Customizable Lock Screens Are Coming to the iPad

One of the biggest new features in last year’s iOS 16 release was powerful customization for your iPhone’s lock screen. With iOS 16, the decade-old custom wallpaper was finally superseded by more dynamic lock screens that included color filters, live backgrounds, widgets, and even different fonts for the clock.

Sadly, those enhancements weren’t included in iPadOS 16 for Apple’s iPad, where the gorgeous new Lock Screen designs would have really shone. Instead, iPad users had to settle for the comparatively boring static Lock Screen.

However, it looks like that could be set to change this year. According to a reputable leaker, iPadOS 17 will bring the custom Lock Screen options introduced for the iPhone last year over to the entire iPad family — and enhance them with even more powerful features to take advantage of the iPad’s extra screen real estate.

As reported on Twitter by @analyst941, the iPadOS 17 Lock Screen will get some “tuned up” customizations that will include everything that iPhone currently has in iOS 16, plus the ability to do things like reposition where the clock and other elements are shown.

This goes well beyond what’s possible on the iPhone with iOS 16. Another report this week suggested iOS 17 will bring the ability to adjust font sizes, but there’s been no word about being able to move items around on the iPhone Lock Screen. That makes sense on the smaller iPhone screen, but it’s easy to see how it’s something iPad users would want.

It wouldn’t be the first time the iPad has gotten a significant new feature a year after its iPhone counterpart. When iOS 14 finally brought an entirely new Home Screen experience with widgets and a new App Library, the iPad was left out of the party until iPadOS 15 arrived the following year. So, it’s not all that surprising that history may repeat itself with customizable lock screens in iOS 16 and iPadOS 17.

Based on that, it probably doesn’t take a lot of clairvoyance to predict the new changes in iPadOS 17, and it’s not the first we’ve heard of it, either; back in October, French site iPhoneSoft was told by a developer source that iPadOS 17 would support the widgets from iOS 16, although he stopped short of saying much about the other Lock Screen customizations other than that Apple wanted to provide a better experience for doing so, rather than just copying it over from the iPhone as-is.

That’s understandable considering the iPad’s much more expansive canvas, and it’s similar to what we saw with widgets in iOS 14 and iPadOS 15. Apple and third-party developers had to get on board with more creative ways to present information in iPad-sized widgets, including an “extra-large” variation. Along the same lines, the small square and rectangular widgets presented on the iOS 16 Lock Screen would likely be entirely out of place on even an 11-inch iPad, to say nothing of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Either way, if the report is accurate, it means that iPad users should get everything that iPhone users can already enjoy on their lock screens in iOS 16, including Lock Screen widgets, dynamic wallpapers for displaying things like custom photo collections and weather, effects and filters for wallpaper images, and the ability to link Lock Screens to Focus Modes; however, all that will surely be optimized for the iPad user experience, likely resulting in more customization and even richer widgets.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]