Your iPhone’s lock screen is about to explode with your personality. In iOS 16, Apple has made the most significant update to the iOS lock screen, and there are many features that can make you happy.
Apple won’t release the new iOS 16 operating system until this fall, but the update is available for beta testing. To start enjoying all the new features, you can join as a developer now, or wait to take part in the public beta testing starting any day. You may experience bugs, crashes, and battery drain during the beta, but so far, the new lock screen update has been working quite well overall.
Aside from the fact that iOS 16 won’t arrive until the fall, the only downside to the updated lock screen is that it’s only for the iPhone. The iPadOS 16 software update does not include an updated lock screen. Instead, it is believed that the iPad won’t get a new lock screen until iPadOS 17.
You can switch between multiple lock screens
Apple iOS 16 lets you create multiple lock screens that you can switch between at any time, and you don’t even need to leave the lock screen to do so. Unfortunately, this new feature is not available in iPadOS 16.
To change the lock screen, touch and hold the picture, date, or time on the lock screen, then swipe left or right and tap the theme you want. This is the only way to switch between lock screens as there is no option to switch in Settings -> Wallpaper. However, you can visit the Wallpaper settings to add new wallpapers that will switch the lock screen to whatever you create.
Has a gallery of lock screens to choose from
To create a new lock screen, open the lock screen switcher. Then swipe all the way down and select the Add New option, tap the plus button at the bottom, or choose Customize and then Add New from the action menu (if you only have one default lock screen).
You can also unlock your iPhone and go to “Settings”-> “Wallpaper”then select “Add new wallpaper”or select “Customize”under the image on the lock screen and click “Add new wallpaper”in the action menu.
A new lock screen gallery should appear where you can choose any available wallpaper theme or a custom one.
You can choose live weather wallpapers
If you want to see the latest weather conditions whenever you look at your iPhone, the new weather live wallpaper can help. Select it and it will visually show you the current local conditions in the background, such as moving clouds or rain, and provide weather statistics by date and time.
Or live astronomical wallpaper
There are also astronomical wallpapers that update in real time. You can choose between a close-up of the Earth, the entire planet, a close-up of the Moon, the entire Moon, or the Solar System. As astronomical conditions change, so will your wallpaper.
Or an emoji wallpaper
Your wallpaper can also be fully emoji if you like. Select a pre-made image or click the emoji button. You can disable or select from one to six characters to include in the graphics. You can then change the background color and switch between different views, including small, medium, and large grids, rings, and a spiral design.
Or gradient or plain wallpaper
You can also choose new color wallpapers. The Color section has some pre-made options, but you can also click Color at the top to choose your own background color, intensity, and filter. There are bright, deep, tonal, fallow, and vibrant filters, and a good option if you don’t like gradients.
Or another wallpaper from Apple
There are more ready-made options in the Collections category. Here you’ll see the default iOS 16 look and feel, dynamic options, timely themes like pride and unity, and other designs.
Or wallpaper with photo shuffling
While you can upload one of your photos as your lock screen wallpaper, you can choose Shuffle Photos to have iOS 16 automatically change the background every hour, every day, every time you wake up your iPhone, or every time you tap the screen blocking. You can choose between suggested ones such as Nature, use Featured Photos, or select images manually.
There are proposals for the manufacture of photo wallpaper
If you only want one photo as your lock screen wallpaper, select Photos. You’ll see new suggestions that iOS 16 intelligently selects from your photo library in the Favorites tab. You may see other tabs such as “Nature”to make it easier to choose the right background. You can also just search for the desired image as before.
There is a new album of people for wallpaper
While you could always use pictures of people for your lock screen wallpaper in the past, it’s now easier to find them. In iOS 15, the People Smart Album of Photos was not displayed when viewing images in Wallpaper settings. The lock screen gallery in iOS 16 offers that – tap the People button to see everyone in your library. You will also be able to find the category of people using the “Photos”button.
You can add styles to photo wallpapers
When using an image uploaded from your photo library, you can swipe left or right to select a stylized wallpaper look. You can leave the image in its natural state, or use black and white, duotone, color blur, studio lighting, or a color background filter, depending on the type of photo and composition.
You can see the layered photo effect on the wallpaper.
You may notice that some of the available lock screen wallpapers and even some of your own photos contain elements that dynamically override the time and date when there are no widgets. It does the stock iOS 16 wallpapers, as well as the striped wallpapers and some astronomical wallpapers. For your own images, this works best on portrait photos.
This effect works on iPhone XS and newer iPhone models.
You can change the font and color of the time and date
The data and time displayed on the lock screen was WYSIWYG prior to iOS 16. You can now switch between six different fonts, many different colors, and even symbols in other languages. When you change the font color, it also changes the colors of all the widgets (which we haven’t even gotten to yet!).
Widgets finally appeared on the lock screen
Now for my favorite part: the widgets. You’ll see the widgets already on your lock screen if you choose one of the available designs in the gallery that has them, but you can edit the ones you see whenever you want. Moreover, you can add widgets to any lock screen design.
Widgets display frequently updated data from their main applications. For example, the Weather app has a widget that shows the weather for any location you choose, and the Calendar app has a widget to show the date or next event. You can tap on most widgets when your iPhone is unlocked and on the lock screen to navigate to their related apps.
You can place widgets above and below the time. The widget’s top space, where the date resides, can be customized to include lunar events, calendar events, activity ring progress, and other widget statistics. The date will always stay in the same field without the name of the month.
The bottom widget space allows you to add up to four small widgets. Some middle widgets take up two spaces, so there can be up to two. Right now, you’ll only see Apple widgets for batteries, calendar, clock, fitness, home, news, reminders, stocks, and weather.
However, many of Apple’s home screen widgets are missing here, including the App Store, Books, Contacts, Files, Find My, Game Center, Mail, Maps, Music, Notes, Photos, Podcasts, Screen Time, Shortcuts, Siri Suggestions., Smart Stack, Tips, TV and Wallet.
And third party widgets will work
As Apple did with Today View widgets in iOS 8 and home screen widgets in iOS 14, third-party developers can create lock screen widgets for their apps using the new WidgetKit API. Some TestFlight beta apps are already testing new lock screen widgets. Widgets will be in text, round or rectangular format.
You can assign focus to each lock screen
When creating a new lock screen, tapping “Focus”on the wallpaper preview lets you link one of your focuses. You can choose between Do Not Disturb mode and any focus you set.
When you link a focus mode to a specific lock screen theme, it will automatically switch to that theme when that focus mode is enabled. Similarly, if you switch the lock screen to another with the appropriate focus mode, that focus mode will be activated.
For example, in the screenshots below, I have a Do Not Disturb mode assigned to one of my color themes. It automatically syncs wallpaper, font and widgets with this theme whenever Do Not Disturb is enabled. If you set a particular focus mode to multiple lock screens, the first lock screen associated with it will be used as the default.
You can set or create a lock screen from the focus menu
You can link focus to the lock screen switch, but you can also do it from Settings -> Focus. Tap the focus you want and you’ll see a Customize Screens section that shows you the lock screens assigned to you. Tap Change to set or remove a different lock screen, or tap Select if none is already assigned.
In the lock screen selection box that appears, you’ll see suggested lock screens that are good for focus, but you can also open the gallery to see more, or use an existing lock screen.
You can also add new lock screens from settings
While it’s most convenient to add lock screens and switch between them from the lock screen, you can also go to Settings -> Wallpaper, where you can tap Add New Wallpaper to select a new background from the lock screen gallery. If you’re currently using a custom lock screen, you can tap “Customize”below the lock screen preview and then either “Add New Wallpaper”, which does the same thing as the main “Add New Wallpaper”button, or “Customize current wallpaper.. «
The home screen wallpaper will match the lock screen
Whether you add wallpapers from the lock screen editor or from wallpaper settings, any lock screen background you choose from the gallery will also be your home screen wallpaper. You can change your desktop wallpaper in the wallpaper settings. You can make the corresponding background plain or blurry, choose a gradient or solid color, or choose an image from your photo library.
- Read more: 13 things you need to know about your iPhone’s home screen in iOS 16
Live action can show you what’s going on in real time
Later this year, Apple will add the ability to track real-time activities right on the lock screen. Online activities include, for example, tracking a trip, tracking package delivery, ordering food, and getting sports scores live from Apple TV+. Interactive actions are displayed in a small window at the bottom of the lock screen.
Apple also said it is providing developers with an API to add Live Activities to their apps. However, once again, this won’t happen until the end of this year.
And third parties can embed them in their applications
Later this year, there will be a new Live Activity API that third-party developers can use to create Live Activities for their applications.
Now the game has a new design
Apple has redesigned the Now Playing window on the lock screen. It’s more compact, about half the size, but still displays much of the same information, and it sits at the bottom of the lock screen like Live Actions, not below where the widgets go now.
When Live Action becomes available, Apple says, you’ll be able to “extend the Now Playing controls to a full-screen view that marks album art as you listen.”
Notifications are now displayed at the bottom
Prior to iOS 16, notifications appeared on the lock screen and in the Notification Center under the time, but now they appear at the bottom, and there’s a nice new animation when you swipe up from the bottom, which triggers alerts.
And notifications now use bold font
According to Apple’s website, the lock screen also uses “bold text and images [that] make notifications visually pop.”However, we have not noticed any changes in this regard. Stay tuned!
You can choose different types of notifications
In Settings -> Notifications, you’ll see a new “Display As”option, and you can change it from “Stack”to “Counter”or “List”to customize how notifications are displayed. No matter which view you choose, you can tap on lock screen notifications to switch between layouts in context.
Timer UI looks better
In iOS 16, Apple added a new timer UI for the lock screen, which is also at the bottom of the screen. You can pause and stop the timer right from the lock screen.
