Apple previewed iOS 16 at the annual WWDC this week. Updates to the OS include Lock Screen personalization, keep family photos in iCloud Shared Photo Library, recall sent messages, schedule mail, Live Text and Visual Look Up.
With a 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 look of the date and time 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.
Live Activities 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 that users have a clear view of their personalized Lock Screen.
Focus 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 simply swipe to the corresponding Lock Screen. With Focus filters, apps like Calendar, Mail, Messages, and Safari can display only the content that is relevant to a user’s Focus.
One Place for 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 choose to share existing photos from their personal libraries, or share based on a start date or people in the photos. 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 messages, and mark conversations as unread so they can come back to them later. In addition, SharePlay is coming to Messages, making it possible to enjoy synced content like movies or songs and shared playback controls all while chatting in Messages.
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 text. Live Text also adds the ability for users to quickly convert currency and translate text.
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.
Additional Features
Safari adds shared Tab Groups to share a collection of websites with friends and family. Browsing in Safari will be secure with passkeys which are designed to replace passwords, passkeys use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification.
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.
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.
