Apple’s next big software update includes a brand new Apple app, a controversial change to the TV app, improved Siri controls, an improved Shortcuts app, exciting updates to Safari, and more. Keep reading to find out what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone.
The iOS 16.1 update arrived on October 24 with over 20 major features and changes, while the first iOS 16.2 beta arrived just a day later, and there is no expected release date for the stable version of the software. It took 40 days of testing before iOS 16.1 hit all devices, so we can expect a similar timeline for iOS 16.2.
Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman mentioned in his Power On newsletter that iOS 16.2 is expected to be released in mid-December, but it is not known if this is coming from Apple or just an educated guess. Forty days delays a possible release to the second week of December, so it’s not far off schedule.
While the beta is still in development, iOS 16.2 has a lot of new things to try. While I’ll focus on new features from an iPhone perspective, most of the items listed below also work in iPadOS 16.2 for iPad and macOS 13.1 Ventura for Mac, also in beta.
1. New freeform app
Available for iPhone, iPad and Mac, Apple’s new Freeform app is another productivity tool you can add to your arsenal. It’s one large, flexible canvas that’s like a hybrid of a digital whiteboard and a corkboard, and you can add notes, shapes, files, links, scans, photos and videos, audio, typed text, and annotations like drawings and highlights to it.
Freeform’s main feature is collaboration, so you can plan projects, brainstorm, create inspiration boards, and more. You can see everything collaborators are doing on the canvas, from adding content to making edits, all in real time. Collaboration can be started via FaceTime, while updates from everyone are visible in the corresponding message thread.
You can show or hide the canvas grid inside each board, and app settings let you show or hide center, edge, and spacing guides.
2. Prefer silent responses for Siri
In iOS 16.0-16.1, the only options for Siri verbal responses on your iPhone are Automatic and Prefer Voice Responses. Automatic uses the device’s intelligence to determine when it should speak or not, while Prefer Spoken Responses instructs Siri to almost always speak out loud, even when silent is on. This is different from previous versions of iOS, which always had a third option that gave you more control over keeping Siri silent most of the time.
The new iOS 16.2 update brings back a third option, Prefer Quiet Responses. According to the fine print in Settings -> Siri & Search -> Siri Responses, Siri will respond silently if this option is enabled, “except when you’re driving or using your headphones with the screen off.”
3. Start live action from Spotlight
Live Activities became available in iOS 16.1, but iOS 16.2 brings more options, allowing you to launch them directly from a Spotlight search. For example, if you need live updates for a sports game, you can search for one of the teams, tap the account, and then select Subscribe.
Third-party apps can build this integration into their Live Activities, but you can start using it right now thanks to Apple’s partnerships with the National Basketball Association and the English Premier League (US and Canada only), and Major League Baseball (US, Canada)., Australia, UK, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and South Korea).
4. More frequent updates for action
When you visit an app in the Settings app, you can see the Live Activities submenu in the Allow [app name] access group, as well as Siri and Search, Notifications, and more. New in iOS 16.2 is in the Live Actions submenu, where you’ll find a new “More Frequent Updates”toggle that can be toggled on and off. It is visible to the TV app, but may also be visible to third party apps.
5. City weather news
The Weather app is getting another update to add it to the already long list of new features in iOS 16. For some cities, you can see weather news articles below the city or region’s 10-day forecast. Tapping an article opens it in the News app. You’ll still see these Apple News links even if you’ve uninstalled the app, but the links will open in your web browser instead.
Weather for Austin in iOS 16.1 (left) and iOS 16.2 (right).
6. Weather forecast data by minute
In the Weather app, you can open a large modal sheet to view a daily summary with bar and line charts for most weather attributes on a given day. These bar and line charts are interactive, so you can swipe across them to see the data values at different times of the day.
IOS 16.1 and earlier only displayed measurement changes by the hour. This still applies to the precipitation bar charts, but the rest of them — temperature, UV index, wind, feel, humidity, visibility, and pressure — are displayed by the minute in iOS 16.2. So it’s now impossible to guess what the weather will be like at any point between the hours, at least for anything but rain.
Data changes in weather charts in iOS 16.1 (left) compared to iOS 16.2 (right).
7. Shortcut actions for the lock screen
The Shortcuts app has been constantly updated in iOS 16, and the iOS 16.2 update is no different. This time, several differences and new script actions are available for wallpapers:
- Get Wallpaper (new): Gets all of your lock screen wallpapers and returns them as output so you can use them with other activities. This action cannot be launched on Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad.
- Switch between wallpapers (new): Switch your current lock screen wallpaper. If the wallpaper has an associated Focus, this action will also set the Focus. This action cannot be launched on Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad.
- Set wallpaper photo (renamed): Set the wallpaper to the specified image. This action cannot be started on Apple Watch.
8. More keyboard shortcuts for books
In the early iOS 16.0 beta, Apple teased a lot of new shortcut actions for its Books app, but none of them were implemented in the iOS 16.0 or 16.1 stable updates. Most teasing actions are back in iOS 16.2, giving us more than just “Add PDF to Books”and actions suggested by Siri based on your activity.
- Add PDF to Books
- Change book appearance
- Change page navigation
- change view
- Open book
- open collection
- Open current book
- Play audiobook
- Play current audiobook
- Search in books
- Turn the page
9. Sleep widgets for the lock screen
We already had Sleep widgets for the home screen and Today view, but now there are some for the lock screen that might be a thing of the past. The same two widgets listed below are available, as well as a third option, which is just a shortcut to the Sleep section of the Health app.
10. Health widgets for the lock screen
IOS 16.2 also adds new Health widgets for the lock screen, notably a medication reminder for the top or bottom widget slot, and a bottom widget shortcut for your medications in the Health app.
11. Another stock widget for the lock screen
The Watchlist and Symbols widgets for stocks are still available on the lock screen, but iOS 16.2 introduced a third option, Symbol with Chart. It has the same description as Symbol – “view price quotes and monitor symbol performance throughout the day”but replaces the current price with a line chart of current activity (or last known activity when trading hours are closed).
12. Updated Game Center Widgets
While there are still three Continue Game widgets for Game Center on the Home screen and Today view, the three Friends Playing widgets available in iOS 16.1 and earlier are now called Activity in iOS 16.2 and work. a little differently. The game will still open if you click on its name or icon in the widget, but a few more things are happening in the new version.
First, you can click “Activity”to open a new full-screen Game Center window with additional activity details. Second, you can click on a contact’s name to open their profile in the same overlay window. Closing any window returns you to the widget.
13. Disable IP address hiding in Safari.
If you’re an iCloud+ subscriber and using iCloud Private Relay to hide your IP address in Safari from websites you visit, not just known trackers that can turn everything on, you can now disable this option on a per-website basis in page settings.
Right now it’s running per session, so you might have to disable it again for the site if you refresh the page. The correct toggle switch under Website Settings may come in a future update, but right now there’s nothing in the Settings app either.
14. Recommended auto previews in the TV app
The Apple TV app is undergoing a huge change in iOS 16.2 that also affects iPadOS 16.2, tvOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1 and will most likely make its way to smart TVs.
At the top of the Watch Now tab, you’ll see a large carousel that automatically plays trailers for the TV shows and movies it recommends. You can scroll through the list or let it jump to each title after each title’s trailer ends. Some will love it, but others will no doubt hate it because it moves the “Next”queue from the top down below the big featured block.
Currently there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop video previews from playing automatically. The Auto-Play Video Previews toggle in Settings -> Accessibility -> Motion doesn’t work for Apple TV, and there’s no new toggle in the TV app’s settings, e.g. App Store should turn video autoplay on or off or use it’s only for Wi-Fi.
“Further Up”in iOS 16.1 (left) compared to the new popular videos in iOS 16.2 (right).
15. New home architecture
Following the new support for Matter accessories in iOS 16.1, an architecture update for the Home app is available for iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, macOS 13.1, and HomePod 16.2. The update will make the smart home experience faster and more reliable, especially in homes with many connected accessories, according to Apple.
You will see the option to install the Home update when you open the Home app. If not, you can update via Home -> My Home -> Home Settings -> Updates. All connected devices must have the latest software to view, access, and control a home that has been updated to the latest architecture. If they don’t exist, you won’t be able to use them.
16. Provide unintended feedback on an SOS call
iOS 16.2 beta shows a notification when you activate Emergency SOS on your iPhone. When you click on a notification, it opens the feedback tool, asking for feedback on unintentional SOS calls. If you claim that you inadvertently triggered an emergency SOS call, you will see more questions, including:
- How did you know that Emergency SOS worked on your iPhone?
- Where was your iPhone when the emergency SOS went off?
- What were you doing when the emergency SOS call went off?
- Do you know how your iPhone triggered an emergency SOS call?
- Has the SOS emergency service on your iPhone been activated inadvertently in this way before?
After you submit or cancel a report, you will be taken to the Emergency SOS settings to change the settings if necessary. Apple likely added this in iOS 16.2 due to a long history of accidental emergency calls and later reports of crashes being found on iPhone 14 series models triggering on roller coasters, skydiving, and other extreme acceleration and deceleration scenarios. up to 256 g. strength.
17. Visual change for software update
In one of the minor updates to iOS 16.2, the “Software Update”screen in Settings shows the currently installed version of iOS using a big, bold font.
18. CSS Gradient Interpolation Color Spaces in Safari
While it has already been available as an experimental Safari setting since iOS 15.4, iOS 16.2 finally includes the default CSS gradient interpolation color space. Web application engineer Adam Argyle has a nice demo of what it looks like on Codepen that you can try. In the GIFs below, you can see that gradient color spaces don’t appear in iOS 16.1 (left) but do appear in iOS 16.2 (right).
19. CSS color-mix() in Safari
Another experimental Safari setting that’s now enabled by default in iOS 16.2 is the CSS color-mix(), which takes two color values and mixes them in a given amount of color space. You can check this out by visiting the MDN web docs page on Functional Notation, which has an example at the bottom. Below you can see that iOS 16.1 doesn’t display blended colors at all (left), while iOS 16.2 does (right).
20. New playback animations in music
In the Music app’s Now Playing controls, you’ll notice a subtle change in animation when you press the play/pause button, and an even more noticeable change when you press the next/previous track buttons.
It can be hard to see the differences in the GIF below, which shows iOS 16.1 on the left and iOS 16.2 on the right, so only slow motion buttons are shown here:
21. Extended support for ProMotion 120Hz
Third-party apps that animate UI elements using SwiftUI instead of UIKit have reported issues viewing animations at 120Hz refresh rates on ProMotion displays. While this has never been an issue on the iPad, this has now been fixed in iOS 16.2 for the iPhone.
22. Changing the display
When you go to Settings -> Display & Brightness, you will see that the “Display Scale”group at the bottom is now called “Display”, and under the new shorter heading, you will find “Display Scale”as a menu. element, not just “View”. These small changes may have something to do with the next feature.
Display Scale option in iOS 16.1 (left) and iOS 16.2 (right).
23. New custom accessibility mode (not working yet)
First spotted by 9to5Mac, a new custom accessibility mode codenamed Clarity in iOS 16.2 source code but not yet launched for use in real software “creates a streamlined iPhone experience,”to quote Apple’s description.
This is a custom user interface that replaces the regular one. If you’re more comfortable viewing apps in lists rather than grids on your home screen, you can do so. You may also prefer a larger user interface overall, with giant app icons, large text, and hefty controls. Dark mode and other accessibility settings will also apply to custom accessibility mode, and the lock screen can be replaced with a “Hold Press to Enter”button to unlock.
The source code has new apps for ClarityCamera and ClarityPhotos, as well as Clarity-specific UI tweaks for Camera, Messages, Music, Phone, FaceTime, and Photos, and more apps and designs are likely to be added in the future. Right now it’s all under development and nothing is set in stone.
Features for iPadOS 16.2 only
- Apple has brought back external display support for Stage Manager on the iPad M1 and M2 models, allowing up to eight apps to be used simultaneously instead of four.
- Stage Manager’s Layout menu in Settings now has tabs labeled “iPad”and “External Display”so you can customize the latest apps and dock for each screen. It used to be a dropdown menu that wasn’t as noticeable.
What is missing?
Apple hasn’t brought back all the glyphs available for shortcut icons that it removed with the iOS 16.1 update, and there’s no reason to believe images will be returning to the Shortcuts app anytime soon.