With every new update, Apple gives iPhone users a more personalized experience, and the iOS 16 Public beta is a great step forward. Using automation, and artificial intelligence with advanced hardware, Apple will give you a great experience with the new operating system.

On June 6, 2022, at their Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 16 and since then three developer versions released. Although developer betas give you new features to test before their public release it also has some bugs and minor issues.

On the other hand, the public beta version is more stable and has fewer issues compared to developer betas. The company released its first public beta on 11th July for all the users and anyone who has an iPhone 8 or newer model can download and test the software for free.

Like last year’s iOS 15 here Apple brings some major changes to iOS 16, most of them in the personalization and share category. The first public beta includes a brand new lock screen with widgets and customization, major iMessages improvements, a shared photo library for families, intelligent sync with Apple accessories, visual lookup, and many more.

Apart from these big changes, there are tons of new customization and new features added to iOS 16. The Siri (voice assistant), message, Sound and Mic mode, Emoji, Wallet, Helth, spotlight, Photo, privacy, iCloud+, note, translate, all the apps are modified to give you a better experience altogether.

How to install and update iOS 16 Public Beta?

You have to wait for two to three months for the stable version. in the meantime, if you want to try the new features of iOS 16, you can easily download and install the public beta of iOS 16.

Just you have to follow these simple steps on your iPhone and the new iOS 16 will install and be ready for use without much hassle.

All the steps are described below kindly pay attention to these and do the steps as discussed step by step below…

• First, open Safari from your phone and type beta.apple.com in the address bar, it takes you to the Apple Beta software program page. On this site, Apple provides all the beta releases for their various devices like iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, etc.
• Now you have to Sign up for the beta program if you’re a first-time visitor to this page otherwise choose the sign-in option.
• Provide your Apple ID and Password and it takes you to the Guide for Public Beta page. Here you have all the information regarding the Public beta and how it works and what you should do to improve the iOS.
• Now you have to enroll your iPhone for this beta program and once enrolled you would be notified when a new public beta is released.
• You have to read their agreement policy and then accept it to go to the next step.

•  Now the most important part here Apple strongly recommended to take a full backup of your iPhone before installing the beta software. If anything goes wrong by chance you don’t have to worry about the data.
•  Go to settings click on your ID and then go to iCloud backup and select the backup now option.
• When the backup is completed come back to the webpage and select the Download Profile option, immediately a consent page appears you have to accept and install the profile.

• Once you install the profile it says to restart your device, don’t restart choose the not now option, and go to setting. You are almost done.
• Lastly, go to settings> go to General> go to software Update> here you see the new iOS 16 Public beta available for download > Click on Download and Install> Done.

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Note: If you’re already enrolled in the Apple developer program you don’t get any public beta because both the versions are pretty similar. Although I suggest you use the public beta because it’s less buggy and more stable than the developer edition. To enroll for public beta all you have to do is just go to your profile section and delete the previous developer profile then install the public profile instead.

New Features in iOS 16 Public Beta:

Here in this post, I’m highlighting some key features of the iOS 16 Public beta and how they help us in our day-to-day usage. Let’s discussed some key features now.

The new revamped Lock Screen:

Probably one of the biggest changes in iOS 16 is the new lock screen with tons of features and functionalities added to it. After the new version update, the first thing you notice is the new lock screen that looks gorgeous.

Now you have the ability to personalize the Lock Screen with multilayered wallpapers, custom fonts for the date and time, and widgets for upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery levels, alarms, and more.

First press and hold your lock screen to edit it the way you want, then swipe left or right to choose from different styles. Each style changes the color filter for the background photo and the font on the lock screen and every customization looks good. 

Multiple Lock Screen:

Now you can set multiple lock screens for your iPhone and for each one you choose individual pictures, colors, widgets, background, and even emojis. 

There are preconfigured set of lock screens available by default like the Astronomy, and Emoji but you can adjust everything. Choose fonts and colors, apply filters to wallpapers, and add widgets both above and beneath the clock display on the lock screen.

There’s also a photo shuffle option that automatically changes the pictures on your lock screen. Then you can also change the font of the clock just by clicking on it there are six different options to choose from and they’re pretty awesome.

Additionally, you have these cool filters to choose from and sometimes the lock screen detects the depth in your photo and creates this cool 3d effect looks great.

New Widget on Lock Screen:

Under the time section, you can add multiple widgets on the lock screen and each one looks new and fits intelligently. You can add new weather, Activity, Clock, Calender events, Battery, and Activity ring widgets. Just drag and drop them.

Notification transition changed:

Now notifications come from the bottom part of the lock screen and this looks pretty clean. As you receive them, instead of being compiled into a list, they appear like a vertical Wheel. This not only looks better but should be a big help for one-handed use.

Live Activities:

Some notifications keep coming frequently and feel annoying sometimes so here iOS 16 brings a feature called live activities. It intelligently analyzes those repeated notifications and displays the current updates only.

like the score of a Cricket game, the food delivery update, or the progress of an Uber ride it hides the older stuff and displayed the current status only.

Focus mode with added functionality:

Focus helps you to create separate profiles for different types of environments and lets you filter notifications based on what you’re currently doing. It organizes apps and widget pages on your home screen to match your activity or state of being.

When you’re using focus your status is automatically displayed in messages so others know not to interrupt you. By default, there is a couple of focus mode already created by the iOS, like driving, fitness, gaming, reading, and mindfulness along with do not disturb and silent modes.

Now in iOS 16, you can connect your Lock Screen to your Focus so the look and feel of your iPhone match how you want to use it at the moment. With a swipe, you can go from your Personal Focus to your Work Focus with widgets showing upcoming meetings and to-do lists.

Apple added specific Focus filters that apply your iPhone’s Focus mode within apps. For example, in Safari, you can limit what tabs are shown depending on what Focus mode you have active.

Similarly, it works with Calendars, Mail, and messages as well. So you can keep emails from your work inbox out of sight when using Personal Focus.

iMessage brings huge changes:

So iMessage received some brilliant updates because generally if you send a message to a friend and decide to add some line or did some spelling mistake there is no way to do that.

But now in iOS 16, you can edit or add or even undo a message post sent. Just tap and hold down the message then click undo send and it undoes its sending.  And you can mark a message as unread if you can’t respond at the moment and want to come back to it later.

Or if you want you can just edit the send a message by tapping and holding down and clicking the edit button. Then make your correction and when you’re done just click that blue tick and your message will officially be edited.

Shareplay in messages: 

Shareplay lets you share audio, video, and images within a specific group this is introduced in iOS 15 but now it’s even integrated into iMessages.

Suppose you watch the latest episode of your favorite show or listen to a new song with friends while chatting about it in Messages.

Collaborate your Work:

Now you can invite others to connect with you on a project directly from iMessage and once all connected you start a project and share it within the thread. You can Share notes, presentations, reminders, Safari Tab Groups, and more in Messages to start collaborating instantly.

Haptic on Keyboard:

iOS 16 finally brings haptics to the keyboard you just have to go to sound and haptic settings and go to the keyboard feedback and turn on haptics. It’s a very small feature added way back in Android but finally, we get haptic feedback when typing in iPhone.

New change in Photo Library and family share:

Now in the iOS 16 Public beta, we have some useful changes in Photos Library and its sharing mechanism. Apple introduced the new iCloud Shared Photo Library. This is a separate library from your other iCloud items, allowing you to collaboratively share photos with friends and family.

 Shared  Library:

Using the shared Library now you can share photos and videos with five people immediately after taking the snap. It helps you to store your favorite memories in one place for everyone to enjoy at any time, even if you’re not the one who snapped the shot.

You can either add pictures manually or use the new sharing shortcut in the Camera app to automatically add images. Every member in the shared library has equal permissions for adding, editing, and deleting photos in the shared library.

Also, choose to share automatically when other shared library members are nearby, and get smart suggestions for adding photos to the shared library for you.

Merge photos and Videos:

Now in iOS 16, you can easily merge items together in the photos app and it manages duplicated photos and videos. This is a great option for me because I have randomly taken tons of similar photos for my blog and it helps me to reduce the storage and keeps everything clean.

To turn this on just head to albums and at the bottom, you’ll see a new duplicate photo section select that and start merging. Your iPhone will automatically keep the highest quality version while getting rid of the rest of your recently deleted album.

Hidden Album:

We all have some weird photos or even sensitive photos that we want to protect and you can hide them one step further in ios 16 with a face id.

To hide any item just select your photo tap on the ellipsis icon and select hide. this will put your photo into the hidden folder but now by default, it should automatically be protected via face id and you’ll see a little lock icon next to this album.

Copy and Paste Edits:

Another very useful feature in photos is to easily edit a photo and apply the same edit to other photos as well. If you’re fond of editing your photos then this feature is very useful and saves lots of time.

In iOS 16 if you edit a photo and want to apply those same edits to other photos just go ahead and tap on that ellipsis icon again in the top right corner and select copy edits. Now select another photo tap on that same icon and this time select paste edits it’s super simple.

Visual Lookup and Live text:

Lookup is a useful feature and now with iOS 16 you can literally lift a subject from the background and paste it in messages, notes, or safari.

Open up any picture and just grab a subject or an object and this automatically removes the background and converts it into a png. Then you can just drag and drop it into a messaging app like iMessage or even WhatsApp.

Essentially it’s a tap-and-hold tool that removes a photo’s background but it’s amazing how quickly and accurately ios lets you grab any subject or object without the background.

Live text:

The ability to search anything instantly from a picture or grab some information with the help of a camera is called Live text. Using Artificial intelligence Live Text can recognize Photos, screenshots, Quick Look, Safari, and live previews with Camera

The live text also gets smarter now its even recognizes text from your videos. You can pause on any frame in a video and highlight the text you want. Live Text will also work in Translate so you can highlight large amounts of foreign text.

Although right now Live text on videos only works on Apple-specific apps hopefully it will work in apps like youtube in the future and it’s even more useful.

New Improved Maps:

Already in iOS 15 apple improved the Maps to a great extent and added new features that are pretty unique and interesting. But now Maps works even more accurately with 11 new countries and six new cities to the 3D city map network, including Chicago, Sydney, and the awesome-looking Las Vegas.

Now you can now add up to 15 stops in an Apple Maps route, letting you navigate through multiple points easily. Maps also sync across your devices, so you can look up directions on your Mac and see them on your iPhone when you’re ready to go.

Public transit users can pay for their ride within the maps by adding Clipper to the Apple Wallet. Apple Maps will now let you check the fares for your trip, and you can add your transit cards to the Apple Wallet app so you can check if you’ve got enough credit to make it to your destination.

Wallet and Apple Pay:

The wallet app is redesigned and added more features and lets you transact more securely with added privacy. Now it hides your exact date of birth and displays your ID and that you’re over 21.

Share Keys:

Now you can share your Wallet keys securely with apps like Mail, Message, and Whatsapp. When your friend receives the key, they can add it to the Wallet app on their iPhone.

Apple Pay latter:

Apple introduces a new pay latter service where you can buy any Apple product and pay the price in installments without incurring additional costs. It allows users to split any Apple Pay purchase into four payments over six weeks with zero interest.

Track Order:

Apple also introduce a new track your order service which helps you track Apple Pay orders and lets merchants deliver detailed receipts and tracking information. You can directly monitor your order status from the Wallet app and stay up to date.

Verify Identity:

Now you can use your Apple ID in Wallet to verify your identity and age within apps and can share your home, hotel, office, and car keys in Wallet through Apple’s messaging apps securely.

Other Interesting Updated Features:

iOS 16 is a huge update in terms of usability, Customization, security, and connectivity and more features are coming with the final stable update. For now, in the Public beta with those significant updates, we also have some small but important updates like…

Continuity feature:

As all of you know mac devices are great but the camera is pretty average so this time Apple has done something great. Now you can switch a facetime call from your iPhone to the mac and also use your iPhone as a webcam for a Mac device.

Additionally, there is a desk mode that captures any object placed in front of your mac, this is super useful for making a description video.

Spotlight:

Spotlight lets you search intelligently for photos by using location, people, scenes, or objects and we have a dedicated search button on the home screen.

Now search shows you more rich results not only about something but also its past and presents conditions as well. Like when you type rain forest it not only explains the word but also searches for the related query and details available on the internet.

Safety Check:

It’s a new feature intended to be helpful for people in abusive relationships. To maintain your personal safety this lets victims of domestic abusers revoke all access to their accounts such as removing location sharing or app permissions.

Safety Check lets you review and reset who has access to location information as well as passwords, messages, and other apps on an iPhone.

Health and Fitness:

The new Medications feature in the Health app helps you manage, track, and understand the medications you take and gives you reminders. You also request other members to share their health records with you.

The fitness app has been updated and captures your health records within the iPhone. Now, using iPhone motion sensors, your steps, distance, and third‑party workouts will give you an estimate of your calories to contribute to your daily move goal.

Improved Family Sharing:

Now you can quickly set up a new device for your child and add appropriate permission for your child. Set your preferences for age-appropriate media, Screen Time, location sharing, and more. You can allow or disallow a screentime request raised by your kids.

When Quick Start appears, you have the option to pick a user for the new device and use all the existing parental controls you’ve previously selected and configured.

Carplay:

In 2023 Apple may announce their own car and keeping that in mind they also improved the Carplay app. The next-gen Carplay provides content for all the driver’s screens including the instrument cluster, ensuring a cohesive design experience for your car and your iPhone.

Apart from the above changes all the native Apple apps like Camera, Keynote, Weather, News, Calendar, Apple TV, Note, Stocks, Memoji, Translate, and iCloud+ are updated in iOS 16.

Devices Compatible with iOS 16:

Should you update your iPhone Now?

No doubt iOS 16 is going to be a big update and this time Apple redefines many features from iOS 15. Now even in Public Beta, they included new features and most of them work normally.

If you are someone who likes to try new things without worrying about too much you can try the iOS 16 Public Beta. At the same time, there may be some bugs and glitches so always keep that in mind before installing the beta software.

The new update brings the all-new Lock screen, Visual lookup, live text, wallet and Apple Pay, iMessage, family share, maps, and tons of new features that bring more happiness to you and enhanced your iPhone experience.

But at the same time, you may encounter some issues like battery draining, application freeze or collapse, and over-heating although Apple claims most of these issues are resolved in the Public Beta.

Finally, all I can say is if you have a secondary device then definitely go for it, it’s an amazing update but if you are installing on a primary device be cautious, and maybe you should wait for the stable version.