11 of the Best New Features in iOS 16.2
Reading Time: 4 minutesApple Music Sing, end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups, and more.
After seven weeks of beta testing, Apple released the latest build of the iPhone operating system, iOS 16.2, earlier today. The free update comes with some fun new features and changes, including the brand new Apple Music karaoke feature, end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups, and a new collaborative digital whiteboard called Freeform.
This is undoubtedly the biggest iPhone update since iOS 16. Here are the biggest new features worth knowing about.
Apple Music Sing is one of the biggest free updates to hit Apple’s streaming platform in some time. It turns your Apple Music subscription into a karaoke machine, allowing you to quiet the vocals to millions of songs and sing over them. It works really well, and doubles as a fun way to hone into the instrumentals of your favorite tracks. You can read more about the feature here.
As a company, Apple prides itself on operating users’ privacy in mind. But for some time now, its security solutions surrounding iCloud have been milquetoast. While some data you back up to iCloud was end-to-end encrypted, like Health data, Apple held the decryption keys to other data, like iMessages, photos, and notes. The benefit there was Apple could help you retrieve much of your important data if you lost your Apple ID login, but Apple having the theoretical power to read our messages didn’t sit well with many people.
Advanced Data Protection for iCloud fixes the issue (for the most part). With it, the number of data types end-to-end encrypted in iCloud backups jumps to 23. Mail, Contacts, and Calendar are the big three that aren’t E2EE, but at least now, Apple doesn’t have the keys to the rest of your data. You can learn more about Advanced Data Protection for iCloud from our post here.
Freeform is Apple’s new digital whiteboard. With it, you can invite contacts to collaborate on the same project at once, adding graphics, text, and drawings as needed. Sketch out ideas, add on to others’ submissions, and work across your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so long as all three are updated to the latest software.
The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max have an Always-On Display that conveniently lets you check in on your display without having to wake up your phone. However, Apple’s initial approach left a lot to be desired: It kept your wallpaper and notifications enabled, which made it look like your iPhone was still awake when it really wasn’t. We covered a workaround, but there’s nothing better than a baked-in solution, which Apple offers with iOS 16.2. Now, you can choose to disable your wallpaper and notifications when using your iPhone’s AOD, so all you see is the time. You can see how this works in our coverage here.
Also new to the Lock Screen: widgets. You can use the Sleep widget to view your most recent sleep data without needing to unlock your iPhone, while the Medications widget gives you at-a-glance medication reminders and schedule. The Home Screen gets one new widget, Activity, which lets you check in on Game Center stats from your friends.
Game Center now supports SharePlay, which means you can play multiplayer games on your iPhone while on a FaceTime call with your opponents.
With iOS 16.2, you can check in to the current score of your sport of choice right from a Live Activities window on the Lock Screen, via Apple TV. If you have an iPhone 14 Pro or 14 Pro Max, this will appear in the Dynamic Island.
Apple quietly dropped support for AirDropping ‘Everyone’ with iOS 16.2. The company first implemented this change in China during ongoing protests, introducing a new ‘Everyone for 10 minutes’ feature. With it, you can still open your AirDrop to accept items from anyone, but only 10 minutes at a time. Now, the feature is here for, well, everyone. After 10 minutes, it’ll switch back to ‘Contacts Only.’
Apple is improving how it handles security updates on iOS. With the latest update, you now have the option to automatically install small security patches without needing to install a full new update, which should hopefully increase the speed at which Apple can address security vulnerabilities. This option should be enabled by default, but just in case, you can check from Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates.
Sometimes, you don’t want Siri to respond back to you, but she does anyway. This actually discourages Siri use in environments when you don’t want the digital assistant shouting out the answer to what you’re quietly trying to look up. Now, you can choose for Siri to ‘prefer silent responses,’ which will keep Siri quiet unless you’re driving or using headphones with the screen off. You’ll find this new option in Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Responses.
New features and changes are great, but, in my book, the best part about Apple’s regular updates are their less obvious stability patches and software improvements. Anything that makes my iPhone less buggy and more reliable to use is a win, and with iOS 16.2, Apple has quite a few nice changes in this department:
- Older notifications appear in Notification Center without having to scroll up.
- Improved search in Messages allows you to find photos based on their content, like a dog, car, person, or text.
- Reload and Show IP Address setting enables iCloud Private Relay users to temporarily disable the service for a specific site in Safari.
- News articles in Weather display information relevant to the weather in that location.
- You can now scan Weather data by the minute, as opposed to by the hour.
- Participant Cursors in Notes allow you to see live indicators as others make updates in a shared note.
- Crash Detection optimizations on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models.
- Fixes an issue that causes some notes not to sync with iCloud after updates are made.
- Improved reliability and efficiency of communication between your smart home accessories and Apple devices.