If you’ve ever sent an iMessage and then immediately regretted sending it, you’ll be pleased to learn that Apple sees you, and is throwing you a bone.
At a conference at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California yesterday (June 7), the tech giant announced that its latest mobile software, iOS 16, would let users edit or recall sent messages. Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, called the update one of the “most requested features to Messages”.
While iOS 16 doesn’t yet have a release date, Federighi said its updates “will change the way you experience iPhone”.
“We have re-imagined how the Lock Screen looks and works with exciting new features that make it more personal and helpful, introduced iCloud Shared Photo Library for families, streamlined communication through new capabilities in Messages and Mail, and harnessed enhanced intelligence with updates to Live Text and Visual Look Up,” he said.
So, other than being able to delete or edit (cringe) messages, what else does iOS 16 feature? Ahead, some of the highlights:
Read Texts Can Be Marked Unread
If you’re someone who uses unread messages as a to-do list, this new Messages features is for you: even after you’ve read conversations, you’ll be able to mark them as unread so you can come back to them later. You’ll also be able to recover recently deleted messages.
Subjects Can Be Isolated from Images
Visual Look Up will now have a new feature that’ll let users tap and hold on the subject of an image to lift it from the background and place it in apps like Messages.
Lock Screens Can Be More Customised
Inspired by the Apple Watch, the new Lock Screen can be completely customised. In addition to choosing your Lock Screen photo, you’ll now also be able to pick the typography, colours and filters. You’ll also be able to add widgets to your phone screen, like your calendar, Apple Watch activity ring, world clocks, weather and battery indicators for devices like your AirPods. If that’s not enough, you’ll be able to have more than one lock screen, which you can switch between.
Focus will now also be connected to the Lock Screen, giving users a way to tie a Lock Screen wallpaper and widget to a particular Focus. To activate a Focus, users can simply swipe to the corresponding Lock Screen.
Live Text Works on Video
Live Text uses intelligence to let you search text in your images, and, with the update, you’ll be able to search for text in videos too. Users can pause a video on any frame and interact with text. Live Text also adds the ability for users to quickly convert currency, translate text and more.
Mail Allows for Scheduled Emails
Working on the weekend but don’t want the email sent until Monday morning? Users will now be able to schedule emails ahead of time and are even given a moment to cancel delivery of a message before it reaches a recipient’s inbox.
Like in Gmail, iOS’s will detect if the user has forgotten to include an important part of their message, such an attachment.
Families Can More Easily Share Photos
New feature iCloud Shared Photo Library will let families easily share photos with a separate iCloud library that up to six users can contribute to. Every user in the Shared Photo Library can add, delete, edit or favourite the shared photos or videos, which will appear in each user’s Memories and Featured Photos so that everyone can relive more complete family moments.
You can view all of iOS 16’s features here.
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