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PRESS RELEASE 07 June 2022

Apple unveils an all-new Lock Screen experience and new ways to share and communicate in iOS 16

Users can personalise their Lock Screen, keep family photos in iCloud Shared Photo Library, recall sent messages, schedule mail, and discover more with Live Text and Visual Look Up
Five iPhone screens show iO6 16 and its new features.
iOS 16 delivers the biggest update ever to the Lock Screen with new features that make it more beautiful, personal and helpful.
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today previewed iOS 16, delivering the biggest update ever to the Lock Screen, and new sharing, communication and intelligence features that together change the way users experience iPhone. iOS 16 introduces iCloud Shared Photo Library to seamlessly share a collection of photos with family, updates to Messages and Mail that help users stay in touch with ease, and powerful enhancements to Live Text and Visual Look Up.
“iOS 16 is a big release with updates that will change the way you experience iPhone,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “We have re-imagined how the Lock Screen looks and works with exciting new features that make it more personal and helpful, introduced iCloud Shared Photo Library for families, streamlined communication through new capabilities in Messages and Mail, and harnessed enhanced intelligence with updates to Live Text and Visual Look Up.”

A Personalised Lock Screen Experience

The Lock Screen gets more personal, beautiful and helpful with iOS 16. With a new multilayered effect, the subjects of photos are artfully set in front of the time on the Lock Screen, creating a sense of depth. Users can also change the look of the date and time with expressive type styles and colour choices.  
The Lock Screen features widgets that take inspiration from Apple Watch complications, making it easy to get information at a glance, such as upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery levels, alarms, time zones, Activity ring progress and more.
A new Lock Screen gallery features a range of options for inspiration, such as Apple collections, which include Pride and Unity to celebrate special cultural moments; a Weather wallpaper to see live weather conditions as they change throughout the day; and an Astronomy wallpaper for views of the Earth, moon and solar system. Users can also create Lock Screens using their favourite emoji or colour combinations. With multiple Lock Screens, users can switch between their favourites with just a swipe.
Live Activities is a new feature that helps users stay on top of things that are happening in real time, such as a sports game, workout, rideshare or food delivery order, right from the Lock Screen.1
Notifications have been redesigned to roll up from the bottom, ensuring that users have a clear view of their personalised Lock Screen.
Redesigned notifications are shown popping up on the bottom of a user’s iPhone screen in iOS 16.
Redesigned notifications now roll up from the bottom of the Lock Screen.

Find Balance with Focus

Focus is more powerful, easier to set up and now connects to the Lock Screen, offering users a way to tie a Lock Screen wallpaper and widgets to a particular 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, helping them to find better balance.2

One Place for Family Photos with iCloud Shared Photo Library

iCloud Shared Photo Library gives families a new way to share photos seamlessly with a separate iCloud library that up to six users can collaborate on, contribute to and enjoy. Users can choose to share existing photos from their personal libraries, or share based on a start date or people in the photos. A user can also choose to send photos to the Shared Library automatically using a new toggle in the Camera app. Additionally, users will receive intelligent suggestions to share a photo that includes participants in the Shared Photo Library. Every user in the Shared Photo Library has access to add, delete, edit or favourite the shared photos or videos, which will appear in each user’s Memories and Featured Photos so that everyone can relive more complete family moments.

Updates to Messages

Users can edit or recall recently sent messages, recover recently deleted messages, and mark conversations as unread so they can come back to them later.3 In addition, SharePlay is coming to Messages, making it possible to enjoy synced content like movies or songs and shared playback controls all while chatting in Messages.
In Messages, users can now edit or recall recently sent messages.

New Tools for Mail

Now users can schedule emails ahead of time and are even given a moment to cancel delivery of a message before it reaches a recipient’s inbox. Mail detects if the user forgot to include an important part of their message, such as an attachment. Users also have the option to resurface a message at any date and time with Remind Later, and Follow Up suggestions automatically remind users to follow up on an email if they have not received a response. Mail also includes the biggest overhaul to search, and uses state-of-the-art techniques to deliver more relevant, accurate and complete results. Users see recent emails, contacts, documents and links the moment they begin to search for emails.
An iPhone screen shows Mail’s new search tools in iOS 16.
Mail receives its biggest overhaul to search, delivering more relevant, accurate and complete results.

Live Text and Visual Look Up Enhancements

Live Text uses on-device intelligence to recognise text in images across iOS, and it is now expanding to include video.4 Users can pause a video on any frame and interact with text. Live Text also adds the ability for users to quickly convert currency, translate text and more.
Visual Look Up takes photos further by introducing a new feature that allows users to tap and hold on the subject of an image to lift it from the background and place it in apps like Messages. Visual Look Up also expands to recognise birds, insects and statues.5
Visual Look Up introduces a new feature that allows users to tap and hold on the subject of an image to lift it from the background and place it in apps like Messages.

Wallet Adds Order Tracking and Other Features

With Apple Pay Order Tracking, users can receive detailed receipts and order tracking information in Wallet for Apple Pay purchases with participating merchants.
Keys in Wallet get expanded support. Users can securely share their home, hotel, office and car keys in Wallet through messaging apps, including Messages, Mail and more.6

The Next Generation of CarPlay

CarPlay has fundamentally changed the way people interact with their vehicles, and the next generation of CarPlay goes even further by deeply integrating with a car’s hardware. CarPlay will be able to provide content for multiple screens within the vehicle, creating an experience that is unified and consistent. Deeper integration with the vehicle will allow users to do things like control the radio or change the climate directly through CarPlay, and using the vehicle data, CarPlay will seamlessly render the speed, fuel level, temperature and more on the instrument cluster. Users will be able to personalise their driving experience by choosing different gauge cluster designs, and with added support for widgets, users will have at-a-glance information from Weather and Music right on their car’s dashboard. More information about the next generation of CarPlay will be shared in the future, and vehicles will start to be announced late next year.
A car’s dashboard shows the expanded CarPlay experience with multiple screens.
The next generation of CarPlay goes even further by deeply integrating with a car’s hardware, providing content for multiple screens within the vehicle.

Additional Features

  • Safari adds shared Tab Groups to share a collection of websites with friends and family, making it seamless to add tabs and see what others are viewing. Browsing in Safari is even safer with passkeys, unique digital keys that are easy to use, more secure, never stored on a web server, and stay on device so hackers can’t steal them in a data breach or trick users into sharing them. Designed to replace passwords, passkeys use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, and iCloud Keychain to sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption. They will also work across apps and the web, and users can sign in to websites or an app on non-Apple devices using just their iPhone.
  • Apple Maps is introducing multistop routing, so users can plan up to 15 stops in advance and automatically sync routes from Mac to iPhone when they’re ready to go.
  • Family Sharing offers an easier way to set up an account for a child with the right parental controls in place from the start. It includes suggestions for age-appropriate restrictions for apps, movies, books, music and more, and a simpler process for setting up a new device that applies existing parental controls automatically. When a child asks for more screen time, guardians can approve or decline right in Messages.
  • Dictation offers a new on-device experience that allows users to fluidly move between voice and touch.7 Users can type with the keyboard, tap in the text field, move the cursor and insert QuickType suggestions, all without needing to stop Dictation. In addition, Dictation features automatic punctuation and emoji dictation.8
  • Siri adds the ability to run shortcuts as soon as an app is downloaded without requiring upfront setup. Users can add emoji when sending a message, choose to send messages automatically — skipping the confirmation step — and hang up phone and FaceTime calls completely hands-free by simply saying “Hey Siri, hang up”.9
  • The Home app makes it easier for users to navigate, organise and view their accessories, and enhancements to the underlying architecture offer users more efficient and reliable control of their smart home. A software update to iOS 16 will bring support for the Matter smart home connectivity standard once it becomes available later this year, enabling a wide variety of accessories to work together seamlessly across platforms, helping fulfil the true vision of a smart home.
  • The Fitness app is available to all iPhone users to help track and meet fitness goals, even if they don’t have an Apple Watch. iPhone users can set up a daily Move goal in the Fitness app and see how their active calories will help close their Move ring. iPhone motion sensors can track steps, distance, flights climbed and workouts from third-party apps, which can be converted into an estimation of active calories to contribute to users’ daily Move goal. Users can also share their Move ring with friends for additional motivation.
  • The Health app adds Medications, allowing users to conveniently build and manage a medications list, create schedules and reminders, and track their medications, vitamins or supplements. In the US, users can simply point their iPhone camera at a label to add a medication, read about the medications they’re taking, and receive an alert if there are potential critical interactions for their medications.10 In addition, users can now send loved ones an invitation to share their Health data, right from the Health app.
  • Apple News introduces a new My Sports section to easily follow favourite teams and leagues; receive stories from hundreds of top publishers; access scores, schedules and standings for the top professional and college leagues; and watch highlights right in the News app.11
  • Game Center features a redesigned dashboard that shows friends’ activity and accomplishments from games in one place, making it easy for players to jump in to play with or compete against their friends.12
  • Personalised Spatial Audio enables an even more precise and immersive listening experience. Listeners can use the TrueDepth camera on iPhone to create a personal profile for Spatial Audio that delivers a listening experience tuned just for them.
  • A new privacy tool called Safety Check can be helpful to users whose personal safety is at risk from domestic or intimate partner violence by quickly removing all access they’ve granted to others. It includes an emergency reset that helps users easily sign out of iCloud on all their other devices, reset privacy permissions and limit messaging to just the device in their hand. It also helps users understand and manage which people and apps they’ve given access to.
  • Accessibility updates include Door Detection, which helps users who are blind or low vision to use their iPhone to navigate the last few metres to their destination, and Apple Watch Mirroring for users with physical and motor disabilities who may rely on assistive features like Voice Control and Switch Control to fully control Apple Watch from their iPhone.13 Additionally, Live Captions make it easier for the Deaf and hard of hearing community to follow along while on a phone or FaceTime call, using a video-conference or social media app, streaming media content or having a conversation with someone next to them.14
Availability
The developer preview of iOS 16 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta will be available to iOS users next month at beta.apple.com. New software features will be available later this year as a free software update for iPhone 8 and later. For more information, visit iOS 16. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages.
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  1. The Live Activities API will be available later this year. 
  2. Coming in an update later this year.
  3. Users can edit a message for up to 15 minutes after sending it and can unsend a message for up to 2 minutes after sending it. Users can make up to 5 edits to a given message, and recipients will be able to see a record of edits made to the message.
  4. Live Text is available in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Ukrainian. 
  5. Visual Look Up domain expansion is available in English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, US), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan) and Spanish (Mexico, Spain, US).
  6. Available on participating car brands and access properties.
  7. All-new Dictation is available for iPhones with A12 Bionic and later, and requires the download of speech models. Available in Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Cantonese (China (mainland), Hong Kong), English (Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK, US), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China (mainland), Taiwan), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico, Spain, US) and Turkish (Turkey).
  8. Emoji support in Dictation is available for iPhone models with A12 Bionic and later. 
  9. This feature is available for iPhone with A12 Bionic and later, and requires the download of speech models. Available in German (Germany), English (Australia, Canada, India, UK, US), Spanish (Spain, Mexico, US), French (France), Japanese (Japan), Mandarin Chinese (China (mainland)) and Cantonese (Hong Kong).
  10. Medication and interaction information is evidence-based content licensed from Elsevier, a leading publisher of health and science information. The Medications feature should not be used as a substitute for professional medical judgement. Additional information is available on the labels of medications, but users should consult their healthcare provider prior to making any decisions related to their health.
  11. Apple News is available in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.
  12. Coming in an update later this year.
  13. Door Detection and People Detection features in Magnifier require the LiDAR Scanner on iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd and 3rd generation) and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th and 5th generation). Apple Watch Mirroring is available on Apple Watch Series 6 and later. Door Detection should not be relied upon in circumstances where a user may be harmed or injured, or in high-risk or emergency situations.
  14. Live Captions will be available in beta on iPhone 11 and later, iPad models with A12 Bionic and later and Mac models with Apple silicon. Accuracy of Live Captions may vary and should not be relied upon in high-risk situations.

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