Apple has kicked off its annual developers’ conference WWDC and as expected, the company has announced the new version of its smartphone operating system — iOS 16.
The iOS 16 is the next major update for the Apple iPhone lineup from the company and comes with several new and updated features, ranging from lock screen to maps, to sharing, and more.
Here’s a list of all the major features of the iOS 16 announced at WWDC along with information about the availability of this new update and the list of eligible devices.
Notifications and Focus
Notifications roll up from the bottom of the screen and can easily be hidden for a clear view of the personalized Lock Screen. With Live Activities, it is easier to keep track of events in real-time directly from the Lock Screen.
Focus modes have been improved and it now supports allowing users to have it activated for a specific customized Lock Screen. Focus filters allow filtering out distracting content inside apps, such as tab groups in Safari, events in Calendar, etc.
Live Text
The feature has now been expanded to videos. There are also new quick actions that can provide relevant activities such as currency conversion, and users can translate text directly in the camera view.
Lock Screen
There’s a new fully customizable Lock Screen that allows users to edit a large number of design elements, including type styles and colors, for a more personalized look. It also includes a row of widgets with millions of possible design combinations. There’s also support for multiple Lock Screens and an option to switch between them.
Wallet App
The Wallet app can now be used to share keys through a message. The company has also introduced a new service called Apple Pay Later which allows users to pay for purchases in four installments over six weeks with zero interest and no fees.
Messages
Messages now include the ability to edit and delete sent messages as well as mark messages as unread. There’s a new Shared With You API enables developers to integrate shared experiences directly into their apps.
Family Sharing
The feature now supports managing accounts for kids, including ways to set age-appropriate restrictions and set up new devices. The device setup experience has also been improved with parental controls with Quick Start, and Screen Time requests in Messages. The Family Checklist feature reminds to review parental controls and more.
There’s also an iCloud Shared Photo Library that allows up to six family members to contribute to an additional iCloud Photos Library. It also comes with an intelligent sharing suggestions option that makes it easy to automatically add new photos based on criteria.
Maps
More countries around the world are now getting support for Enhanced Apple Maps. There’s also multistop routing support which allows users to plan up to fifteen stops. Users can plan a trip on Mac and send it to iPhone, and also add stops to a journey using Siri. It also comes with a Transit feature to see the cost of a journey, and transit cards can be integrated more closely into the Wallet to see the balance.
Availability of iOS 16
The company has rolled out the first beta version of the new iOS 16 to the developers while the public beta should be available sometime next month. As for the supported devices, every smartphone from the company released after the iPhone 8 is supported for this newer version, which means that the company has dropped support for the iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and the first-gen iPhone SE.
