IOS 10 Review: New Lock Screen, Long-Awaited Widgets, Social iMessage

Supported Devices

IOS 10 can be installed on iPhone 5, iPad mini 2, iPad 4, iPod touch 6th generation and later.

Lock screen

Perhaps the most noticeable change in iOS 10 is the lock screen. Now, a lot is happening differently. So, the owners of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus do not even need to press anything to make the smartphone screen come to life: everything happens automatically. Older devices will require pressing the Home button. If you do not have a password for entering and do not use Touch ID, then you no longer need to do the usual swipe across the screen to unlock. You just need to press "Home" again.

If your fingerprint scanner is configured and working, then with the first press you will unlock your smartphone. There is an interesting point here: if you tear your finger off quickly enough, then you will be able to linger on the lock screen, which is not actually locked anymore.

The changes don't end there. Noteworthy is the new design of notifications. You can interact with them using 3D Touch, or simply by expanding incoming notifications and choosing from the available actions.

The lock screen now supports moving left and right. To the left of the home screen is the Spotlight search bar and a redesigned widget block. The latter also changed, became more functional, acquired support for 3D Touch clicks. Well, the developers have a reason to create widgets for their applications, because they will be available already on the lock screen.

Finally, to the right of the main screen is access to the camera. No more swiping from bottom to top in the right corner.

Home screen

The need to access the notification center from the lock screen is gone. Both notifications and widgets can be viewed immediately, without additional gestures. However, from the home screen and from any application, you can access the redesigned notification center with a standard swipe from top to bottom. There are no surprises here anymore: the widgets have moved, so the main focus is solely on notifications.

It is also worth noting that the design of toast notifications from apps has changed. As before, they appear at the top, but the animation and appearance are different.

The control center has also been changed. It is now split into separate screens. The first one is very similar to what it was before. Only the playback control tools are missing. They have moved to the next screen of the control room, and there are more of them. In general, the design has changed, the freed up space allowed us to enlarge the buttons. However, you still cannot configure your own switches.

It is noteworthy that if you have the Shazam application installed, then you can launch it directly from the control center, from the playback control screen.

The home screen itself, with its grid of apps, has seen the least visual changes. Only the animation of opening and closing folders has been updated. However, there is one major innovation here: the ability to hide programs preinstalled in iOS. This happens in much the same way as applications are removed from the App Store. However, system programs simply hide from the home screen and can be restored at any time. You can hide most of the pre-installed Apple applications.

Of course, there is still Spotlight search to the left of the first home screen, and widgets have been added. Now these small software add-ons are available literally everywhere.

New actions for 3D Touch have appeared on the home screen and among widgets: Apple has worked hard to further implement this promising feature. 3D Touch can now also be used by application developers, so variable screen pressure will be especially useful in the new version of the mobile operating system.

Built-in applications

Posts

The Messages app, or rather the iMessage part of it, is probably the biggest innovation in iOS 10. The possibilities for communicating through iMessage have expanded dramatically, with some ideas borrowed from the Apple Watch.

From now on, the interlocutor can send a drawing, pulse, various graphic effects. You can even take a new photo and instantly add captions and other decorations any iOS user needs. You can draw with convenience: by turning your smartphone or tablet into landscape mode.

However, the above is only a small part of the innovations. So, sending messages can now be accompanied by various visual effects, and information can be transmitted using invisible ink.

There is a preview of links, sharing of tracks from Apple Music (the recipient must also have a working subscription to the service), there is even an image search that replaces the keyboard when typing a message.

It seems that the iMessage service in iOS 10 has absorbed absolutely all the trends in network communication. But we have not yet mentioned the ability to change the background of the dialog window, install add-ons for iMessage from the App Store, and even leave reactions to incoming messages.

Telephone

The application has changed slightly: Russian letters appeared on the dialing keys. Perhaps it will be useful to someone.

In the iOS 10 settings, there is now an item that allows you to use applications from the App Store to block numbers. Therefore, it will become easier to fight voice spam.

Users from Belarus will surely appreciate the problem with gaining a plus by holding zero. Throughout the testing of the new version of the OS, the bug was not eliminated and smoothly migrated to the final release.

Watch

Taking inspiration from the Apple Watch, the developers decided to change the color scheme of the Watch app to dark. There is also a completely new menu item called "Bed Time". This feature is designed to improve the quality of sleep for an iOS 10 user. You need to specify the desired wake-up time, the required amount of rest and a number of other details, and your Apple device will figure it out on its own when you send you to bed. New alarm ringtones are included.

Photo

With literally every update to the mobile operating system, Apple has improved the Photos app. This time, the capabilities of photo analysis and face recognition have been added. Now you can ask Siri to show pictures with cars, and the system will accurately find them in your photo collection. Face recognition works in a similar way.

The new Memories feature works really well. iOS 10 independently groups events by date and location, creating cool visual presentations of various events from the photos in your feed. The whole thing can be edited.

By the way, image editing is now also brought to a qualitatively new level. The scanty system features for editing photos have not gone anywhere, but Apple has allowed them to add tools from third-party applications. So, you don't even have to launch Pixelmator separately: all features will be at your fingertips when editing in the Photos app.

Notes

The application was thoroughly redesigned back in iOS 9. In the top ten, it just got the ability to co-edit notes and grant rights to view them to other users. Thus, the system of keeping records in iOS 10 allows you to almost completely abandon alternatives in the form of third-party services.

Settings

IOS 10's system settings have received several changes. In particular, Siri settings have been moved to a separate menu item. It also became possible to install additional dictionaries into the system, for example, an explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. It will be used to define the highlighted words.

From now on, you can restrict the use of device memory by the Music application. If the built-in memory runs out, then iOS 10 will automatically delete those tracks for offline playback that you have not listened to for a long time.

Finally, let's note one new picture to use as wallpaper.

Siri

The virtual assistant in iOS 10 has grown smarter and, most importantly, has received support for third-party applications. Once the developers update their apps, you can use Siri in them. It will soon be possible to type a message in WhatsApp without touching your smartphone.

Noteworthy is the updated female voice of Siri. It sounds much nicer. What's more, Apple suggests installing a male voice as an alternative. In general, Siri in iOS 10 only pleases.

House

IOS 10 debuts the eponymous smart home control application. With the help of the program, you can manage various gadgets and systems connected to a single home network. As before, Apple TV is the hub for Apple's smart home.

If the Home app is useless to you, now you can at least uninstall it.

App Store

There are not many changes in the app store, but they are necessary. The nearly useless View menu has been removed and replaced by a list of App Store categories. This change has been asking for a long time, so it's great that it was implemented.

Cards

Apple paid a lot of attention to updating "Maps", more precisely, their capabilities. Now, immediately after starting the application, you can specify the destination of the route; there are also places to choose from that may be of interest to the user. You can view the weather at a specific point on the map. The interface change deserves special attention. It is finally driver-friendly thanks to its large elements. Updated fonts and animations.

Contacts

The application itself has not undergone changes, but the contact cards have been seriously modified. Now any person in your address book is presented much more conveniently: immediately below the photo and name there is a set of buttons for communication in all available ways. Below is a familiar list of numbers and other information.

Music

The Music app, the Apple Music client, has changed dramatically. The overloaded interface has been replaced by large, easy-to-use elements. The "Media Library" tab has moved to the very beginning and is available immediately after launch - this was not enough before. Moreover, in the same place you can organize different categories for displaying music.

The player itself has also changed: there is nothing more on the screen. All actions with a track, including downloading it to the device and adding it to the library, can now be performed from the context menu. Working with "Music" has become easier and clearer, the player is definitely more convenient to use on the move.

Health

The Health app appeared in iOS 10 almost unchanged. Only those who regularly look into the program will pay attention to the slightly modified design.

Apple Watch and Activity

Owners of Apple smartwatches will surely note the improvement in the application for controlling the watch from a smartphone. You can now comprehensively customize the watch faces from here. A frankly incomprehensible menu item with a set of promo videos was removed. Now everything has become much more logical and more convenient for the owner of the watch, and not for their potential buyer.

Apple Watch needs to be updated to watchOS 3 for full functionality.

New achievements have appeared in the Activity application, as well as the opportunity to share your successes with friends, and this will happen automatically.

mail

The mail client in iOS 10 remains largely unchanged. Now you can view message threads, filter out unread messages. Mailboxes are displayed with a complete set of folders and subfolders.

Safari

Safari mobile browser has finally got a simple but useful ability to close all tabs at the same time. Also, the browser has support for Apple Pay, because the payment system of the American company will now be presented on the Internet.

IPad owners will be delighted to be able to use dual-window mode to launch Safari. Thus, you can view two pages at once or transfer information from one to another. This is an important step for Apple tablets in an effort to replace computers.

Other changes and innovations

Immediately after installing iOS 10, two points draw attention to themselves: a changed device lock sound and an updated keyboard sound. The new sounds do not seem alien, they perfectly match the spirit of this version of Apple's mobile operating system, and after a few minutes they no longer stand out from the general background.

If you actively use multiple Apple gadgets, then appreciate the new clipboard that works between devices. We copied a piece of text on an iPhone and pasted it on a Mac running macOS Sierra. The integration doesn't end there, with the iCloud Drive app on iOS 10 accessing your Mac's desktop and document folder. You just need to activate the corresponding setting on the latter.

Due to the active use of iCloud, Apple rolled out a new tariff plan offering as many as 2 TB of space in the cloud. This pleasure costs 1,490 rubles a month.

Improving the capabilities of 3D Touch has already been mentioned above, but one cannot ignore the symbiosis of this function with a simple flashlight. Now, if you hold your finger on the icon for turning on the flashlight, you can select the brightness.

This is iOS 10. Of course, Apple has done a great job and the new version of the operating system is a big step forward. In the future, we will probably expect interim updates with fixes, improvements and even new features. We found traces of a dark theme in the iOS 10 code, so it cannot be ruled out that somewhere in iOS 10.1 we will be able to change the tones of the operating system to less light ones. There is still a lot of interesting things ahead!

The update to iOS 10 is available for download and installation on all compatible devices today. Apple Watch owners can also update their smartwatch to watchOS 3.