Apple has unveiled a significant update to the Lock Screen and new sharing on IOS 16, communication, and intelligence features.

Users will be able to personalize their Lock Screen, keep family photos in iCloud Shared Photo Library, recall sent messages, schedule mail, and discover more with Live Text and Visual Look Up.

iOS 16 also introduces iCloud Shared Photo Library to seamlessly share a collection of photos with family, updates to Messages and Mail that help users stay in touch with ease, and powerful enhancements to Live Text and Visual Look Up.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, said, “iOS 16 is a big release with updates that will change how you experience iPhone,”

Resume, “We have reimagined how the Lock Screen looks and works with exciting new features that make it more personal and helpful, introduced iCloud Shared Photo Library for families, streamlined communication through new capabilities in Messages and Mail, and harnessed enhanced intelligence with updates to the the Live Text and Visual Look Up.”

A Personalized Lock Screen Experience

iPhone Personalized Lock Screen Experience

The Lock Screen gets more personal, beautiful, and helpful with iOS 16. With a new multilayered effect, the subjects of photos are artfully set in front of the time on the Lock Screen, creating a sense of depth. Users can also change the date and time look with expressive type styles and color choices

The Lock Screen features widgets that take inspiration from Apple Watch complications, making it easy to get information at a glance, such as upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery levels, alarms, time zones, Activity ring progress, and more.

A new Lock Screen gallery features a range of options for inspiration, such as Apple collections, which include Pride and Unity to celebrate special cultural moments; a Weather wallpaper to see live weather conditions as they change throughout the day; and an Astronomy wallpaper for views of the Earth, moon, and solar system.

Users can also create Lock Screens using their favorite emoji or color combinations. They can switch between their favorites with multiple Lock Screens with just a swipe.

Live Activity is a new feature that helps users stay on top of things that are happening in real-time, such as a sports game, workout, ride-share, or food delivery order, right from the Lock Screen.

Notifications have been redesigned to roll up from the bottom, ensuring users view their personalized Lock Screen.

Find Balance with Focus

Focus is easier and more powerful to set up and now connects to the Lock Screen, offering users a way to tie a Lock Screen wallpaper and widgets to a particular Focus.

To activate a Focus, users can swipe to the corresponding Lock Screen; with Focus filters, apps like Calendar, Mail, Messages, and Safari can display only the content relevant to a user’s Focus, helping them find a better balance.

Family Photos with iCloud Shared Photo Library

iCloud Shared Photo Library gives families a new way to share photos seamlessly with a separate iCloud library that up to six users can collaborate on, contribute to, and enjoy. Users can share existing images from their libraries or share based on a start date or people in the pictures.

A user can also choose to send photos to the Shared Library automatically using a new toggle in the Camera app. Additionally, users will receive intelligent suggestions to share a photo that includes participants in the Shared Photo Library.

Every user in the Shared Photo Library has access to add, delete, edit, or favorite the shared photos or videos, which will appear in each user’s Memories and Featured Photos so that everyone can relive more complete family moments.

Updates to Messages

Users can edit or recall recently sent messages, recover recently deleted ones, and mark conversations as unread so they can return to them later. Additionally, SharePlay is coming to Messages, allowing it to enjoy synced content like movies or songs and shared playback controls Messaging.

New Tools for Mail

Now users can schedule emails ahead of time and are even given a moment to cancel delivery of a message before it reaches a recipient’s inbox; mail will detect if the user forgot to include an essential part of their message, such as an attachment.

Mail also includes the most significant overhaul to search and uses state-of-the-art techniques to deliver more relevant, accurate and complete results. Users see recent emails, contacts, documents, and links when they begin to search for emails.
Users can also resurface a message with Remind Later at any date and time. Follow Up suggestions automatically remind users to follow up on an email if they have not received a response.

Live Text and Visual Look Up Enhancements

Live Text uses on-device intelligence to recognize Text in images across iOS, and it is now expanding to include video. Users can pause a video on any frame and interact with the Text. Live Text also adds the ability for users to quickly convert currency, translate Text, and more.

Visual Look Up takes photos further by introducing a new feature that allows users to tap and hold on the subject of an image to lift it from the background and place it in apps like Messages. Visual Look Up also expands to recognize birds, insects, and statues.

Wallet Adds Apple Pay Later, Order Tracking, and Other Features

Apple Pay Later provides users in the US with a seamless and secure way to split the cost of an Apple Pay purchase into four equal payments spread over six weeks, with zero interest and no fees of any kind.

Built into Apple Wallet and designed with users’ financial health in mind, Apple Pay Later makes it easy to view, track, and repay Apple Pay Later payments within Wallet. Users can apply for Apple Pay Later when checking out with Apple Pay or Wallet.

Apple Pay Later is available everywhere. Apple Pay is accepted online or in-app, using the Mastercard network. With Apple Pay Order Tracking, users can receive detailed receipts and order tracking information in Wallet for Apple Pay purchases with participating merchants.

Keys and IDs in Wallet get expanded support. Users can use their ID in Wallet for apps requiring identity and age verification. Only the necessary information for the transaction will be provided to the app to guarantee a private and secure experience; the user can review and consent to share it using Face ID or Touch ID.

Additionally, users can securely share their home, hotel, office, and car keys in Wallet through messaging apps, including Messages, Mail, etc.

The Next Generation of CarPlay

CarPlay has fundamentally changed the way people interact with their vehicles, and the next generation of CarPlay goes even further by profoundly integrating with a car’s hardware. CarPlay will be able to provide content for multiple screens within the vehicle, creating an experience that is unified and consistent.

Deeper integration with the car will allow users to control the radio or change the climate directly through CarPlay. CarPlay will seamlessly render the instrument cluster’s speed, fuel level, temperature, and more using vehicle data.

Users will be able to personalize their driving experience by choosing different gauge cluster designs.

With added support for widgets, users will have at-a-glance information from Weather and Music right on their car’s dashboard. More details on the next generation of CarPlay will be shared in the future, and vehicles will start to be announced late next year.

Additional Features

• Safari adds shared Tab Groups to share a collection of websites with friends and family, making it seamless to add tabs and see what others view.

Browsing in Safari is even safer with passkeys, unique digital keys that are easy to use, more secure, never stored on a web server, and stay on a device so hackers can’t steal them in a data breach or trick users into sharing them.

Designed to replace passwords, passkeys use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, and iCloud Keychain sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption.

They will also work across apps and the web and users can sign in to websites or an app on non-Apple devices using just their iPhone.

• Apple Maps is introducing multistop routing, so users can plan up to 15 stops in advance and automatically sync routes from Mac to iPhone when they’re ready to go.

Maps are also bringing transit updates to users, making it easy for riders to view how much their journey will cost, add transit cards to Wallet, see low balances, and replenish transit cards without leaving Maps.

• Family Sharing offers an easier way to set up an account for a child with the proper parental controls.

It includes suggestions for age-appropriate restrictions for apps, movies, books, music, and more and a more straightforward process for setting up a new device that applies existing parental controls automatically. When a child asks for more screen time, guardians can approve or decline Messages.

• Dictation offers a new on-device experience that allows users to move between voice and touch fluidly.

Users can type with the keyboard, tap in the text field, move the cursor, and insert QuickType suggestions without needing to stop Dictation. In addition, Dictation features automatic punctuation and emoji dictation.

• Siri adds the ability to run shortcuts as soon as an app is downloaded without requiring an upfront setup.

Users can add emojis when sending a message, choose to send messages automatically — skipping the confirmation step — and hang up the phone and FaceTime calls completely hands-free by simply saying, “Hey Siri, hang up.”

• The Home app makes it easier for users to navigate, organize, and view their accessories. Enhancements to the underlying architecture offer users more efficient and reliable control of their smart home.

A software update to iOS 16 will support the Matter smart home connectivity standard once it becomes available later this fall, enabling various 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 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 goal. Users can also share their Move ring with friends for additional motivation.

• The Health app adds Medications, allowing users to conveniently build and manage a medications list, create schedules and reminders, and track their medications, vitamins, or supplements.

In the US, users can point their iPhone camera at a label to add a drug, read about their pills, and receive an alert if potential critical interactions exist for their medicines.

In addition, users can share their Health data with loved ones and easily create a PDF of available health records from affiliated health institutions right from the Health app.

• Apple News introduces a new My Sports section to follow favorite teams and leagues easily; receive stories from hundreds of top publishers; access scores, schedules, and standings for the ultimate professional and college leagues; and watch highlights in the News app.

• Game Center features a redesigned dashboard that shows friends’ Activities and accomplishments from games in one place, making it easy for players to jump in to play with or compete against their friends.

• Personalized Spatial Audio enables an even more authentic and immersive listening experience. Listeners can use the TrueDepth camera on iPhone to create a personal profile for Spatial Audio that delivers a listening experience tuned just for them.

• A new privacy tool called Safety Check can be helpful to users whose personal safety is at risk from domestic or intimate partner violence by quickly removing all access they’ve granted to others.

It includes an emergency reset that helps users rapidly sign out of iCloud on all their other devices, reset privacy permissions, and limit messaging to just the device in their hand. It also helps users understand and manage which people and apps they’ve given access to.

• 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 control Apple Watch from their iPhone fully.

Additionally, Live Captions make it easier for the Deaf and hard of hearing community to 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.

When iOS 16 will be available to download? 

The developer preview of iOS 16 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting now, and a public beta will be available to iOS users next month at beta.apple.com.

iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura will be available for the public between September and December 2022.