When iOS 16 arrives, iPhone owners won't have to deal with full software installs for the latest security patches. Apple is launching a new feature with the mobile OS called Rapid Security Response, which enables the company to automatically apply security fixes to users' devices in between its standard software updates. It's one of the security features the tech giant has announced at WWDC this year, along with Safety Check that gives users a quick way to see which contacts have access to their location and calendar info. Safety Check will also show them the permissions used by every app on their device.
As MacRumors notes, iOS 16 will add a new section under Automatic Updates in Settings called "Install System and Data Files." When toggled on, users can get software fixes that aren't tied with full updates, installed automatically and without them having to restart their phones or lift a finger altogether. It's switched on by default upon upgrading to the new OS, so those who don't want automatic installs will have to remember to toggle it off.
Apple's iOS 16 brings a bunch of other new features to iPhones, including a more customizable lock screen, the ability to edit texts and the ability to use Face ID even when the device is in landscape mode. The public beta of the mobile platform will come out in July, though it'll no longer support the iPhone 6S, 7 and the first-gen SE.
With a revamped lock screen, redesigned notifications and an enhanced Focus mode, iOS 16 promises to bring a lot of useful new features to Apple's iPhone later this year. But as is always the case with keynotes like WWDC, there's not enough time to cover every enhancement. And one such feature Apple didn't mention is that iOS will allow you to use Face ID even when your iPhone is oriented horizontally.
The quality of life improvement was spotted by Vox Media product manager Parker Ortolani on Apple's iOS 16 preview webpage. As The Verge points out, Apple has allowed iPad owners to use Face ID in this way for a while now, so it's not exactly a new feature. Still, it's one of those changes iPhone users, particularly those who use devices like the Razer Kishi and Backbone One, will appreciate. On its preview page, Apple says the feature will work with supported models without specifying the exact ones included in that list. We've reached out to the company for more information.
Apple packed a lot into its annual developer's conference keynote. On the WWDC stage, company execs touted the latest improvements coming to iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 in the fall, plus forthcoming enhancements to macOS, watchOS and others. Apple also announced new hardware at the keynote this year: a new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro powered by the new M2 processor. Here are the biggest announcement to come out of WWDC 2022.
iOS 16
Apple
The next iteration of the iPhone's operating system will include new intelligence, sharing and communication features, plus new ways to customize your smartphone. Key among the latter is the completely designed Lock Screen, which lets you personalize most elements you'll see before unlocking your iPhone. You'll be able to tap on any element of your Lock Screen and customize it, changing the color and font of the time, adding widgets from the widget gallery and changing the backdrop with filters. If you prefer to have a photo as your Lock Screen backdrop, you'll be able to now set a "photo shuffle" as your background, which will cycle through multiple photos throughout the day.
Also coming to the Lock Screen are Live Activities, which are essentially widgets that will update in real time as events happen. They'll let you better keep track of things like sports games that are going on right now, Uber rides, workouts and more. The new Lock Screen will also better support different Focus modes, allowing you to customize which alerts and notifications you receive on your Lock Screen when you're in a particular Focus mode. So, for example, you'll be able to make a work-specific Lock Screen that will accompany your Work Focus mode.
iOS 16 will also bring some highly anticipated updates to Messages, namely message editing, undo send and mark as unread. You'll be able to edit sent messages so you can get rid of any typos, undo messages you just sent and mark Message threads unread, in case you want to go back to them with fresh eyes. Apple's also extending SharePlay's abilities into Messages, allowing you to share things like videos and watch them with friends while sending messages back and forth.
Apple
iPhone users will also have access to a new feature dubbed Apple Pay Later in iOS 16. This splits purchases into four equal payments and spreads them out over many weeks, with zero interest and fees applied. That should make it easier to pay for big purchases over time, and it'll accompany the new Order Tracking feature, which will let you monitor where you're shipments are before they actually arrive at your doorstep.
Apple has a number of Family sharing updates planned for iOS 16, including easier ways for parents to manage their kids accounts and devices. The new Quick Start setup process will let parents more easily set up a new Apple device for their child with all the necessary parental controls and restrictions in place. A more general new feature coming to Family Sharing involves Photos — within your family, you'll be able to have a dedicated iCloud Shared Photo Library, a separate space into which you can share specific photos that you want everyone in your family to see. The Photos app will even give you sharing suggestions based on who's in the photo and other factors, allowing you to more easily pick and choose which images you want everyone to be able to access.
There are a bunch of other updates coming to Wallet, HomeKit, CarPlay and more, but the other new feature in iOS 16 that we wanted to touch upon here is Safety Check. It's a new privacy feature that will let you review and reset access you've granted to others. In case you ever need to remove someone's access, you'll be able to use Safety Check to do things like stop location sharing via Find My and reset permissions you previously granted for certain apps.
MacBook Air M2, 13-inch MacBook Pro M2
Apple
Uncharacteristic for WWDC, Apple unveiled a new piece of hardware at today's keynote: the new MacBook Air M2. As the name suggests, the laptop runs on the company's updated M2 chipset, which Apple promises to provide up to 18 percent faster CPU performance and 35 percent faster GPU performance than M1 chipsets. The new MacBook Air also has a totally new design — gone is the wedge shape from the previous model, as it's been replaced by a more squared-off design that remains quite svelte at 11.3mm thick and only 2.7 pounds.
The MacBook Air M1 will sport a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display that's 25 percent brighter than the screen on the previous model and has support for one billion colors. It also has a 1080p webcam, a four-speaker sound system, a TouchID keyboard with a full Function row and a fanless interior design. Unfortunately, there are still only two Thunderbolt ports on this machine, but Apple did bring back MagSafe charging with a dedicated power port, so at least you will not tie up one of the two Thunderbolt ports with a charging cable. As for battery life, Apple estimates up to 18 hours of video playback on the MacBook Air M2. The new laptop will be available next month starting at $1,199.
The M2 chipset will also hit the 13-inch MacBook Pro soon, providing a similar performance boost to another one of the company's most popular laptops. The MacBook Pro M2 will have an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, support for up to 24GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage, plus a battery life of up to 20 hours. The updated 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 will also be available next month and it starts at $1,299.
macOS Ventura
Apple
The upcoming version of macOS, dubbed Ventura, will bring a handful of new organization and collaboration features to Macs. Stage Manager presents a new way to organize app windows on desktop, automatically putting the app you're currently working in front and center. Other active apps will be highlighted in a separate side dock into which you can drag and drop files to share, copy/paste and more.
Mail will get similar updates to Messages in iOS 16, like rescind send, schedule send and reminders to come back to emails at a later time. Elsewhere in Safari, it'll be easier to share multiple tabs with friends and family, and collaborate with them in real time. For example, if you're planning a camping trip with many people, you can share multiple tabs with camping gear, locations, information and more with your group, see which tabs they're actively looking at and more.
New Handoff and Continuity features are coming to FaceTime on macOS, too. For the former, you'll be able to hand off a FaceTime call you started on your iPhone to your Mac seamlessly, allowing you to use a larger screen when you need it. The new Continuity Camera feature present an interesting way for you to use your iPhone as a webcam. Using in-development magnetic stands, you'll be able to attach your iPhone to your Mac's screen and use its camera array as your webcam for FaceTime, Zoom, Microsoft Team and other video calls. Also, this process is completely wireless, so you won't have to worry about hogging one of your computer's ports for this like you would a standard external webcam.
Also worth noting here are Apple's new passkeys, or digital keys securely stored on your device. Designed to replace passwords, these unique passkeys aren't stored in the cloud, which Apple claims makes them much less susceptible to phishing and theft attempts. Passkeys will integrate with TouchID and FaceID on Apple devices for biometric authentication, and they can be synced with other Apple devices via iCloud Keychain.
iPadOS 16
Apple
Many of the new features that will hit iPadOS 16 are those we've discussed from iOS 16 and macOS Venture. But iPads will also gain things like new collaboration perks, updated Game Center profiles and sharing capabilities and its own version of macOS' Stage Manager feature. The latter is arguably the most interesting new feature as it pushes helps push the iPad further into the desktop-alternative realm. Stage Manager on iPad will let users resize app windows for the first time and overlap app windows as well, making them more similar to browser and program windows you'd use on desktop. Add in full external display support and the iPad inches even closer to being a true laptop-replacement device.
watchOS 9
Apple
Apple Watches will gain a number of handy new exercise features in watchOS 9. Most of these are confined to the Workout app, where you'll be able to keep track of heart rate zones while exercising and even set goals based on the heart rate zone you want to stay. Runners will appreciate the new trackable metrics available in the Workout app, including vertical oscillation, stride length and ground contact time. When you're tracking a run, you'll be able to see more on your Watch's screen by using the Digital Crown to scroll through various screens with different data recorded on them. Apple will also add a Custom Workout feature to the app, which lets users create exercise routines with specific goals that they can go back to on certain training days.
Sleep tracking on Apple Watch will also get better in watchOS 9 thanks to the addition of sleep stages. The Watch will now be able to monitor when you're in REM, core and deep sleep, recording the amount of time you spend in each phase, as well as the amount of time you spend awake each night.
Finally in the health and fitness realm, Apple's new Medications app will make it easier for Watch users to track the medications, vitamins and supplements they take and how often they take them. It has a reminders feature, which will use the audio and haptic alerts on the Watch to ping you when you need to take one of our medications throughout the day.
As part of the company's ongoing efforts to improve user security, at WWDC 2022 Apple announced new digital passkeys that add an extra layer of security to your passwords.
Available on both iOS and macOS, Apple's passkeys are designed to replace standard passwords by providing unique digital keys that are stashed locally on your device. Apple says that by not storing passkeys in the cloud, they are much less susceptible to being stolen in the case of a data breach or phishing attempt.
Passkeys will feature integration with biometric security including Touch ID and Face ID, and can be synced to other Apple devices via your iCloud Keychain. They will also work with apps and on the web, allowing users to sign into their accounts using their iPhone instead of their password.
The arrival of passkeys comes after Apple, alongside Google and Microsoft, announced a partnership with the FIDO Alliance and the WWDC earlier this spring. Apple's passkeys look to be the company's attempt to simplify and streamline the use of passwordless sign-on methods and will feature end-to-end encryption and compatibility with a wide range of Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV when it arrives sometime later this year.
iPhone users are walking around with great cameras in their pockets, so why not use that with their Macs? That's the basic idea behind Continuity Camera, a new feature that'll let you plop on iPhone on top of your Mac, and use those mobile cameras to power video chats in FaceTime, Teams and any other conferencing app. While cool, the feature is a bit clunkier than typical Apple offerings, since it requires a phone stand. It's also a slight admission from Apple that its laptop and desktop webcams aren't the best around. (That's something we noticed with the pricey Studio Display.)
The entire Continuity Camera setup works wirelessly, and it also brings over features like Center Stage, which helps the camera follow you around the room. It can also tap into your phone's ultrawide camera to show a top-down view of your desk. Mostly, though, it's a nice way to get better background blur and lighting effects for all of your video chats. The only problem? You won't be able to surreptitiously use your phone while you're stuck in a work meeting.
If you're an iPad user who always wished your tablet could do more, Apple has you in mind this year. At WWDC, the company just unveiled iPadOS 16, the annual update to the company's iPad software. Naturally, many of the new iOS 16 features are coming here as well, including big updates to Mail, Safari, Messages and more. Oh, and 12 years after the first iPad was released, Apple is finally bringing the Weather app to iPadOS.
For the first time, iPadOS will allow you to have overlapping windows for the first time, through a multitasking interface called Stage Manager that Apple is also bringing to the Mac this year. That said, some of these features will only be available on iPads with the M1 processor. When you use stage manager, you can resize windows, so you can easily tuck away other apps behind the main window. There's also a few on the left side of the display that shows all your most recent apps. Based on the demo we saw during the keynote, windows dynamically resize and adjust their content view based on how big you make them.
The iPad also supports external displays for the first time, as well. Instead of just mirroring your iPad display, it fully extends your iPad experience to the second screen. You can have up to four distinct apps open on each screen at once, so an external display would let you have windows for eight different apps open at once. This is a massive change for iPadOS multitasking, something that people have requested for literally years now.
One big new feature is called Collaboration; when you share a document from an app like Pages, you can immediately make it sometime that everyone can work on simultaneously. Before, sharing would just send a copy, but now you can share a document through the Messages app and everyone you send it to can start editing it. You can also jump right into a FaceTime call directly from the document, as well. Naturally, this will work first with Apple apps, but Apple is releasing a third-party collaboration API as well. Other examples of Collaboration that Apple showed off is sharing a tab group from Safari, and it'll work in Notes as well.
Another collaboration-related feature that Apple has just announced is called Freeform. You can jump into a board from a FaceTime group call and it basically creates a shared notes document that you can type, draw or paste other content into. This feature will be coming to iOS and macOS, as well.
Game Center will also get some SharePlay features, but they're coming later this year. When they do come out, you'll be able to play multi-player games while keeping a FaceTime call going, for example.
This comes a year after iPadOS 15 added some major new multitasking features that made it a lot easier to access different apps in the iPad's traditional split-view setup. That update also included the handy Quick Notes feature, a controversial Safari rdesign that was eventually rolled back, major updates to the Home Screen experience through a new set of widgets and the expected handful of other smaller changes.
You won't need an Apple Watch to access the company's Fitness app anymore. With iOS 16, Apple is bringing the software to iPhone, the company announced during WWDC 2022. Like its watchOS counterpart, the app will allow you to set daily activity goals, with a "Move ring" there to motivate you to stay active throughout the day. Your iPhone will use its sensors to track your steps and workouts and then convert that information into an estimation of the calories you've burned. At any time, you can share your Move ring with friends and family to push them to achieve their activity goals too.
While we know the Google Pixel 7 is on the horizon, that knowledge isn't going to help you if you're in need of a new smartphone immediately. But Amazon has a new sale on the Pixel 6 Pro 5G that may be just what you're looking for. You can pick up the flagship smartphone from the online retailer for $799 right now, or $100 off its normal price. That's the cheapest we've seen the smartphone, making it a good time to get all of the latest features a Google phone has to offer before the Pixel 7 comes out.
The Pixel 6 Pro earned a score of 91 from us and we consider it to be one of the best Android phones you can get. Its two-toned design with the horizontal camera bar may be polarizing, but it's also striking and pretty slick. The 6 Pro has a 6.7-inch, 120Hz display that will automatically adjust refresh rates depending on what you're doing. It also has an under-display fingerprint sensor that, while a tad slow, provides an extra layer of security. The 6 Pro runs on Google's Tensor Processing Unit and we found it to provide excellent performance overall. Along with its strong performance, you can expect an equally strong battery life from the handset. We managed to get over 17 hours of use before needing to power up again.
One of the stand-out features of Google's Pixel smartphones is the camera array, and that remains the case for the Pixel 6 Pro. It has a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 12MP wide-angle lens and a 48MP telephoto shooter with a 4X optical zoom. These cameras work together to take lovely photos that are on-par with those taken by the iPhone 13 Pro's camera array. Android 12 also brings a number of handy photography features including Magic Eraser, Face Unblur, Long Exposure and more.
Yes, you could save even more money and opt for the Google Pixel 6, but you'd be forging the 6 Pro's 120Hz screen, telephoto camera and ultra wideband chip in the process. If you've had your eye on a Pixel phone for some time, now's a good opportunity to pick up the best model available right now for less.
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Nearly four years after it first announced the game, Blizzard released Diablo Immortalon Android, iOS and PC earlier this week. And shortly after the game made its way to mobile one day early, players with Samsung phones took to Reddit and other community forums to complain about technical issues. On some devices with the company’s own in-house Exynos chipsets, Diablo Immortal is unplayable, with one of the most prominent issues being textures not loading properly.
“We are exploring the issues people are experiencing with some Samsung Galaxy specific devices that use Exynos chipsets,” a Blizzard spokesperson said in a Reddit comment spotted by SamMobile. “For now, we may disable downloads for this set of devices while we work to address this. Apologies on this and we will be working on getting a fix up and ready as soon as possible.”
Among the list of affected handsets include older devices like the Galaxy S10, Note 10 and A51 5G, but people with models as recent as the Galaxy S22 have also complained of texture issues. If you own a Qualcomm-equipped version of one of those phones, you can download and play the game without issue. You can check what chipset your phone features by navigating to the “About Phone” section of Android’s system settings.
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference takes place next week and, as always in the lead up to the event, the rumor mill is churning away. A report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that Apple will reveal some big updates for iPadOS 16. Apple has long been trying to position the iPad as a viable alternative to a laptop, and the software changes will seemingly nudge the device further in that direction.
Gurman's sources say iPadOS 16 will have a revamped multitasking interface, including more resizing options. Currently, users can run apps in full screen or side by side in Split View. The Slide Over function allows you to bring in a narrower version of a third app as well. The next version of iPadOS will seemingly make it easier to move between apps and see which ones you have open too.
To add fuel to the fire, developer Steve Troughton-Smith last week spotted code in WebKit which indicates that Apple may allow for freely resizable windows in iPadOS.
I know better than to get excited about improvements to iPad, because we’ve been burned so many times…
But WebKit just added infrastructure for a ‘multitasking mode’ on iOS that sure looks like it’s a system toggle that enables freely-resizable windows https://t.co/NBNGhHiaxB
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) May 26, 2022
Improved multitasking options and resizable apps will be very welcome for many users. Folks have long been able to use keyboards with the iPad and Apple added full mouse and trackpad support two years ago. Whether the mooted iPadOS updates will actually help the device become a laptop killer remains to be seen, but it's clear Apple hasn't given up on the idea.
Also during Monday's keynote, we'll surely get a look at what's next for the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch operating systems. Gurman previously reported that iOS 16 will introduce more health-tracking features, upgraded notifications and support for always-on displays (which is expected to only be available on iPhone 14 Pro models at first). A refreshed lock screen may include widgets, which Messages is believed to be getting more features as well.
