On September 13, after several versions of WWDC22 debuted in testing, the new generation of operating systems iOS 16 and watchOS 9 for iPhone and Apple Watch was finally officially released. Among them, iOS 16 brings a new lock screen and supports lock screen widgets, and watchOS 9 has once again made great progress in sleep monitoring, physical training and other aspects.
The minority has sorted out the new features and new features in the new version of the system for you, and if you want to know what the new features are after upgrading the new system, or are still waiting to see if you need to upgrade, this article can help you. Of course, before upgrading to a new version of your system, don’t forget to back up your iPhone data via iTunes/Finder or iCloud.
If you want to know whether your device can upgrade to the new system, you can check it on the iOS 16 official website. According to the information provided by Apple’s official website, iOS 16 supports iPhone 8/8 Plus (2017) and later products:
Personalized lock screen
Every generation of iOS must have a very eye-catching feature, so the highlights of this generation must belong to the “lock screen”. In iOS 16, Apple reconstructed the lock screen from multiple dimensions such as design and functionality.
First, the date text is moved above the time; Secondly, the time text footprint becomes larger and more eye-catching; In addition, the information in the notification center is stacked from the bottom up, with more blank areas in the middle. Finally, a new widget area has been added to the upper middle region.
This lock screen change is mainly centered around personalization. The upper and lower parts of the time are defined by Apple as a widget area, the upper part is displayed in the form of a single-line icon with text, and the system supports six native categories of calendar, stock market, fitness, clock, weather, and reminders according to your needs.
The lower part of the time area is a modular widget area, which contains eight native categories of stocks, family, fitness, calendar, clock, reminders, weather, and battery. Unlike the top widgets, the components here are more styled, the design sense is stronger, and the size selection is more diverse, and you can match it according to your preferences. It is worth mentioning that Apple has opened the relevant permissions of the lock screen widget to developers, and there have been a number of apps that have released versions that adapt to the lock screen widget, if you find that the app you are using supports the lock screen widget, you may wish to share it with us in the comment area.
In the middle of the time part, Apple not only adjusted the size of the text, but also provided Arabic numerals, Arabic Indian, and Amagi characters, each containing a variety of different design styles. In addition to supporting the modification of text styles, lock screen text also provides rich color options, you can choose the appropriate text color to use according to your preferences or wallpaper, and the color settings will also be used in the widgets on the upper and lower sides of the time text.
In iOS 16, you can associate your lock screen and desktop with focus mode, and while different focus modes are turned on, the lock screen and desktop can automatically switch to the set plan. In different environments, you may need to receive different information, such as the need to see the state of smart devices at home, the need to look at the schedule when working, the need to care about sunrise and sunset times when photography… At the same time as the widgets are different, you can also change a different wallpaper, change the wallpaper and change the mood.
When it comes to wallpapers, Apple has made a “big effort” in iOS 16, no longer a single live wallpaper and static wallpaper before. The new wallpaper types include eight themes: People, Photo, Random, Emoji, Weather, Astronomy, and Color. Among them, when selecting a person or astronomical theme, the system automatically detects the foreground part of the photo, and places the foreground in front of the component and time, and the overall fusion effect is very good.
As can be seen from the above pictures, Weather & Astronomy Live Wallpaper will change the content of the lock screen in real time according to your positioning and time, and the current weather or location conditions will be directly presented on the lock screen.
In addition, lock screen notifications include real-time activity so that you can get a quicker picture of what’s happening on the lock screen, such as takeouts, competitions, fitness, and more. At present, only some of the system’s apps support this function, such as timers. Live Activity and its corresponding development framework, ActivityKit, have earlier released beta beta versions for developers; However, Apple said that the live activity feature will not be released in the first official version of iOS 16 and will be available at a later date through the iOS update.
iOS 16 displays a large-size music album poster or movie series poster on the lock screen when playing media content, and you can also choose to have the lock screen display the wallpaper as the main object when playing media content in the original way.
More powerful focus mode
In addition to being associated with the lock screen as mentioned above, Focus Mode can also define the display of a page of home screen after unlocking and switch the watch face of the Apple Watch.
In terms of notifications, all focus modes support the setting of the lock screen to darken. Second, you can also display notifications that are currently muted on the lock screen, and you can also hide notification markers for apps on the Home screen, which greatly improves your focus when using your device.
iOS 16 also provides Focus Mode filters, where you can make more detailed settings for calendar, messages, browser, low battery mode, and dark mode. For example, when the corresponding focus mode is turned on, the calendar will be filtered, the rest of the calendars will not be viewed, the system will automatically turn on, and so on. As a result, the functionality of Focus Mode becomes more automated and personalized. I believe that in future updates, the focus mode should be able to do more.
Health app upgrades: Sleep analysis and medication reminders
The overall design of the iOS 16 Health app has not changed, and two new features have been added, namely sleep analysis and medication reminders. The new version of sleep analysis is no longer just a total length of time, but also adds a detailed analysis of sleep stages, including waking time, rapid eye movement sleep, core sleep, and deep sleep. At the same time, data on heart rate fluctuations during sleep and breathing rate are also recorded.
For users who have daily medication needs, they can set and manage their daily medications in “Health” > “Browse” > “Medicine”. After setting the medication and taking time, iOS can prompt you to take the medication on time and record the medication record. In addition, it also supports one-click export of your own drug list, which is convenient for use when purchasing.
New iCloud shared gallery
In iOS 16, the Home Sharing Gallery will be available as a separate gallery, and you can choose what you want to include based on the start date or the people in your photo. Once you’ve set up your shared library, you can share photos directly in the Camera app, choose to automatically share them with members of your shared library when they’re nearby, or get smart suggestions from Recommendations for You to add photos to your shared library. In addition, if you select the sharing mode when shooting on camera, the photos taken will be shared directly with the family.
iMessage retraction and editing
As a native Apple instant messaging app, iMessage has a good experience overall, but there are many small problems, such as the message sent cannot be undone and modified. In the new version of iOS, this problem is solved. Within 15 minutes after sending the message, the user can long press the message to withdraw or edit it twice, and the deleted information can be restored within 30 days. Both parties to this feature need to communicate are in iOS 16 and the same generation of iPadOS or macOS systems, and if the other party’s system is too low, the function will not be available.
Multi-point route planning
The new version of the map adds a basic but more practical function of multi-pass point route planning, users can use the route page, append their own needs to reach the place, to achieve the point of passage navigation. At present, the feature has been launched in 11 countries, and the domestic launch time is unknown.
The Home App is completely redesigned
The iOS 16 Home app has been completely redesigned, including changes in the number of interaction tiers and icon design. Today, just from the Home page, you can control smart home devices in all your rooms without having to switch back and forth. And the multi-camera view can display the pictures of each smart home camera together. In addition, iOS 16 will support HomeKit and Matter two protocols, which means that there will be more smart homes for iOS to choose from, and the adaptation of this feature will be launched later this year.
Features exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro series
Every year, the new version of the iOS system will support unique features for the new iPhone, most of which are due to the dependence on performance computing power or hardware can not be supported on the old models, with the introduction of the iPhone 14 series models, iOS 16 is not surprising to launch a number of exclusive features on the Pro series models.
Due to the introduction of iOS 16 to the lock screen drastic modification, there have been rumors that the new iPhone will support the all-weather display function similar to Apple Watch, and the appearance of the iPhone 14 Pro series has finally confirmed this rumor, the screen of the new model will display the content on the screen and the widget in real time at a refresh rate of 1Hz when locked, and the screen will be dimmed accordingly.
With new sensors, iOS 16 supports crash detection on the iPhone 14 Pro series and helps users automatically make emergency calls in the event of an accident.
Thanks to the new features brought about by hardware changes, of course, Dynamic Island is indispensable. The iPhone 14 Pro series replaces the previous design with a new Dynamic Island, occupying 31% less space than the previous section, and this new design is also called a new way of interaction that blurs the boundaries between hardware and software. As can be seen from the official demo video, Dynamic Island can use different screen display areas to present the status of the current function according to the different functions that the iPhone is using.
Battery percentage
Since the advent of the iPhone X, in order to compromise with the bangs on the screen, Apple has cut off the option to display the battery percentage in the upper right corner of the screen, and we can only view the real-time battery level by drop-down the control center in the upper right corner. In Beta 5, Apple finally added the battery percentage back, which was achieved by replacing the original battery progress bar. However, after changing to a percentage display, the view of power consumption and remaining usage is not so intuitive.
Of course, if you still like the original battery level display and don’t want to have battery anxiety, you can also turn off this feature in the settings.
However, this feature currently only supports iPhone 12/Pro/Pro Max, iPhone 13/ Pro/Pro Max and iPhone X/XS models, and does not support iPhone 11/XR, iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini.
Live text in the video
iOS 15 brings the live text function, so that we can find albums, cameras, input when quickly extracting text information to the image, and in iOS 16, Apple once again strengthened the function of live text, in any screen containing text pause video, you can perform copying, translation, query, sharing and other operations, and suitable for photos, quick view, Safari and other applications of a variety of scenarios.
In addition, the part of the album that contains text can be retrieved in the focus search. Live text photo search is only available for iPhones with A12 bionic or successor chips, and supports English, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
Photos support quick keying
While reviewing the Visual Lookup feature introduced in iOS 15, Apple also introduced us to the new keying capabilities implemented with CoreML and the Neural Engine. As long as you long press on the photo, you can quickly cut out the foreground part of the picture, this feature is not only suitable for photos taken in real life, but also for virtual animation. Hold down the keyed image and you can directly switch the background to send it to the instant messaging app.
The input method adds a number of functions
The iOS 16 system adds global haptic feedback, not only in terms of system control and interaction, but also to the keyboard input to add haptic settings. Currently, there are only options to turn on and off, and the velocity adjustment of haptic feedback is not supported.
In terms of keyboard, the option of Sichuan dialect has been added to the phonetic input, which can be viewed through “Settings”> “General”> “Keyboard” > “Dialect”. In addition, manual input and voice input can be performed at the same time. This way, even if you say the wrong thing, you can quickly make manual modifications with the keyboard without having to switch input modes back and forth.
Personalize audio
In iOS 16, Apple once again optimized the spatial audio experience. When you first set up your AirPods series, you’ll be automatically prompted to customize personalized spatial audio, then scan your face and left and right ears with Face ID, produce your own geometric features in the system, and then personalize the spatial audio. You can also go to the settings page of your AirPods headphones in Bluetooth settings to adjust the settings for personalized spatial audio.
Wallpaper quickly virtualized
Previously, many wallpaper bloggers would provide both original and virtualized versions when making wallpapers. Because the frosted glass effect wallpaper is generally more suitable for desktop applications, there are no complex elements on the background, but it guarantees a hue and lock screen wallpaper. Now, you can use this effect directly when setting the wallpaper, and when setting the desktop wallpaper, you can select the legibility blur below to complete the effect of the frosted glass virtualized.
The Wi-Fi password can be viewed
Previously, iOS did not support viewing Wi-Fi passwords, and only quickly shared Wi-Fi to other devices. Currently, you can go to the Wi-Fi page and click on the Wi-Fi information you are currently connected to to see the password information. In addition, click the Edit button in the upper right corner to see the list of Wi-Fi you have joined so far, delete the parts that you don’t use, and browse your historical passwords and address information.
Family sharing
Under the new version, the management of family sharing has become very convenient, and organizers can comprehensively limit it according to the actual situation of applications, books, movies, music, and combined with the age of members. Also, if a member (child) applies to the organizer for an extended screen time limit, an iMessage is automatically sent to the parent, and the parent only needs to work within the iMessage.
Lock mode
In iOS 16, Apple introduced a new feature called Lock Mode, which we can turn on in Privacy & Security > Lock Mode.
As the name suggests, lockdown mode helps users to strictly restrict the operation of the device and network access in response to the risk of cyberattacks. Specifically, links and attachments in text messages can’t be loaded and previewed when this mode is turned on, some web page elements are blocked, and FaceTime calls can’t be made with users who haven’t passed verification. However, it should be noted that the lock mode is mainly for extreme network attack scenarios and generally does not need to be enabled, otherwise it will affect the normal use of the iPhone.
Published by Tony Shepherd & last updated on April 16, 2024 9:50 am
