On the first day of the WWDC 2022 conference, Apple spent enough time updating iOS 16, but the company did not talk about many interesting innovations. Each year after the presentation, users study the first beta version of the system and find many useful, expected and often necessary innovations. We talk about the following.
Unlock and Face ID
Face ID has learned to recognize the user in a horizontal orientation. It is unknown which devices will support the feature. Now it only works with iPhone 13.
Messages on the lock screen can be displayed as a number, stack, or list. Choose in the settings what you like best.
In the “Control point” you can add a key to create a short note.
Calls and Focus
You can end the calls by pressing the lock key. Activated via Universal Access → Touch.
You can create profiles with different actions for different focus modes. Different modes can be activated depending on the location, time or opening of certain applications.
In the Photo application, you can copy your edits from one image and transfer them to another. It’s handy if you have similar pictures or you’ve found your editing style, but you don’t want to adjust it.
Live Text has learned to recognize Cyrillic and translate text from images in real time. Another useful innovation is a currency, weight and volume converter.
Additions
In Safari, you can pin tabs, create shared tab groups, and share them with others. Everyone in the group will see and interact with new open pages.
You’ve probably heard about editing and canceling sent messages in iMessage, but you’ve also had the opportunity to recover deleted messages within 30 days. There is also a section with unread messages in the program.
Each time you copy something in one application and move to another, a window will pop up asking you to share the application on the clipboard. Inconvenient, requires habit, but you will always know that the program will want to copy data from the clipboard in the background without warning.
In Apple Music, you can add artists to favorites and receive notifications of new releases. This will also affect the recommendations. Music in playlists can be sorted by artist, album, release date or play in reverse order.
Wi-Fi
Finally, in the settings you can view the password from the Wi-Fi network and copy it. If you click “Change” in the settings, a list of all known Wi-Fi networks will open.
API and development
Published APIs indicate that you can stream media from iPhone not only through AirPlay, but also other systems, such as Chromecast on your TV.
Developers can also create interactive widgets for the lock screen. We expect a lot of new and useful in the fall, when the system will be publicly available.
These are not all innovations of iOS 16, but some of the most important and interesting. It should be understood that in the new beta, and even more so in the final version, something may change and something will disappear completely. So judging from the first beta is nonsense.
For a few more months, Apple will finalize the OS and listen to the comments. If you do not like something, feel free to write on the Apple forum – maybe the company will fix the problem.