Apple has unveiled a brand-new lock-screen feature

Apple has released iOS 16, the biggest upgrade ever to the lock screen, as well as new sharing, communication, and intelligence features that change the way people use iPhones. iOS 16 introduces a new technology for iOS devices, the iCloud Shared Photo Library, to allow users to easily share a collection of family photos with one another, updates to Messages and Mail that facilitate communication, and significant enhancements to Live Text and Visual Look Up that provide a more organized experience.

iOS 16 is an important update that will change the way you work with the iPhone, according to Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. We have created a brand-new Lock Screen, which is personal and more user-friendly with features like personalized widgets and satellite radio. With iCloud Shared Photo Library, family members can easily share engaging memories with one another. Messaging has been streamlined with smaller buttons and more secure, encrypted communication through secure enclave servers. We also provide Live Text powered by Bing and numerous powerful visual searches in Visual Look Up.

A Personalized Lock Screen Experience

The Lock Screen receives more personal, beautiful, and helpful with iOS 16. With a new multilayered effect, the subject of a photograph is set in front of a selected moment on the Lock Screen, making a sense of depth. Users can also change the colors and types of date and time with expressive glyphs and shades. The Lock Screen uses widgets inspired by the Apple Watch complications to give you rapid access to your information available at a glance, such as upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery levels, alarms, time zones, the Apple Watch's Activity ring, and more.

Find Balance with Focus

A Focus of greater power, easier to create, and instantly connects to the Lock Screen, allowing users to tie a Lock Screen wallpaper and widgets to a specific 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 empowers other families to collaborate on one photo library without interruption. Users can select to share existing photos from their local libraries or initiate a new plot to upload photos. A new toggle has been added to the Camera app that lets the user choose to send photos automatically to the Shared Library. Furthermore, users will receive intelligent suggestions to share a photo from the Shared Photo Library that includes participants in the Shared Library. Every user in the Shared Photo Library has the privilege to categorize, remove, edit, or even favorite the shared pictures or videos.

Updates to Messages

Users can edit or remember recently sent messages, retrieve recently deleted messages, and unmark conversations as unread to return them later. Also, Sharing is coming to Messages, allowing users to enjoy synced content such as videos or songs and shared playback controls while chatting in Status Updates.

New Tools for Mail

Now, users can easily schedule e-mails and are even given the option to postpone sending their messages until a recipient's inbox before they reach that recipient. Mail can determine if a user neglected to include a crucial portion of the message, like an attachment. Users have the option at any time and in any place to resubmit a message using Remind Later, and Follow Up provides suggestions to keep users updated on messages if they have not received a response. Mail's search function has the biggest overhaul, and it uses recent techniques to provide more accurate, relevant, and complete results. The user sees the most recent emails and documents as they are searching for emails.

Live text and quick visual look-up enhancements

Live Text has native on-device intelligence to recognize text in images―among other platforms––over iOS, and it is now expanding to cover video. Users can pause and watch any frame and interact with recognized text. Live Text also offers new capabilities for quickly translating currency, translating text, and converting measurements.

Wallet Enables Apple Pay Later, Order Tracking, and some other features

Later Apple Pay provides users in the USA with an intuitive and safe way to divide the cost of an Apple Pay transaction into 4 equal payments spread over 6 weeks. Initiated through treasury service in Apple Wallet and created with the user's financial situation in mind, Apple Pay Later makes it simple to check, track, and repay Apple Pay Later payments within Wallet. Users can request Apple Pay Later when they are ordering with Apple Pay, or in Wallet. Apple Pay Later is available everywhere Apple Pay is accepted in person or in-app, using the Mastercard network.4 Additionally, with Apple Pay Order Tracking, users can get detailed receipts and order tracking information in Wallet for Apple Pay purchases with participating merchants.

The Next Generation of CarPlay

CarPlay shifted the way people interact with their vehicles, and the next generation of CarPlay goes even further through deeply integrating with a vehicle's hardware. CarPlay will be able to synchronize various content for multiple (car) exterior displays, giving the user a coherent and uniform experience. Deeper integration with the vehicle will allow motorists to control their smartphone, iPod, or climate control system through CarPlay, and by using the vehicle data, CarPlay will instantly display the speed, fuel level, temperature, and other functions on the dashboard. Users will be able to choose a variety of gauge cluster designs for their own dashboards, and with the upcoming addition of Weather and Music widgets, users will have access to at-a-glance information on their dashboards. More information on the next generation of CarPlay will be shared in the future, and vehicles will be made known the following year.

Availability

The developer preview of Apple iOS 16 is available in Apple Developer Program members' developer.apple.com today, and a public beta will be available at beta.apple.com next month. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 8 users. For more information, see apple.com/ios/ios-16-preview.