Apple has released iOS 16.1’s first developer beta. Apple finally added support for Live Activities(opens in a new tab), its new Lock Screen feature for the iPhone, as part of the new beta. Developers can now work on adding support for Live Activities to their apps with iOS 16.1 and Xcode 14.1.
Live Activities is a new Lock Screen feature in iOS 16. Live Activities will generate a single dynamic notification at the bottom of your Lock Screen, which will update in real-time. The feature is applicable to any app that allows you to track progress, such as sports, fitness, ride-sharing, food delivery, and others.
iOS 16.1 is currently only available to developers, giving them time to work on implementing the feature before it is made available to everyone later this fall. It’s unclear when iOS 16.1 will be available to public beta testers or everyone else, so we’ll have to make do with iOS 16.
For example, during a Premier League match, Dynamic Island displays a live-updating scoreboard with the number of goals scored by each club. When pressed repeatedly, Dynamic Island expands to show the time remaining and play-by-play action.
When an iPhone 14 Pro is locked, the score is instead displayed in a widget on the Lock Screen. Live Activities are completely restricted to the Lock Screen on the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, as well as all other iPhone models that lack the Dynamic Island.
Open the TV app on an iPhone running iOS 16.1 beta and tap on the “Follow” button for a supported game to test the feature. At launch, Apple says the feature is available for MLB games in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea, as well as NBA and Premier League games in the United States and Canada. In the future, the feature will most likely be extended to other sports leagues.
