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One of the most anticipated launches at Apple’s annual developer’s conference, WWDC, was that of iOS 16, the latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system. iOS 16 has brought in several changes and new feature sets that make a user’s experience more wholesome.
While all the key new features are revealed and explained on stage, consumers will actually get to grips with it for the first time later this year when the iPhone 14 series is released in September or October.
Users will not be able to get the proper experience of iOS 16 until later this year, when it will be rolled out to all eligible phones. iOS 16 will only be available to iPhone 8 and devices launched after that.
Users can download a beta version of the iOS by becoming a member of the Apple Developer Program or enrolling in the Apple Beta Software Program for free and waiting a little longer for access.
We look at some of the features that users will get to see across all eligible iPhones when the update finally rolls out, and not just in iPhone 14.
Privacy
Although Safety Check is mainly aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence, it is a great app that helps users keep a check on their privacy and security. Users can immediately terminate shared information with a partner via an Emergency Reset function, including passwords or calendars.
Lock screen features
Apple has made some significant changes to the lock screen. iOS 16 allows users to personalize the phone by choosing new styles, color filters, and the font for the date and time. iOS also introduces many widgets to the lock screen, including weather, activity rings, and a calendar.
Users can also create several different lock screens and flick between these options without starting from scratch whenever they want to switch. The Live Activities API also gives to-the-minute updates from your apps, such as live sports scores, while Focus Mode also extends to the lock screen, so users are not distracted even when their phone is locked.
Messages
Messages now allow users to unsend or delete a statement they didn’t want to send. On top of that, users can also mark messages as “unread.” The SharePlay API also lets users easily share pieces of content like articles, songs to videos with each other.
Live Text
iOS 16’s automatic transcription will now appear under videos. Users have complete flexibility with this and can pause it frame-by-frame. It also allows users to copy text from these transcriptions into other apps to multitask efficiently.
Dictation
With iOS 16, when you’re dictating to an app rather than typing the text, the keyboard will appear so you can switch input types, and punctuation will be automatically added and even emojis detected from your speech. All this processing is on the device and uses the neural engine for better security.
Improved Visual Lookup
Visual Lookup allows users to identify and search for objects using the camera app. With iOS 16, users can now isolate objects from within the image and also will enable them to copy and paste them into different apps such as Messages or WhatsApp.
Sports
iOS 16 lets users track live scores from their favorite sports right from their iPhone’s lock screen. This comes to users thanks to an all-new integration with Apple News which introduces a new My Sports feature, making it easier to follow certain sports.
Fitness
The Fitness app will now be available to all iPhone users, not just users with an Apple Watch. Using the iPhone’s sensors, it will be able to count the number of steps a user might have taken, as well as compute roughly how many calories a user has burnt.
Families
Apple allows users to share apps and subscriptions with several family members or create accounts with specific parental controls. Using iOS 16’s Quick Start, it will be easier to implement pre-set rules you’ve already agreed to onto the new device, be it on an iPad or an iPhone.
iCloud Shared Photo Library
iOS 16 also allows users to share photos across a group, be it a user’s friends or family. Although they all have access, however, the original uploader, that is, the person who first uploaded the photos, can set limits to make sure you share the images you want, such as limiting it to sharing only photos featuring family members or switching off the feature altogether when taking a new picture.
