As often, multiple features announced at WWDC will not ship with the first official version of iOS, and this year looks to be no different. Indeed, there are a dozen new features of iOS 16 which will not arrive this evening with the deployment of the public version.
Coming soon to your iPhone
Last year, SharePlay, Permit and ID Card in the Wallet app, and Universal Control were among a lot of features in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 that weren’t available in the initial version, which sometimes took several months to reach users.
Apple previewed each of the following features when announcing iOS 16 at WWDC 22 in June, but they will not be present in iOS 16.0 when it is released to the public tonight:
- Live Activities : Track activities happening in real time, like a sports game or carpooling, with just a glance on the lock screen. Third-party apps and App Clips can implement support through the Live Activities API that will display as notifications.
- SharePlay : Games that use Game Center multiplayer support have SharePlay integration. You will be able to automatically start playing with friends during a FaceTime call.
- Contacts integration : The Contacts app displays your friends’ Game Center profiles. We will thus have their file at hand.
- Matter support : The new smart home connectivity standard that allows compatible accessories to work together seamlessly and across platforms. Matter lets users choose from even more compatible smart home accessories and control them with the Home app and Siri on Apple devices.
- Updated architecture for the Home app : Improvements to the underlying architecture of the Home app to enable faster, more reliable performance and improved efficiency, especially for homes with many accessories and multiple control devices.
- Freeform app : A new digital whiteboard application with a flexible canvas for diagramming projects, grouping important resources and brainstorming, with real-time collaboration features and rich multimedia support. It will be called Freeform.
- iCloud Shared Photo Library : A new option in the Photos app to allow users to create a shared photo library and invite anyone with an Apple ID to view, contribute to, and edit it, including liking images and adding legends. There are no limits, and all participants have the same permissions, making it ideal for families.
- Key sharing : The ability to securely share keys in Apple Wallet via email and Mail apps.
- Easy shortcut setup for iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X : Siri can run shortcuts from installed apps without any setup process (will be available for newer devices immediately without delay).
- Focus on iPad : The ability to set limits in Apple apps like Calendar, Mail, Messages and Safari for each focus settings you enable, will not launch with the first release of iPadOS 16. It will require iPadOS 16.1 or 16.2.
Apple says all of these features will be rolled into an iOS 16 update later this year, but has yet to offer a more specific timeline for each. After months of beta testing, iOS 16.0 will officially be available for download on all compatible iPhones tonight. It will be necessary to wait for iOS 16.1, iOS 16.2 or even iOS 16.3 to have a complete firmware.