What you need to know
- Apple's Craig Federighi has been speaking about the new Lock Screen built into iOS 16.
- Federighi says the new widgets and Live Activities will help people fight distractions and achieve a "healthy relationship" with their devices.
- Federighi was speaking on a podcast with John Gruber.
One of the standout features of the upcoming iOS 16 update is the ability to put widgets on your Lock Screen while Live Activities will bring more glanceable information to the fore without the need to unlock your iPhone. All of that, says Appel SVP Craig Federighi, is to help people "have a healthy relationship" with their iPhones.
Federighi was speaking during an interview with John Gruber on his The Talk Show podcast. The podcast was filmed live at WWDC22 with Federighi and fellow Apple executive Crag Joswiak joining Gruber on stage. The discussion covers various aspects of Apple and its WWDC22 event, with the big iOS 16 Lock Screen changes coming up early on. Federighi noted that people often unlock their iPhone to get some information — like a sports score, for example — and then find themselves sidetracked and distracted. That's something the new Lock Screen will help avoid, with information available without the need to unlock the iPhone and dive into the app-filled Home Screen.
The full podcast episode is available on YouTube and runs for almost 90 minutes, although it's well worth watching in its entirety if you can. Other subjects discussed include gaming on the Mac, Apple's improvements to CarPlay, and more.
Those looking to take in the Lock Screen discussion can watch the embedded video below — it'll play from the point where Gruber and his guests begin that part of their conversation.
This isn't the first time that Apple has worked to help people use their devices in a more mindful way — the Focus Mode feature added to iOS 15 was built to help people maintain a work/life balance by limiting access to apps and data based on context.
Apple announced iOS 16 at its WWDC21 opening keynote on Monday alongside iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, watchOS 9, and tvOS 16. All of those updates are available to developers right now in initial beta form while public betas are currently slated for release next month — although Apple hasn't said exactly when just yet. As for everyone else, they'll need to wait until this fall, likely in or around September, before they can test all of the new features out.
