Apple iPhone iOS 16.2 is officially available, and this is actually kind of a bigger update from a new feature standpoint. And so in this Post, we're going to quickly go over everything new in iOS 16.2.
Now, before we get into everything, I would love it if you could let me know your favorite iOS 16 feature so far. Or if there are any new features that you're hoping to see come in the future, let me know in those comments down below, or you can do so over on Twitter or Instagram. Also, there might be a few iPad features sprinkled in today as iPad OS 16.2 is also available and there are some worthwhile features in there.
And in fact, let's actually just talk about one of the bigger new ones, and that's the new free format. This app will be available across all devices, but the iPad is probably a device that will benefit the most from the new collaborative app from Apple. The app provides an infinite canvas for you to draw on or insert sticky notes. You can do text boxes, shapes, photos, videos, links, PDFs, and more. Again, the app is also available on the iPad and the Mac, and you can collaborate with others in real time via FaceTime or iMessage.
New Apple Music Sing Feature
Apple Music Sing is a new karaoke like feature on the lyrics screen in the Apple Music app that lets you sing along to tens of millions of songs. The feature allows users to actually lower or adjust the volume of the vocals in a song, and then you can kind of take over as the new singer, or you can just ever so slightly leave the vocals in there so you have someone to sing along to. Again, there's kind of like a volume like slider where you can adjust the vocals and either bring it completely down or take it all the way up and listen to the song as normal. Apple Music Sing is compatible with devices equipped with an A 13 chip or newer, so that would include the iPhone 11 and newer and select iPads and the latest Apple TV 4K.
Apple Data Protection
Apple also introduced its new advanced data Protection feature at the same time as Apple Music Sing, and you do need to manually opt into this feature. But when you do that, you'll expand end to end encryption to many additional iCloud data categories, including messages, backups, photos, notes, reminders, voice memos, and so much more. Advanced data protection is actually currently limited to the US users right now and will start rolling out to the rest of the world in early 2023, at least according to Apple.
Apple iPad OS 16.2 External Monitor Support
Another quick iPad feature in iPad OS 16.2 External monitor support has been reintroduced and is now officially available. You can use an external monitor and this will actually help better take advantage of stage manager because it works so much better when you have another display to kind of put apps to and from. And you can also drag an app from your iPad to your external monitor or take your external monitor app and drag it down into your iPad. And so there are a couple of new features and things, and it's just better overall. Compared to when we first saw it introduced a little while back. And so if you're interested in testing that out, you can do so with iPad OS 16.2.
iPhone Display
Moving back to the iPhone, always on display. For those of you who have an iPhone 14 pro or 14 pro max, receive some new customisation options. Well, really only two, but they are a big two in my opinion, as they give users the ability to now turn off your wallpaper when always on display is initiated, essentially just giving you a black screen, but you'll see your clock and your widgets and your notifications unless of course you want to take advantage of the second toggle, which is turning off notifications, in which case you can do that and notifications will not show up when always on display is on. I personally like to keep that on. I've been testing this feature with the wallpaper turned off and I've noticed a good improvement on battery life since only the pixels for notifications and the clock area are now illuminated and not the entire screen. If you had a different wallpaper that wasn't just something super dark and black like the one that I currently have here because I have it turned off.
iPhone Live Activities
Live Activities is also available for sports scores via the first party Apple TV app. The feature allows iPhone users to view live scores of MLB.TV, NBA and Premier League soccer games at a glance on the lock screen and in the dynamic island on iPhone 14 Pro Models.
If you want to turn this on, simply open up the TV app and tap on the follow button for a supported game and you'll start seeing live activities appear on your lock screen and again in the dynamic island.
iPhone Lock Screen New Widgets
Now, speaking of the lock screen, iOS 16.2 does bring us two new widgets for sleep and medical. Patients with the sleep widget. You can view your most recent sleep session and sleep stages while the medication widget lets you quickly access your medication schedule, making it far more useful, in my opinion, to be able to quickly see at a glance when you have your upcoming pills to take.
iPhone Airdrop Setting
There's a new airdrop setting that now replaces the everyone option with a limited everyone for 10 minutes setting to kind of cut down on the unwanted requests from strangers, which I've seen tons of horror stories and I'm glad I have never experienced that airdrop will actually automatically revert back to contacts only if you decide to go with that brave everyone option at least for 10 minutes. And then after the 10 minutes it goes back to contacts only and a few quick notes to mention. Share, play, support and Game Center lets you play multiplayer games with people. You are on a FaceTime call with the Built in Weather app now features an Apple News section and the search function has improved in the Messages app and allows you to find photos based on content like a dog car person or specific text. And that's it. That's iOS 16.2 should be available for your device right now.
