Apple iOS 16
Source: Apple
Apple’s latest update to its iPhone operating system, iOS 16.1, will be available Monday, the company announced in a press release on Thursday.
It is launching for iPhone users with an iPhone 8 or newer models, and it adds quite a few features that were not available when iOS 16 launched in September.
This is what is to come.
Access Apple Fitness+ without Apple Watch
Apple Watch fitness
Source: Apple Inc.
iPhone users with iOS 16.1 can subscribe to and access Apple Fitness+ even if they don’t have an Apple Watch.
Fitness+ is a subscription service with guided workouts and meditations that costs $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year. Apple is offering three months of Fitness+ for free with the purchase of a new iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.
If you’re training on Fitness+ without an Apple Watch, you won’t be able to see stats like calories burned or your real-time heart rate.
Clean Energy Charging iPhone
Clean energy charging will be available with iOS 16.1
Sofia Pitt
The iOS 16.1 update also includes Clean Energy Charging. Apple says this allows users to optimize charging for when cleaner energy sources are available, reducing your iPhone’s carbon footprint.
Clean energy charging is an option you can select in Settings > Battery > Battery status and charging. Under the Clean Energy Charging option, Apple says, “In your area, iPhone will try to reduce your carbon footprint by selectively charging when electricity with lower CO2 emissions is available. iPhone learns from your daily charging routine so it can fully charge be charged before you need it. to use it.”
iCloud Shared Photo Library
Apple Shared Photo Library
Apple
iOS 16.1 lets you create a shared iCloud Photo Library instead of a standard iCloud shared album.
This allows you to invite up to five other people, or six in total, to a library where you can all add, delete, edit, or favorite photos and videos.
The Camera app offers a new toggle that allows users to choose to automatically send photos to the shared library. So if you are on vacation and taking a lot of photos on the beach with a group of friends, anyone can take photos with this option turned on and see all the photos in the shared album.
Live activities for third-party apps
Once you update to iOS 16.1, your lock screen will include Live Activities, which show information from sports games, ride-sharing apps like Uber, or updates about a food delivery order. So you can see how long it will take for dinner to arrive at your home, with information on how soon it will arrive. Or, as the screenshot below shows, the score, inning, and count of a baseball game with updates on play. It’s especially useful on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, which have always-on screens so you can quickly see new information. You’ll start seeing some apps on Monday, but it requires developer adoption, so additional apps will come later.
Here’s what it looks like:
Live Activities on iOS 16.1.
Apple
Support for Matter accessories in the Home app
iOS 16.1 will add support for new Matter accessories to the Home app, allowing users to control smart home accessories.
Matter is a new connectivity standard that tries to make it easier to use all your smart home accessories together, no matter who designed them. The idea is to allow smart home devices to connect to home hubs, whether the hub is made by Apple, Google or Amazon. It means that you should be able to go to the store to buy a smart bulb, for example, without having to worry about whether it will work with your system at home, as long as it supports Matter.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
WATCH: Apple takes a hit on report it plans to cut production on iPhone 14 Plus
