Let's take a look at some of the new kaey features from Apple's Developer Program:  

A Personalized Lock Screen 

The subjects of photos are artfully set in front of the time on the Lock Screen with a new multilayered effect, and the new Lock Screen gallery features a variety of options for inspiration, such as Apple archives, which include Pride and Unity to celebrate special cultural moments; a Weather wallpaper to see real-time weather conditions as they change throughout the day; and an Astronomy wallpaper for views of the Earth, moon, and solar system. Users can also use their favourite emoji or colour combinations to create Lock Screens. Users can switch between their favourite Lock Screens with a simple swipe. 

Accessibility

Updates include Door Detection, which allows users who are blind or have low vision to use their iPhone to navigate the last few feet to their destination, and Apple Watch Mirroring, which allows users with physical and motor disabilities to fully control the Apple Watch from their iPhone using assistive features such as Voice Control and Switch Control. Furthermore, Live Captions allow the Deaf and Hard of Hearing people to follow along while on a phone or FaceTime call, utilizing a videoconference or social media app, streaming media material, or conversing with someone next to them.

Easier Home Applications

The Home app makes it easier for customers to explore, manage, and display their accessories, while improvements to the underlying architecture provide users with more efficient and dependable control of their smart home. When the Matter smart home connectivity specification becomes available later this year, a software update to iOS 16 will include support for it, allowing a wide range of accessories to interact smoothly across platforms and helping to realize the true vision of a smart home.

Xcode Cloud Now 

Xcode Cloud is now available with a variety of subscription plans that better meet the needs of developers, beginning with 25 hours per month free to all Apple Developer Program members through December 2023 and rising to 1,000 hours per month. allows developers and teams of all sizes to build, test, and deploy high-quality apps even more efficiently by creating apps in the cloud to free up their Mac for other work.

WeatherKit 

WeatherKit allows developers to seamlessly incorporate the same world-class global weather prediction that drives Apple Weather into their products. Apple Weather delivers current weather, 10-day hourly forecasts, daily predictions, and historical weather using high-resolution meteorological models integrated with machine learning and prediction algorithms. It is available to developers via native Swift and REST APIs, and an Apple Developer Program membership includes 500,000 API requests each month. Beginning this fall, developers that require more will be able to purchase additional tiers of service directly via the Apple Developer app.

Apple Developer Program members can download the iOS 16 developer preview from developer.apple.com, and iOS users will be able to receive the public beta from beta.apple.com next month. This means, that new software features will also be available as a free software update for iPhone 8 and later. For further details, please visit iOS 16.

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All images courtesy of Apple.