Five New Features Coming to Your iPhone With iOS 16.1 Later This Month

[jimothyGator]

Or, clean charge your phone, turn off the light in the hallway when you are not using it, open the shades on windows in the winter, close them in the summer, don't keep the door to the fridge open any longer than you must, walk the block over to 7-11 instead of driving... All the little things that add up.

That's 6 things. You just need 411 more things.

Oh wait, not all those suggests have the same impact. Some make a bigger difference than others, don't they? It's as if clean charging your phone is insignificant!

 

[Gengar]

Apple please restore live wallpaper on Lock Screen

Or at least give us some new Dynamic options. I'm about sick of those damn dots 😂

 

[whatgift]

I know that they want to ship their new iPhones with the new iOS versions. But it's so weird that so many major features of iOS 16 weren't available when iOS 16 was released and won't come with 16.1 either. Maybe it would be better if they waited till everything is ready and in the meantime use the time to fix bugs. Even the features that were released with iOS 16 seemed rushed.

This is the way it should be - releasing new features incrementally rather than all at once. The hope is that Apple will eventually separate Apple app updates from iOS updates, meaning we're not waiting every year for them. This is actually a great change from Apple, being more flexible with it's timelines, since enforcing features to a specific date just gives rise to even buggier software (which Apple is already struggling with).

 

[AnthroMatt]

This is the way it should be - releasing new features incrementally rather than all at once. The hope is that Apple will eventually separate Apple app updates from iOS updates, meaning we're not waiting every year for them. This is actually a great change from Apple, being more flexible with it's timelines, since enforcing features to a specific date just gives rise to even buggier software (which Apple is already struggling with).

I'd never thought of it this way, but that makes a lot of sense.

 

[ian87w]

“Clean energy charging” sounds like some kind of psychology experiment in virtue signaling. The option probably doesn’t even do anything, but Apple will be able to predict things about your behavior based on whether or not you have it enabled.

I don't even see what it does. In most households, they only have one company providing electricity to the house. In some countries, there is only a single electricity company. How does Apple decide when even the home owner cannot? And how about the highly inefficient wireless charging? How "green" is that? Will Apple tell iphone users to use wired charging instead?

 

[ian87w]

The average daily engergy consumption for U.S. residential customers is 29,400 Wh. The iPhone 14 Pro Max has a battery capacity of 16.75 Wh.

If you fully drain and charge your iPhone twice a day, congratulations: by using the Clean Energy setting, you've reduced your carbon footprint by no more than 0.12%. (That maximum reduction would require that 100% of grid energy production during the clean energy time is carbon-free, 0% of the energy production during other times is carbon-free, and that if it weren't for this Clean Energy setting that 100% of your charging would be done during non-clean energy times).

Doing nothing for the planet, one virtue signal at a time.

While at the same time promoting and selling less efficient wireless charging. Virtue signalling while making a profit, American style.

 

[ian87w]

This is the way it should be - releasing new features incrementally rather than all at once. The hope is that Apple will eventually separate Apple app updates from iOS updates, meaning we're not waiting every year for them. This is actually a great change from Apple, being more flexible with it's timelines, since enforcing features to a specific date just gives rise to even buggier software (which Apple is already struggling with).

And maybe just make iOS updates transparent and silent instead of announcing new versions every year. iOS is mature already that Apple should probably transition to Windows like updates, where there are more gradual updates through out the years instead of dumping major versions every year.

 

[ian87w]

That’s what I was thinking lol. I could see 5 years from, now during climate change lockdowns, Apple disabling charging your phone until a designated time

Won't be too far out. Read news on some Americans lost control on their home thermostat. That's where we are heading, believe it or not.

 

[ian87w]

The next thing will be "woke energy" charging 🤪

You will only be allowed to charge your iphone when you can correctly identify a random person's pronoun with a captcha style quiz. /s

 

[DeepIn2U]

Live Activities. I think I'll keep my 12 mini after this week to fully test how this works along with several immediate and scheduled notifications left un-acknowledged on the 5.4" OLED to provide specific feedback. Cannot let Apple forget the supreme one-handed knight of all iPhone's.

 

[svish]

Looking to see Live activities in action.

 

[Scotticus]

Who'd have thought that a "green charging" option would trigger so many Apple people?

 

[Ollé]

Won't be too far out. Read news on some Americans lost control on their home thermostat. That's where we are heading, believe it or not.

It's like here, if I wanted to get home battery storage (Powerwall, Sonnen, etc) installed I have to allow the government the ability to use power stored in my battery to supplement the grid in times of 'high demand'.

 

[_Spinn_]

I can't wait for live activities. Love the new battery indicator.

 

[Notnottoday]

I don't even see what it does. In most households, they only have one company providing electricity to the house. In some countries, there is only a single electricity company. How does Apple decide when even the home owner cannot? And how about the highly inefficient wireless charging? How "green" is that? Will Apple tell iphone users to use wired charging instead?

It’s comical to see how triggered you are over a new feature that we have few details on.

“In some countries, there is only a single electricity company. How does Apple decide when even the home owner cannot?”

Did you know it’s only available in the US? Now how does that make your comment look?

I’m curious, were you one of those mouth-breathing haters who blasted Apple for removing the headphone jack, willing to bet your left kidney that nobody would buy an iPhone anymore because everyone hates wireless headphones and competitors like Samsung would never do such a thing?

 

[Col4bin]

How about the ability to finally cross-fade songs within Apple Music on iOS? (You know, that same exact feature that’s been included within the Android version of Apple Music for the past 2 years…)

 

[Col4bin]

Why would anyone delete a text? Just let it scroll on to oblivion. I can see if it is because the text could be incriminating. Please tell your wife and your girlfriends that I said hi.

Two-factor authentication codes. I receive on average about 10 per day, each time I log onto my company’s VPN client. There’s other texts such as automated appt reminders, prescription refills, bank alerts, etc., that clutter my messages app screen. So while I like your analogy, it’s a bit short sighted.

 

[tehabe]

The next thing will be "woke energy" charging 🤪

Who wants sleeping energy anyway?

 

[tehabe]

I don't even see what it does. In most households, they only have one company providing electricity to the house. In some countries, there is only a single electricity company. How does Apple decide when even the home owner cannot? And how about the highly inefficient wireless charging? How "green" is that? Will Apple tell iphone users to use wired charging instead?

They should, wireless charging is extremely inefficient and honestly a bad idea. This feature just looks up the data of the current electricity mix in your grid. I think putting solar panels on your roof is more effective than this feature. And if you happened to live in a country where you can "choose" your electricity supplier, select one which supplies green energy. (I know that this doesn't work physically, it is just that I pay some company to supply the amount I consume into the grid) but all in all electricity is an extremely homogeneous good. But the way it is produced kinda matters.

 

[CarlJ]

Clean energy charging? What does that even mean, and how does Apple know what my electricity company is doing? Whats next, you can only charge iphone when you have Apple approved "green" electric company providing the electricity to your home? I mean virtue signalling is one thing, but this is either dumb or super Orwellian.

At least in our area, there is real-time data readily available for what sources are contributing power to the grid at any given point in time. Sometimes there's more solar and wind, other times less. I have a friend who keeps an eye on this data when he considers when to charge his car. If more people did this, it would, indeed, lower our dependence on fossil fuels a bit. It would be fairly simple for Apple to access this same data, where available, and use it to prefer charging at particular times, in a manner similar to how they find identify usage patterns and then wait until you're likely to start using a device before finishing charging it. An iPhone doesn't take anywhere near as much power as a car, obviously, but there are hundreds of millions of iPhones out there that could potentially take advantage of this automatically. It could help.

Rather than labeling things as "virtue signaling" you could, you know, actually look into what the state of the technology is. But it sounds like you're more interested in complaining than in learning.

 

[Populus]

Is better battery life one of those? Because many people is complaining about battery life on the first iOS 16 versions, even on newer phones.

 

[hagar]

It makes sense to do this with air conditioning. Not so much with a phone.

A 3.5 ton AC system runs at about 3,500W. Meaning in about 15 seconds, it uses as much energy as it takes to fully charge an iPhone.

Shifting AC run time to non-peak time, or to times when solar or wind are abundant, makes a difference. Shifting when you charge your iPhone doesn't.

If this still doesn't register, imagine someone saying, "If everyone would just run their AC 15 seconds less each day, we'd radically reduce pollution!" I at least hope you'd look at that person skeptically and realize that can't possibly be true.

I understand it's purpose, but do you understand that the maximum possible benefit it could have is about 1/10th of one percent, and the actual benefit is even smaller than that? I'm not just looking at one phone: I'm looking at all phones. Even if everyone enabled this setting on their phone, it will still make no difference. The planet will not notice 1/10% reduction in energy usage.

If every one of the 120 million iPhone user in the United States shifted to off-peak charging, that would reduce annual energy consumption by 1.4 GWh. That sounds impressive, right? But that's 1.4 GWh compared to a total of 4,116,000 GWh total annual electrical production. That makes my 0.1% reduction estimate way, way too high.

You say that oh it's just a phone, but what if this happened with an electric car (BTW, electric cars already do this). In other words, a phone is insignificant while other devices would make an actual difference. Which is exactly my point.

Do you get it now?

Nothing wrong with Apple starting with their most popular device to achieve a modest impact, learning from that and then expanding to other devices and markets. So yes, it does have an impact and no, it’s not virtue signaling.

 

[hagar]

It makes sense to do this with air conditioning. Not so much with a phone.

A 3.5 ton AC system runs at about 3,500W. Meaning in about 15 seconds, it uses as much energy as it takes to fully charge an iPhone.

Shifting AC run time to non-peak time, or to times when solar or wind are abundant, makes a difference. Shifting when you charge your iPhone doesn't.

If this still doesn't register, imagine someone saying, "If everyone would just run their AC 15 seconds less each day, we'd radically reduce pollution!" I at least hope you'd look at that person skeptically and realize that can't possibly be true.

I understand it's purpose, but do you understand that the maximum possible benefit it could have is about 1/10th of one percent, and the actual benefit is even smaller than that? I'm not just looking at one phone: I'm looking at all phones. Even if everyone enabled this setting on their phone, it will still make no difference. The planet will not notice 1/10% reduction in energy usage.

If every one of the 120 million iPhone user in the United States shifted to off-peak charging, that would reduce annual energy consumption by 1.4 GWh. That sounds impressive, right? But that's 1.4 GWh compared to a total of 4,116,000 GWh total annual electrical production. That makes my 0.1% reduction estimate way, way too high.

You say that oh it's just a phone, but what if this happened with an electric car (BTW, electric cars already do this). In other words, a phone is insignificant while other devices would make an actual difference. Which is exactly my point.

Do you get it now?

Nothing wrong with Apple starting with their most popular device to achieve a modest impact, learning from that and then expanding to other devices and markets. So yes, it does have an impact and no, it’s not virtue signaling.

 

[Benjamin Iveagh]

Hopefully it will also enable Siri in English (US) to work again. On iPhone 12PM, 13PM, and (I think?) 14PM, 16.0.2 broke Siri. 16.0.3 did not fix it, but switching language to English (UK) fixes it.

 

[jimothyGator]

Nothing wrong with Apple starting with their most popular device to achieve a modest impact, learning from that and then expanding to other devices and markets. So yes, it does have an impact and no, it’s not virtue signaling.

I've already said there's nothing wrong with Apple doing it, it just doesn't make any measurable difference whatsoever. To continue insisting that it does requires ignoring reality.