Apple Releases First Public Beta of iOS 16.1 With Clean Energy Charging, Live Activities and More

[MacRumors]

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming iOS 16.1 update to public beta testers, opening up the beta testing process to the general public. Today's beta comes one day after Apple provided the beta to developers.

Public beta testers who have signed up for Apple's free beta testing program can download the ‌iOS 16.1‌ beta over the air after installing the proper certificate from the Public Beta website.

Apple says that iOS 16.1 will introduce Live Activities, an interactive notification feature designed to let you keep an eye on things happening in real time. Live Activities will be available on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, but you won't see them in the beta because developers are still working on implementing support.

The update includes a Clean Energy Charging feature in the United States that causes the iPhone to selectively charge at times when lower carbon emission electricity is available, plus it lays the groundwork for Matter, a smart home standard that Apple plans to begin supporting this fall.

Other new features include a deletable Wallet app, changes to the Lock Screen customizing interface, and more, with details available in our iOS 16.1 feature guide. Apple has also seeded a new public beta of iPadOS 16.1.

Article Link: Apple Releases First Public Beta of iOS 16.1 With Clean Energy Charging, Live Activities and More

 

[thadoggfather]

Clean energy charging lol. It’s a phone not a mega yacht.

Imagine ‘caring’ about your carbon footprint for an iPhone while upgrading every single year and ignoring the carbon footprint in that device being produced and sent to you

Classic - bring on the downvotes!

 

[Tommyinnit]

If they really cared about the environment, they wouldn’t release phones every single year…

 

[TruthWatcher412]

Somehow my iPad mini 6 said it already had iOS 16.1 but this was still available to me. I don't have the developer setup or anything, just public beta.

 

[Tenkaykev]

12 Mini owner here. Wondering about the possible impact on battery life of installing the new OS.

 

[GuruZac]

Anyone else getting the “Unable to check for software updates” message on 16.1? I’m seeing it on both my iPhone and iPad.

 

[souko]

Clean energy charging lol. It’s a phone not a mega yacht.

Imagine ‘caring’ about your carbon footprint for an iPhone while upgrading every single year and ignoring the carbon footprint in that device being produced and sent to you

Classic - bring on the downvotes!

That millions of iPhones with active clean energy charging will make difference.

And you can sell your old iPhone to offset carbon emisdions of upgrading every year. So this feature does make sense.

 

[rjohnstone]

Anyone else getting the “Unable to check for software updates” message on 16.1? I’m seeing it on both my iPhone and iPad.

Known bug.
I rolled back to 16.
There is no way to update past the 16.1 beta via OTA as it stands right now.

 

[podycust]

Anyone else getting the “Unable to check for software updates” message on 16.1? I’m seeing it on both my iPhone and iPad.

No was getting that yesterday but it appears fixed for me

 

[Drogba11]

Hopefully they include something to sort out the horrible notification system like giving us the choice not to have to swipe up to see the Notification Center.

 

[max2]

Clean energy charging lol. It’s a phone not a mega yacht.

Imagine ‘caring’ about your carbon footprint for an iPhone while upgrading every single year and ignoring the carbon footprint in that device being produced and sent to you

Classic - bring on the downvotes!

Reverse physiology

 

[StudioMacs]

Clean energy charging lol. It’s a phone not a mega yacht.

Imagine ‘caring’ about your carbon footprint for an iPhone while upgrading every single year and ignoring the carbon footprint in that device being produced and sent to you

Classic - bring on the downvotes!

Multiply electrical consumption by millions of devices, and it adds up.

It's not just about your one device. Apple has over 1.8 billion active iOS devices, and this will have an even greater impact on world-wide energy grids as existing devices are updated and upgraded.

 

[xraydoc]

And yet weeks without an update to the last iPadOS public beta...

 

[Bawstun]

I’m literally installing this only for the battery percentage number. It isn’t available for iP11 on 16.0

 

[Bentham]

Anyone else getting the “Unable to check for software updates” message on 16.1? I’m seeing it on both my iPhone and iPad.

Yes. Reached out to Apple and they said they are deploying updates to fix. Mine is ok now.

 

[Zachari]

That millions of iPhones with active clean energy charging will do difference.

And you can sell your old iPhone to offset carbon emisdions of upgrading every year. So this feature does make sense.

Many ignore the 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide spewed into the environment by the shipping industry alone.

 

[Rider3]

Apple has produced two jokes in one day. Clean energy and eSim only phones.
It doesn't matter if Tim charges my phone in the morning, noon, night or whatever time he wants. It's still coming of the same energy grid. That is unless Apple is including a mini windmill in their new environmentally friendly box.
Now that would be extra Clean energy.

 

[GuruZac]

Known bug.
I rolled back to 16.
There is no way to update past the 16.1 beta via OTA as it stands right now.

Update: I deleted the developer beta 16.1, downloaded the public beta 16.1 and now it’s just showing I’m currently updated. No more bug popping up.

 

[23Aaron]

Hopefully they include something to sort out the horrible notification system like giving us the choice not to have to swipe up to see the Notification Center.

you can already do this, there's a setting that just shows the full list of notifications just like before

 

[ariusbb]

Somehow my iPad mini 6 said it already had iOS 16.1 but this was still available to me. I don't have the developer setup or anything, just public beta.

Maybe you hadn’t noticed but the beta released 3 weeks ago actually showed up as 16.1 on iPad and 16.0 on iPhone.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

And yet weeks without an update to the last iPadOS public beta...

Hopefully they're just taking time to optimize Stage Manager. It's still not quite there yet but it has so much potential.

 

[sorgo †]

And yet weeks without an update to the last iPadOS public beta...

You sure about that? Check the last line of the article: “Apple has also seeded a new public beta of iPadOS 16.1.”

I’m literally installing this only for the battery percentage number. It isn’t available for iP11 on 16.0

I feel like a lot of mini/XR/11 owners would do the same if they knew about the percentage’s availability with 16.1. Strange how the article doesn’t mention it outright, unless I missed something.

 

[Lakersfan74]

I want more apps to fit on the Home Screen like 5 horizontal and 7 vertical

 

[Feenix]

Any… uhhh… Live Activities currently… live? (To check out?)

 

[kycophpd]

I’m shocked they did this before the new iPhones tomorrow. There will be thousands who aren’t used to betas who will update then be confused or upset tomorrow when they have to set up their phone as new and then install the public beta profile in order to transfer their data from their old phone. They should have waited until Monday to release this as a public beta. Those of us on developer beta who are using it on our daily driver know not to upgrade this week.