While the betas have been remarkably stable this year, we recommend that most people delay a few days before updating in case of any serious problems. Plus, that lets you avoid any confusion if Apple’s update servers are overwhelmed at first. And again, iPadOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura aren’t due until next month.
The lock screen is the true star of iOS 16. Apple has reconceived its purpose altogether, shifting it from just a clock and a bunch of notifications to something much more like a second homescreen. Lock screen widgets were an instant upgrade to my phone life: I can now see my calendar without unlocking my phone or even swiping right to get to that page of widgets everyone always forgets about, and I have a tiny widget that launches a new note in my notes app.
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Of all these quality-of-life improvements, there are two that have made my phone-using life markedly better. The first is haptic feedback while typing. After weeks of using it and getting that gentle buzz every time I hit a key, I don’t know how I ever just smashed my fingers onto motionless glass. I’m not sure it’s made me a better typer, but it’s a much more pleasant typing setup. The second is marking conversations unread in Messages. For too many years, my general texting behavior has been to either respond immediately or forget all about the message and never get back to it. Now, I can mark a message as unread and find it later. It’s still ridiculous that iOS 16 doesn’t let you filter to just show unread messages, but I’ll take what I can get.
This year, features like the lock screen updates, passkeys, and Shared Photo Library (when it arrives) are well worth the update. But personally, for most users, I think it’s the little improvements sprinkled throughout that I most look forward to, since they often end up being the things that patch previous frustrations or enable some new capability. Apple aims for surprise and delight and while big iOS updates might feel like a deluge of the new, it’s the constant drizzle of discovery over the ensuing weeks and months—Oh, you can do that now?—that truly deliver Apple’s core mission of surprise and delight.
As a reviewer and user, iOS 16 is some of the most fun I’ve had with my iPhone in a while. Perhaps even more so than two years ago with Home Screen widgets. After three months spent testing iOS 16, I think the reason is obvious. This time around, customization isn’t a happy accident: with iOS 16, Apple is embracing personalization as a feature, and they’re letting us go wild with how much we can customize and tinker with the Lock Screen, Focus modes, Home Screen pages, widgets, and more. On iPhone 14 Pro, the ability to always see the Lock Screen is a feature of the product itself.
While iOS 16 is certainly the big news of the day, Apple also released iOS 15.7 for iPhone users today. The update doesn’t bring any major changes, but it does come with bug fixes and security enhancements, and users running iOS 15 now have the option to install iOS 15.7 or iOS 16.
Widgetsmith 4.0 is available now on the App Store not only with Lock Screen widgets but also improvements to the widget editor, a ton of new functionality for widgets, and much more.
Carrot Weather is out with a new update today for iOS 16 that brings 20+ handy Lock Screen Widgets, 10 new layout sections to customize your setup, a major multicolumn redesign for iPad, and more.
The app called “Launchify” lets users configure one or more iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets that directly open any app of their choosing. Users can create a widget to quickly open Messages, Twitter, the Phone app, or Apple or Google Maps, for example.
Whether you’re looking to customize your overall iPhone theme, or you have a more specific goal in mind — like keeping up with your workouts or emails, for instance — there are already quite a few apps going live today that can help you personalize your device’s Lock Screen using widgets.
We’ve rounded up a bunch of third-party apps that have implemented widget support as of today, so you can see some of the widget options available to you. Note that if you’re planning on getting an iPhone 14 Pro, widgets will be available even when your screen is off thanks to the Always-On display.
According to Apple, the redesigned watchOS 9 Compass app provides more in-depth information and new zoomable views, including a “hybrid view that simultaneously shows both an analog compass dial and a digital view.” By turning the Digital Crown, the Compass app reveals an additional view that includes latitude, longitude, elevation, and incline, as well as an orienteering view showing Compass Waypoints and Backtrack.
Apple today announced that watchOS 9’s new AFib History feature will be available in more than 100 countries and territories beyond the United States, including Canada, the UK, other European countries, Hong Kong, Mexico, South Africa, and others. Apple said the feature will also be available in Australia starting later this year.
Apple has released macOS 12.6 Monterey and macOS Big Sur 11.7 to patch 8 security vulnerabilities in Monterey and 10 vulnerabilities in Big Sur, with specific patches for iMovie, Maps, and the kernel.
Safari 16 includes Tab Group start pages, support for pinned tabs in Tab Groups, and Tabs in the sidebar. The update also includes cross-device syncing for website settings, and strong password editing for adjusting your passwords to meet various site-specific password requirements.
Apple today shared a video explaining how to use the new car crash detection feature enabled by default on all iPhone 14 models, the Apple Watch Series 8, the Apple Watch Ultra, and the second-generation Apple Watch SE.
Following the release of iOS 16 to the public on Monday, Apple has now announced that developers can finally subscribe to get more WeatherKit API requests. With this API, third-party apps can get data provided by Apple Weather as part of the Dark Sky transition.
Presumably, the iPhone 14 Pro will use proximity data from the Apple Watch to enable the feature and detect once a user has left the room. Apple made no mention of the unique feature on its website and didn’t mention it during its event, but it’s likely one of several power-saving features the iPhone 14 Pro’s always-on display has.
As I write, I have 101 unread WhatsApp messages, 254 unread iPhone messages and 46,252 unread emails across three separate accounts. For me, Inbox Zero is a faraway goal, as unachievable as mastering the perfect cat’s-eye flick, or learning how to cook.
But it is the WhatsApp messages, specifically the WhatsApp group chats, that terrorise me the most. If I were a woman of courage, I would simply exit these chats as soon as I am added to them; but I feel the weight of social obligation, and so I remain.
As expected, I've updated my iPhone to iOS 16 on day one, first thing in the morning.
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I was searching up and down for a lock-screen circular widget that simply display today's date. And I can't find such a widget built-in, nor any of the popular (and probably not-so-popular) widget apps.
Later I discover why: one can not remove the date from the lock screen anyway. Even if you place an inline-widget up above the clock, the date will still be present, albeit shortened.
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Back in iOS 15, one of my frustration with the lock screen is with the volume control. Many a times when I adjust the volume, I will aim poorly, and swipe the entire lock screen instead. And I ended up with either the camera or the Today's View instead.
iOS 16 totally solved this problem by not having any sort of volume control on the lock screen at all. I will have to pay for the new AirPod Pro with the new Volume touch control. Or press the volume buttons on my iPhone instead. Like an animal.
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Thanks for reading.