According to a new report, Apple may be about to give older iPhones a big lock screen update when it announces iOS 16 next week. The change will not require people to buy a new iPhone, unlike other improvements planned by the major software update.
Writing as part of this week’s Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests that the iOS 16 update will bring an updated lock screen to existing iPhones, including the current iPhone 13 line. Gurman believes that they approach “significant improvements,” “including widgets that have widget-like capabilities.”
It’s not immediately clear how it would be or how it might work, but it looks like the feature is different from one that is believed to be exclusive to the upcoming iPhone 14 Pro – a new display mode that is always active.
Apple already allows people to access widgets from the lock screen, even though they are currently hidden behind a horizontal slide. The next iOS 16 may allow these widgets to appear directly on the lock screen, though it’s not clear how it might work with a stream of incoming notifications.
Apple will announce iOS 16 along with a number of other major software updates during its inaugural WWDC22 conference on June 6th. The streaming announcement will also include the presentation of iPadOS 16, macOS 13 and more.
As for the new hardware of the iPhone 14, Apple’s next best iPhone will probably be announced during an event in or around September, with a release a week or two later. All these new iPhones will ship with iOS 16 pre-installed.