Hands-On With the New iOS 16 Lock Screen

[yabeweb]

Call me conservative but I preferred the time when good designers just came up with the best idea. I don’t believe this level of aesthetic customisation is necessary at all for the average user.
Functionally it would make sense (being able to change the flashlight button etc.). But why should users be able to pick fonts? Couldn’t Apple just choose the best one?

Shouldn't we let someone decide what is the best food and only eat that?

I mean people are entitled to their opinion (like yours) why shouldn't they be entitled to have the font they like?

You might dislike their lockscreen, but you won't be the one staring at it.

And how would Apple decide wich is the "Best font?" is there such thing as "best font?"May be we should sign a petition to ban all other fonts.

I can show you thousand of lockscreen that "works" from a designer perspective, but you might not even like one of them.

 

[pdaholic]

After installing iOS16 and playing with the lock screen for a bit (doesn't take long, there's not much to it), I have to say it's underwhelming and poorly done. I get the point--Apple wants us to have widgets, but doesn't want us to cover up our lockscreen pictures. Some of us would rather have information on the screen and don't care about a picture, and if you're in that group, tough luck. The widgets at this time are fairly lame. It appears all we can have are 3 reminders on the screen, no matter the layout. I can barely read the high and low temps on the weather widget as the font is small and thin. All the text is the same color, which looks cheap. These widgets don't look anything like the widgets on the home screen, so there's yet another inconsistency in the UI. Your photo has to be the right color and have a large "empty" space over the subject to make it work well. I have yet to find a photo in my library that blends well. The user interface is made to work like the Apple Watch face customization, but we are working with a larger phone screen and should be able to have more flexibility. I'm guessing we will see improvements before the final release, and I'm sure 3rd party widgets will help take up the slack, but for now I'm disappointed in a feature that I was really excited to see.

 

[hagar]

This seems as cluttered and overly complicated as the Focus feature.

 

[rovex]

So no iPad lockscreen updates ?

And neither is multitasking coming to the iPad mini. Honestly this sucks !

 

[wanha]

It's almost as if there's always room for improvement...

When the sentence begins with "It's unbelievable that still they haven't... " that sure sounds like complaining rather than a genuine suggestion for improvement

 

[mekanik_sg]

It's unbelievable that after all these years, Apple still refuses to let us customize the two icons at the bottom.

Yeah. Exactly THE ONLY change to the lock screen I care about still missing. I guess I'll still walk around with the flashlight on half of the time.

 

[wanha]

Genuinely excited for the new Lock Screen - ever since I got my Apple Watch, I've been hoping to see complications for the iPhone Lock Screen.

It will be great to be able to see the information that I want at a glance (e.g. the score of a game I'm interested in) rather than having to open my phone, launch an app, and probably get lost in my phone for a few minutes much to the chagrin of the people I'm with.

 

[trerep]

is the lock screen with widgets still present in ios16?

i mean the one you see swiping on the right....

 

[Jason2000]

So excited for the Android lock screen. This entire update is android copy and paste for the most part but Im happy about it. All things I have missed the past few years after going back to iPhone. Granted, Android is still more flexible and offers far more options but i’ll take it.

Seriously. People need to let go of the "they copied it" whining. You do realize they both borrow/steal/copy from each other right ? Have you seen the last few versions of Android and just how much they have copied from iOS ? Get over it already.

 

[jonnysods]

There is no such thing as a close miss.

I like the direction, but they need a bit more customization to this. A few more complications, and I also like the iOS7 thinness of the clock font. I'd like to add a few more quick action items to the home screen too.

 

[Gix1k]

This seems as cluttered and overly complicated as the Focus feature.

I really don’t understand the use of focus modes. The switch on the side is my focus control. Want sound, up…want silence, down. What else does one need the phone to do?

 

[Gix1k]

There is no such thing as a close miss.

I like the direction, but they need a bit more customization to this. A few more complications, and I also like the iOS7 thinness of the clock font. I'd like to add a few more quick action items to the home screen too.

I agree…it’s just enough that I’m forcing myself to find things to put in places. I imagine the mist will grow. Even with widgets on the homescreen, the list grows so slow.

 

[adrianlondon]

Is it just me or does the new lock screen customization require the lock and home screen images to be the same? My lock and home screen images are different for the lock screen that was defaulted after the update, however, I'm unable to set a home screen wallpaper now. Going to Photos and selecting "Use at Wallpaper" take me to the new lock screen editor UI.

It's clunky but possible. Hopefully the UI will improve over the betas.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-16-beta-1-bug-fixes-changes-and-improvements.2346910/post-31154281

 

[iLLUMI]

Hooray! The one thing I wished for, being able to display the alarm time on the home screen, is now possible.
Thank you Apple!

 

[StudioMacs]

I really don’t understand the use of focus modes. The switch on the side is my focus control. Want sound, up…want silence, down. What else does one need the phone to do?

That doesn't do anything about notifications popping up or calls coming through.

 

[Gix1k]

That doesn't do anything about notifications popping up or calls coming through.

…..but they are silent unless you have vibrate on. Why would I care if the screen comes on? Flip the phone on its face. What’s the difference if face up stays black?

 

[RealMonster]

Call me conservative but I preferred the time when good designers just came up with the best idea. I don’t believe this level of aesthetic customisation is necessary at all for the average user.
Functionally it would make sense (being able to change the flashlight button etc.). But why should users be able to pick fonts? Couldn’t Apple just choose the best one?

Apple did set a team of designers on it to choose the best options.

Apple used to choose the best ONE because the systems were too limited to choose the best several. Apple has always provided sensible defaults on the Mac, but you could still set up several things to your liking. This is exactly the same.

I'm sure that Apple ran through basically every combo to make sure there was nothing too egregiously bad there. And remember: customizations aren't just aesthetic, they're an accessibility issue. I'm in my mid 40s now. I wear glasses when I'm at the computer. I want to be able to customize the fonts to make them more readable. My partner is super light sensitive—she wears sunglasses while watching TV sometimes—so she'll want to customize the screen to be a little less saturated, but still provide lots of info.

May you live long enough for accessibility options to be relevant to you.

 

[StudioMacs]

…..but they are silent unless you have vibrate on. Why would I care if the screen comes on? Flip the phone on its face. What’s the difference if face up stays black?

Are you being serious, or do you only use the phone for phone calls?

Using the phone to browse the web, send an email, play a game, or using any app while notifications are popping up or calls are coming in can be annoying when you don't want any distractions.

 

[MathersMahmood]

Really don’t like the notification on the bottom. Really prefer it at the top like before.

 

[Gix1k]

Are you being serious, or do you only use the phone for phone calls?

Using the phone to browse the web, send an email, play a game, or using any app while notifications are popping up or calls are coming in can be annoying when you don't want any distractions.

Completely serious. I adjust my notifications to my use case. I mostly use badges and Notification Center…and only a few things make noise, my text and ADT. This is because unlike Android, I cannot make every notification sound different. On that platform a ‘ding’ could mean text and ‘ding ding’ was ADT. Since Apple makes everything sound the same, I only hear things important to me. I have maybe two apps that drop in from the top. I also don’t play games.
There’s never been a time where the side switch doesn’t offer me what focus does for some. That doesn’t mean it’s a useless feature though.

 

[Joosst]

Does anyone know what that globe icon in the top left of the modal does?
Its not clear for me by just looking at it... has anyone tried?

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Does anyone know what that globe icon in the top left of the modal does?
Its not clear for me by just looking at it... has anyone tried?

Gives me these choices when I click the globe:
Arabic
Arabic Indic
Devanagari

 

[miq]

Apple doing the bare minimum for user customization and touting it as a great accomplishment for iPhone civilization. Meanwhile here is my Lock Screen via jailbreak.

Sorry mate but that looks just awful. Sometimes, less is more.

 

[svish]

Good video. Very nice improvements for the lock screen on iOS. Finally some personalisation is allowed!!

 

[supergt]

Sorry mate but that looks just awful. Sometimes, less is more.

To each their own. I have more functionality and ease of use from lock screen via the complications than you will ever see from Apple.