch Mirroring for users with physical and motor disabilities who may rely on assistive features like Voice Control and Switch Control to fully control Apple Watch from their iPhone.7 Additionally, Live Captions make it easier for the Deaf and hard of hearing community follow along while on a phone or FaceTime call, using a videoconference or social media app, streaming media content, or having a conversation with someone next to them. 8
Availability
The developer preview of iOS 16 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta will be available to iOS users next month at beta.apple.com. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 8 and later. For more information, visit apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.
Click here for more trending news