Get prepared for an replace to iOS 16. iOS 16.3 is coming to your iPhone this week, bringing a couple of new features, some bug fixes and a few tie-ins for Black History Month.
Word of iOS 16.3’s imminent launch comes from Apple itself, which let the launch date slip in a press launch highlighting the firm’s efforts on behalf of Black History Month (opens in new tab) in February. Besides spotlights on curated content material in the Music, TV, News and Podcasts apps, Apple is including a Unity watch face and iPhone wallpaper that comes with colours of the Pan-African flag.
Both the Unity 2023 watch face and Unity iPhone wallpaper would require iOS 16.3. And in the superb print of Apple’s Black History Month announcement from yesterday (January 18), the firm says the watch face and wall paper “can be obtainable subsequent week.” That would appear to suggest the iOS replace is coming too.
Another signal that iOS 16.3 is on its approach: a beta of the launch candidate grew to become obtainable to builders this week. Usually, meaning a full launch is not that far off.
If you have been following the iOS 16.3 beta course of, that there is not an entire lot of main features deliberate for this launch. But Apple does have some additions set to go reside as soon as iOS 16.3 lands on your iPhone. Here’s what you possibly can anticipate.
iOS 16.3: Security key authentication for Apple ID
Users trying for an additional layer of safety between ne’er-do-wells and their Apple ID knowledge will have the ability to add safety key authentication tanks to iOS 16.3.
Apple introduced this (opens in new tab) at the identical time it revealed the addition of Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which arrived for US iPhone homeowners in iOS 16.2. At the time, Apple stated it was focusing on an early 2023 launch for safety key authentication, which tracks with the iOS 16.3 launch.
Physical safety keys are meant to reinforce Apple’s present two-factor authentication for Apple ID, significantly for iPhone homeowners whose public profile makes them seemingly targets for hackers. Think celebrities, politicians and — seems round nervously — journalists.
When this function is enabled, you will want a bodily safety key as one among the two elements for signing into your Apple ID account.
Improved HomePod Handoff
There’s an enhancement to the Handoff function that transfers management of music playback from an iPhone to a HomePod speaker, an particularly well timed addition given this week’s arrival of the Apple HomePod 2. While Handoff has existed for a while, iOS 16.3 introduces a new information that extra clearly reveals HomePod homeowners methods to use the Handoff functionality.
The information tells you to deliver your iPhone inside vary of the HomePod to view your playback controls or move audio enjoying on your telephone to the sensible speaker. It additionally tells you to do this once more if you wish to see the controls or switch the audio again once more later.
New Emergency SOS through satellite tv for pc name modes
iPhone 14 customers have already got entry to Emergency SOS through satellite tv for pc in the event that they need assistance whereas in a distant location, however iOS 16.3 is including two new methods to entry it.
Call with Hold and Release replaces the present Call with Hold operate, letting you entry Emergency SOS and an alarm after holding down the energy button and a quantity button. The earlier Call with Hold operate required you to make use of a name slider to make an emergency name, one thing that would not essentially be doable relying on your scenario.
The different new possibility is Call Quietly. This permits you to make an emergency name with out setting off an alarm, in case that would not be helpful or may endanger you additional.
iOS 16.3 Global Advanced Data Protection
As we talked about above, the iOS 16.2 replace gave US iPhone homeowners entry to Advanced Data Protection. That’s a new safety function that brings end-to-end encryption to Apple’s iCloud storage service, defending info you are saved in the cloud (with the exception of Mail, Contacts and Calendar knowledge).
Apple had promised to deliver Global Advanced Data Protection to different elements of the world with a future iOS replace, and primarily based on feedback from individuals who’ve been utilizing the iOS 16.3 beta (opens in new tab), that point has come. As earlier than, to allow Advanced Data Protection, launch Settings, faucet on your title, adopted by iCloud. From there, you possibly can activate the safety function.
iOS 16.3 bug fixes
iOS 16.3 launch notes element a number of fixes coming through this software program replace. The largest one includes a bug the place horizontal strains would seem on some iPhone 14 Pro Max fashions as the telephones have been waking up. Additionally, iOS 16.3 fixes assorted points involving Siri, Car Play and the iPhone lock display.
iOS 16.2 included a new structure for Apple’s Home app, however simply as shortly as that function arrived, Apple pulled it from the iPhone software program. Users complained of some HomePackage gadgets changing into caught in an “updating” or “configuring” standing, whereas different gadgets have been lacking totally from the Home app, amongst different bugs. The new structure returns in iOS 16.3, presumably now that Apple ironed out these points.
What’s nonetheless lacking
Even although iOS 16 has been round since the fall of 2022, not all the features Apple has promised are reside but. We’re nonetheless ready on the launch of a devoted Apple Music Classical app, though there are stories that the iOS 16.3 launch candidate accommodates code (opens in new tab) hinting at such a service.
Apple Pay Later, which helps you to break up funds by way of Apple Pay into 4 installments, has but to launch as nicely. Perhaps that can be part of iOS 16.4, which is able to seemingly seem in beta type not lengthy after iOS 16.3’s launch.