New, Customizable Lock Screen

Describing it as the biggest update to ever hit the iPhone’s front page, Federighi explained that Apple has completely reimagined how the Lock Screen looks and works.

Apple appears to have borrowed some ideas from watchOS, turning the iPhone Lock Screen into a more dynamic Watch Face style of view, complete with widgets, live backgrounds, and multiple lock screens.

Lock Screen wallpapers now include a depth effect that allows portions of an image to appear in front of the clock, similar to the Apple Watch Portrait Face introduced in watchOS 8 last year.

The Lock Screen can also be customized with different fonts for the clock, color filters for the wallpapers, and even smaller, complication-style widgets to show information such as weather, calendar appointments, fitness activity, and much more.

iOS 16 will also provide a gallery of Lock Screens in different themes to help folks get started. Federighi demonstrated swiping through different styles that each include a color filter, background image, and font that complement each other. These can be customized further by tapping on any element to change it up to your own preferences.

The wallpaper gallery also supports dynamic backgrounds for things like weather, changing photo albums, astronomy, and more. These will animate fluidly when swiping up to unlock your iPhone. As with Apple Watch faces, users will be able to set up multiple Lock Screens and swipe between them.

Naturally, third-party developers will also have access to these Lock Screen widgets. Note that these aren’t the same as Widgets used on the Home Screen, so developers will have to update their apps before Lock Screen widgets are available.