lock screen

Live weather, awesome astronomy and fun faces: Customize your iPhone’s Lock Screen in iOS 16

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There are a lot of ways to customize the Lock Screen in iOS 16.
There are a lot of ways to customize the Lock Screen in iOS 16.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

iOS 16 brings the most radical change to the iPhone Lock Screen yet. In the new operating system, you can customize and totally transform the look and feel of your phone. If you liked the themed custom Home Screens people were putting together using Shortcuts and Widgetsmith, you’ll love the level of creativity you can express with customized Lock Screens in iOS 16.

Read on to see all the features of the new iOS 16 Lock Screen.

In iOS 16, Focus filters give you finer control over iPhone distractions

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Focus filters can set more boundaries within apps, cutting down on distractions.
Focus filters can set more boundaries within apps, cutting down on distractions.
Photo: Apple
WWDC22 - Brought to you by CleanMyMac X

Apple showcased an impressive lineup of improvements to Focus modes at WWDC22 Monday. They include Focus-linked custom Lock Screens, set-up suggestions, new filters and more.

The upgrades should provide users with customized ways to cut down on distractions more effectively, especially now that Focus can provide a new level of control by setting boundaries within apps.

Check out all the new features in iOS 16

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WWDC22: iOS 16 will bring a surprising number of new features.
iOS 16 will bring a surprising number of new features.
Photo: Apple
WWDC22 - Brought to you by CleanMyMac X

Apple showcased many significant new features coming in iOS 16 during its WWDC22 keynote Monday. The main updates include an overhaul of the iPhone Lock Screen, updated notifications management, intelligent sharing and a slew of personalization features.

“iOS 16 offers new intelligence sharing and communication features that are going to enhance so much of what you do with your iPhone,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, during the event. “And those come together with an incredible set of new personalization features that will make your experience feel fresh and completely you.”

How to keep iPhone from ruining your square lock-screen photos

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It's hip to be square.
It's hip to be square.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you’ve ever tried to set a square photo as your lock screen or homes screen wallpaper, you know that iOS will zoom into the photo, resizing it to fit the entire iPhone screen.

This is fine with some images, but square ones, like the ones you save on Instagram or take with your iPhone’s square photo feature, just zoom in too far, obscuring much of the photo.

Here’s a quick and easy work around that will let you see the whole square photo when you use it as wallpaper.

Brilliant lock screen shows how to recover your lost iPhone like a boss

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Who says a lock screen can't be laugh-out-loud funny?
Photo: Apple

Through the creation of its Find my iPhone feature, Apple has made it much easier to recover handsets when we misplace them.

However, one amusing iPhone owner decided to go one step further to ensure that he would be reunited with his iPhone should it stray from his hands during a night of drunken merriment — adding an hilarious iPhone lock screen message.

Keep Your Private Notifications Off Your Lock Screen In Mavericks [OS X Tips]

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Mac lock screen notifications

You may know that your Mac can send you notifications via the native Notifications Center, introduced in OS X Mountain Lion. You can get notified via a pop up badge or alert window for various activities, like iMessages, Calendar events, FaceTime calls, or Game Center achievements, just to name a few.

In Mavericks, you can even get these messages when your screen is locked with a password via the Privacy system preferences option. Your notification alerts will show up on top of your lock screen.

But what if you want to preserver your privacy when you lock your Mac’s screen but you don’t want to enable Do Not Disturb mode?

Clear Those Annoying Notifications Without Leaving The Lock Screen In iOS 7 [iOS Tips]

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iPhone Lock Screen

I like some notifications. I try to keep it down to a dull roar, of course, but I enjoy knowing when I get a phone call, text message, and email from specific clients or friends.

It’s just that when I see all these notifications in my lockscreen, I mentally dismiss them, only to have them appear again the next time I check my iPhone for the time.

I messed around with it a bit yesterday, and came up with this solution, thanks to iOS 7.

iOS 7.0.2 May Have Fixed One Lock Screen Hack, But It Adds Another [Video]

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iOS passcode

Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Apple released iOS 7.0.2 on Thursday, and in its release notes, the company said it had fixed “bugs that could allow someone to bypass the lock screen passcode.” Unfortunately, it seems it didn’t fix all of them, because the update added another lock screen vulnerability of its own, which you can see in the video below.

De-Clutter Your Lock Screen’s Notifications In iOS 7 [iOS Tips]

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Notification Center

Notification Center has new tabs now, including Today, All, and Missed notifications. Even with this bit of filtering, things can get overwhelming fast, especially if you have a ton of apps that default to sending notifications to you for darn near everything.

If you want to lower the amount of information overload in your Notifications Center, it’s a fairly simple affair. Here’s how.

Android Users Must Really Be Jealous With All These Imitation iOS 7 Apps

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post-246935-image-78e326b74e94e67377a4c2a25cd08453-jpg
This is your Android phone on iOS 7. Any questions?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Apple has tested this assumption in court against Samsung and other mobile device manufacturers, Android users and developers might have a different opinion.

Because, as you can see from the screenshot above, a whole bunch of apps have appeared in the Google Play store with the express purpose of making your Android handset look just like…well, an iPhone running iOS 7.

Of course, the argument could be made that only Android is open enough to actually allow its users to change the look and feel of their devices to a competing system’s visual system, but the result is still clear: Android developers, at least, think that you should be able to have a mobile phone that looks like the latest iOS devices on the screen as well as in the design of the handset itself.

There are lock screen apps for Android that mimic the parallax of the new iOS 7, apps that call themselves iOS 7 wallpaper, when they really aren’t, and apps that are just plain honest, titled iOS 7 Fake iPhone.

Hit some of those links above to try these out on your own, because we all know it’d be cool to have an Android phone that looks like an iPhone running iOS 7.

Right?

Discuss.

Enable And Manage New iOS 7 Beta’s ‘Today’ View On Your Lock Screen [iOS Tips]

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Notifications Today View

iOS 7 beta has a great new feature in the Notification Center system called Today. This is an attempt, perhaps, to counter Google Now with more useful current information available to you right on your iPhone or iPad’s lock screen.

You can enable the Summary, Traffic Conditions, Day View, Reminders, Stocks, and Tomorrow’s Summary right in the Notification Center, and make it available right on your lock screen, without having to type in your security passcode.

Here’s how to enable, and then manage, this new feature in iOS 7 beta.

Keep Notifications Off The Lock Screen In Mavericks Beta [OS X Tips]

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Notification Center OS X Mavericks beta

In the new OS X Mavericks beta, there’s a new Notification system in place that mimics much of the way iOS handles notifications. Your iOS notifications, in fact, can push right to your Mac desktop as well.

Much like iOS, each app that uses Notification Center can be set to a fine-grained level of customization, letting you show them in Notification Center (activated with the icon in the upper right corner of your Mac’s screen), decide whether to let them use a Badge app icon, and whether or not to play a sound for each app’s notifications.

If, however, you value your privacy, you may want to disable the default setting that has your notifications showing up even when the display is off or locked.

Here’s how.

Use A Panorama As Your Lock Screen, Wallpaper, Or Both In iOS 7 Beta [iOS Tips]

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Panorama Wallpaper

File this one under super cool! In previous incarnations of iOS, you’ve always been able to set a photo from your camera roll as the image that shows up on your iPhone or iPad screen. You can place one image on your lock screen, and one as your wallpaper, or the same image on both screens.

Now, however, in iOS 7 beta, you can actually set panoramas as your lock screen image, or as your wallpaper image. Or both! When you do so, the iPhone or iPad will show your panoramic image in full size, which lets you move the device around in a circle and see the whole image dynamically move across your screen.

Here’s how to make this happen.

Pluck Lets You Pick Your Music From The Lock Screen On iOS [Jailbreak]

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Pluck-iPhone

Apple lets you control music playback on your iOS devices from the lock screen, but your options are very limited; you can play or pause tracks, and skip back and forth between them. But if you want to listen to another album, you’ll need to unlock your device and open the Music app to find it.

But not if you have Pluck installed. Pluck is a new tweak for jailbroken iOS devices that lets you access your entire music library from the lock screen.

This New Lock Screen Concept Gives Your iPhone A Vertical Settings Bar [Video]

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This could be all kinds of useful.
This could be all kinds of useful.

The interface designer behind the Auxo app-switcher concept (@Sentry_NC) has come up with another fantastic idea, this time aiming his attention at the Lock Screen of iOS. In this new concept, iPhone and iPad users would be able to swipe over from the right hand side of their device screen, revealing a host of settings that typically require launching the Settings app for.

I sure hope Apple implements something similar.