Apple’s iPhone software hasn’t undergone a significant upgrade with iOS 16. You wouldn’t be able to identify any significant differences from the present iOS 15 version. At least on some level, if it weren’t for a lock screen modification, it now allows you to customize it. OS changes, however, go beyond the obvious. The latest iOS 16 Public Beta contains a variety of modifications and enhancements. These make things operate a lot more smoothly.
That is the tale of iOS 16. Although the platform isn’t a complete overhaul, it also delivers several significant and minor changes. This fundamentally alters how we use and view the Apple iPhone and its mobile design ethos.
What will you see here?
Compatible Devices
An iPhone 8 or later is essential for iOS 16 Public Beta. That applies to all iPhone models launched in 2017 and later.
Only a handful of devices that could run iOS 15 weren’t selected for iOS 16. The original iPhone SE and all iPhone 6s and 7 models cannot be upgraded to iOS 16. (The SE versions for 2020 and 2022 are supported, though.) The seventh-generation iPod touch is also a spectator.
Even though your device is iOS 16 compatible, some functionalities may not be available on earlier devices. Using features like Live Text and Visual Look Up requires a phone with an A12 Bionic chip or later.
iCloud Shared Photo Library
Previous iterations of iOS previously allowed you to share photo albums with certain people. However, the functionality of those shared albums was pretty constrained. With a clear focus on helping family members engage with each other’s images, iOS’s 16 Public Beta new iCloud Shared Photo Library aims to change that.
One can invite up to five more people to a shared photo library. (The storage space is deducted from your allotted iCloud storage). Everyone who receives an invitation has the same access rights to upload, remove, and—most importantly—edit photos.
Reminding yourself to share images with others might be annoying. Also, at the absolute least, it can distract you from the present. Making sharing as simple as possible is how iCloud Shared Photo Library attempts to solve this problem. Photos will automatically be shared with people you share with if they are in the same area. Moreover, it can be saved directly to your shared library via a toggle in the Camera app.
These sharing options highlight the purpose of ensuring that everyone in the family can access pictures. Whether it be from birthday celebrations, vacations, and other life events, you could create an iCloud Shared Photo Library for colleagues or friends. However, doing so requires being much more selective about what is shared, thus defeating the point of the tool.
Spatial Audio
Anyone with a pair of AirPods Pros will receive a bonus with iOS 16: Personalized Spatial Audio.
This is put up strangely. Do you recall using the iPhone to scan your face to activate your Face ID? Your ears should be scanned from the front and both sides of your head using iOS 16’s Personalized Spatial Audio.
One has to rotate their head to one side and move it around a little while the iPhone scans the shapes of your ears. Afterward, you must do the other side, as directed by the on-screen instructions. It calls for you not to be wearing the AirPods Pros.
New Fitness App
In iOS 16 Public Beta, there is just one new app. However, the one who wears an Apple Watch will be familiar with it. Now that your iPhone has its fitness app, you can set movement goals and monitor your activity. Moreover, close your various rings precisely like your friends who own Apple Watches. Yes, you can add a fitness widget to your lock screen to receive a quick overview of your progress.
It’s consistent with Apple’s current emphasis on health-tracking features that Fitness has arrived on your iPhone. While the business wouldn’t mind if Fitness finally persuaded you to purchase one of its wearables. Apple also appears to realize that not everybody will head to our top Apple Watch and buy one for themselves.
Maps Update
With iOS 16, Apple made several updates to its navigation app. It includes more comprehensive city views in more locations and the price of bus and subway fares showing up. But the capability to map out multi-stop journeys in iOS 16 Maps is the new feature to look forward to.
In iOS 15, you can spontaneously add a stop to a route. However, iOS 16 Public Beta adds the capability for up to 15 stops in a single route.
There is a self-explanatory Add Stop button when you look up instructions to a location. Also, you can slide stops around to reorder your route. When it’s time to leave, you can use Continuity to seek a route on your Mac and transmit the directions to your iPhone.
Upgraded Safety
Thanks to the new Safety Check feature, you can now see who and what has accessibility to your private information and online activity. The new Emergency Reset, though, is more intriguing.
It contains the somewhat intimidating instruction to reset access for all individuals and apps Instantly and check your account security, which is the ultimate safeguard for online privacy.
You can evaluate persons and apps to see what data you might be sharing with them if you don’t want to prevent them from seeing your data altogether, much of which you wish to share. It’s a robust tool that allows you to block users and applications quickly.
My Sports
Sports enthusiasts who haven’t used Apple’s News app yet have an excellent excuse to do so. With the introduction of the My Sports feature in iOS 16, you may select the teams you are most interested in, and News will add a dedicated area with results, schedule information, highlights videos, and relevant stories.
To access My Sports, hidden away in the News app’s Today menu, you must scroll down a bit. How well it integrates with other Apple ecosystems is one of the features that is often neglected. If a game is being streamed, links are provided. Additionally, the Watch Now area of the TV app on your iPhone and Apple TV will list live games.
Lockscreen Changes
The most noticeable modification to iOS 16 is found on your phone’s lock screen, which, aside from the ability to alter the background wallpaper, has previously been impenetrable. This was highlighted at the onset.
You cannot just change the background on iOS 16. You can choose from various designs in the new software or one of your images. However, change the date and time display’s font and color. Additionally, Apple allows you to add widgets to the lock screen, a feature that Android users are likely already accustomed to.
Widgets
Alongside the date, there is room for one widget, but this space is too small to accommodate anything other than a temperature display. There is more room directly beneath the time; it can accommodate four square widgets, two larger ones, or a combination of the two sizes.
Popular widget choices include a calendar widget that displays upcoming events, a widget that manages intelligent home devices through the Home app, a market ticker, and a news headline widget.
Notifications now show up towards the bottom of the screen to create room for all of these widgets. By default, notifications are stacked on top of one another and spread out when you press them. If you prefer the previous look, you may switch to the traditional list view, which shows all notifications. For those minimalists, a new notification option simply displays the total number of alerts that have arrived.
Customization
Customizing the lock screen is relatively easy if you use the Settings app’s Wallpaper section. With iOS 16 Public Beta, you are guided through each stage and even given recommendations for photographs in your collection that would make exciting desktop backgrounds. You may even select random photo shuffles using an excellent function.
A little more complicated is customizing the wallpaper on the home screen. The same image or design you’ve chosen for your lock screen background will also show on your home screen, but if your photo pick isn’t appropriate for a grid of widgets and app icons, you can use a different image or a blur effect. It seems impossible to use a photo as your lock screen wallpaper and an Apple-provided design as the background of your home screen.
Multiple Lock Screens
Even though guidelines for it can only be available in the Wallpaper section of Settings, you can make multiple lock screens and switch between them whenever you want. Simply tap and hold on to the picture when your lock screen is active to see a selection of the lock screens you’ve made fan out, from which you can select the one you want. There are additional options for changing or designing a new lock screen. You may quickly delete a lock screen by swiping up to expose the delete button if you’re sick of it.
To further lock off distractions when you need to focus on work, you can connect a specific lock screen to a Focus Mode. In this manner, your phone’s lock screen automatically switches to the chosen backdrop and the necessary lock screen widgets when you activate Focus mode.
Despite some minor issues with interactions between the lock screen and home screen, iOS 16’s customized lock screen is a nice feature of the iPhone. It lets you effectively and usefully customize the appearance of your phone, and it doesn’t take long to get the hang of making a lock screen. The mix should become even more varied in the fall when third-party widgets are included.
Reminder for Medication
The addition of Health’s new capability to remind you when it’s time to take your daily pills has already proven to be the most beneficial improvement in iOS 16 for me. Even at different times of the day, you can set up reminders to take your medication, and the Health app will obediently record that you did so.
Collaboration Features
Numerous improvements in iOS 16 Public Beta also appear to be intended to make your iPhone a teamwork tool so that you can collaborate with others right from Apple’s built-in apps. The feature to share work with others directly from within applications is a new addition to Apple’s efforts to ensure a smooth experience between the mobile and desktop versions of its apps. Many of the enhancements in Safari and Mail for iOS 16 were inspired by updates coming to macOS Ventura.
Consider Messages, which offers more than just text editing and even SharePlay for sharing movies. Additionally, you can share spreadsheets, presentations, and other sorts of files using the chat app. You can start working together in programs like Files, Keynote, Notes, Freeform, Numbers, Reminders, and Safari by touching on one of these shared files.
It’s not only a link to a file that was delivered via Messages in this case. Activity updates on who made what changes are part of the collaboration features, and there are options to FaceTime your collaborators if you have an urgent query. I’ve only played around with this feature, but it shows some promise.
Similar functionality is added to iOS 16 Safari, allowing you to share all of the Tab Groups you’ve been able to create since iOS 15. Shared Tab Groups are great for group research tasks like organizing a family vacation or collaborating on a school assignment. Anyone in the group you’ve shared can create their tabs, and you can see in real-time who is watching which tab.
Conclusion
There is little doubt that iPhone users will eventually update iOS 16 Public Beta. People with an eligible device typically download the new software as soon as it becomes available, give or take a week or two, due to the very nature of Apple’s phone software, which is available to everyone at once. The vast majority of us will download iOS 16 when it becomes available in its entirety this autumn, and given the changes Apple is bringing, we’ll probably be happy we did.
