New iPhone and iPad features: What’s coming this year

While speculation of iOS 17 is already at its height, there are still a few software features announced by Apple, but not yet released for iPhone and iPad users. Head below as we round up all the previously announced features still coming to iPhone and iPad…

Apple Card Savings Account

Continuing to focus on financial services, Apple also announced that it will integrate a high-yield savings account directly into the Wallet app for Apple Card users. The feature was announced in October, with Apple saying it will be available sometime “soon.” Since the Apple Card is only available in the United States, the new savings account will also be limited to the United States.

An Apple Card savings account will allow you to automatically deposit your daily cash rewards into the account. It will integrate fully with Apple Wallet apps, allowing you to track account balance and growth over time and even make additional deposits via a linked bank account.

The Apple Card savings account will be operated in partnership with Goldman Sachs, which is also Apple’s partner for the Apple Card itself. There’s no word on the exact percentage the account will pay in interest, but Goldman’s online savings account offers an annual return of 3.30%.

The next generation of CarPlay

At WWDC, Apple unveiled what it described as “the next generation of CarPlay.” This is a feature, however, that Apple has acknowledged won’t be available for long, despite an initial announcement at WWDC 2022.

The new CarPlay interface is a major overhaul over what is currently offered. It will provide support for multiple screens inside your car and will be able to integrate deeply with your car’s hardware. Essentially, CarPlay’s new design can completely replace the manufacturer’s digital interfaces:

• Speed, fuel level, temperature and more in the instrument cluster
• Control the radio or change the climate directly with CarPlay
• Personalize your driving experience by selecting different gauge cluster designs
• With widgets, users will have at-a-glance weather and music information right on their car’s dashboard

This is a big undertaking from Apple, and it will require close cooperation with automakers looking to adopt the new CarPlay interface. Apple says that “more information will be shared in the future” and that we can expect the first cars to support the new CarPlay design sometime late this year.

Finally, there is one security and privacy focused feature that Apple has already announced will be coming sometime this year. iMessage Contact Key Verification is designed for “users facing unusual digital threats,” including journalists, human rights activists, and members of the government.

The feature works by giving these users a way to further verify that they are messaging with the people they intend to be. Apple explains:

The vast majority of users won’t be targeted by highly sophisticated cyberattacks, but the feature does provide an important extra layer of security for those who might be. Conversations between users who have iMessage Contact Key Verification enabled receive automatic alerts if an exceptionally advanced adversary, such as a state-sponsored attacker, successfully compromises cloud servers and inserts their own hardware to eavesdrop on these encrypted communications. And for an even higher level of security, iMessage Contact Key Verification users can compare a contact’s verification code in person, on FaceTime, or through another secure call.

Apple says calling key verification in iMessage will be available “globally” sometime in 2023.

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Apple Pay at a later time [Now available]

Updated March 29, 2023: Apple Pay Later has officially started rolling out to users, but it won’t be available to all users for several months, Apple says.

Apple is ramping up its initiatives in the personal finance sector, and one of the most anticipated new features in this category is the so-called Apple Pay Later. Apple Pay Later, announced at WWDC 2022, will let you split Apple Pay purchases into four equal payments with zero percent interest, spread out over six weeks.

Apple Pay Later is similar to competitors like Affirm and Klarna, two companies driving a recent wave of “buy now, pay later” platforms. However, Apple claims that its platform will be “seamless and secure,” with integration with the Apple Wallet app and no fees.

When Apple Pay Later was announced at WWDC 2022, there was no clear timeline for when it would be available to customers. The feature was not included in the initial release of iOS 16 and has not been added with any subsequent software updates. bloomberg stated that the feature faced “fairly significant technical and engineering challenges”.

Once launched, Apple Pay Later will be “available everywhere Apple Pay is accepted online or in-app” to “eligible applicants in the United States.”

Classic Apple Music [Now available]

Updated March 29, 2023: Apple Music Classical is now available to all Apple Music users. Learn more in our complete guide.

Ah, yes, the classic Apple Music. This isn’t necessarily an iOS 16-specific feature, but it’s something Apple said would be available in 2022…and it wasn’t. Apple acquired classical music service Primephonic in 2021, immediately removing the app from the App Store and merging the content into its own Music app.

However, Apple has also promised that it will release a “dedicated classical music app” sometime in 2022, “combining the classic user interface of Primephonic with more additional features.” This did not come to fruition in 2022, and Apple is silent on when the app will be released.

At this point, we’re beginning to wonder if Apple Music Classical has been canceled (or significantly scaled back in scope), given Apple’s silence on the matter. The good news is that references to the service have been spotted in the iOS code. We hope to get an update soon.

Online push notifications [Now available]

Updated March 29, 2023: More advanced web apps are now available as of iOS 16.4, which can be installed via the Settings app on your iPhone.

Here’s something that’s moved pretty much under the radar since it was officially announced: support for web push notifications for Safari on iOS and iPadOS. This was announced at WWDC last year, where Apple said Safari on the iPad and iPhone would support push notifications from websites for the first time.

Web notification support has been available in Safari on the Mac for several years but has been noticeably absent on the iPhone and iPad. What prompted our memory on this feature is the Posted on Mastodon From Jen Simmons, who serves as an evangelist for Apple on the company’s web developer experience team.

In the post, Simmons asked users to share their “favorite web apps” that they’ve added to their iPhone’s home screen. This may indicate Apple’s continued work on pushing web notifications for iPhones and iPads, as well maybe Some other improvements to how Progressive Web Apps work on Apple platforms.

Apple says support for web notifications on iPhone and iPadOS will be available sometime in 2023. This feature has not yet been realized in beta versions of iOS 16.

New house building [Now available]

Updated March 29, 2023: With the launch of iOS 16.4, the revamped home architecture is now available to users again.

With iOS 16.2 in October, Apple introduced a new optional architecture for HomeKit that it said provides “improved performance and reliability for accessories in your home.” As it turns out, that wasn’t the case, and the new architecture had the opposite effect for many users who chose to change.

In response to the backlash and complaints, Apple ended up pulling the all-new architecture last month. The company said in a statement:

We are aware of an issue that may affect users’ ability to share the Home within the Home app. A fix will be available soon. In the meantime, we’ve temporarily removed the option to upgrade to a new home build. Users who have already upgraded will not be affected.

There is no official information about when Apple plans to re-implement the new HomeKit architecture. certificate In recent iOS betas, it shows that the company is continuing to work on the platform.

iOS 16.5 is likely to be available soon…

iOS 16.4 was released to everyone last week with quite a few features and changes. Now that this update has been released, Apple has started beta testing iOS 16.5. Unfortunately, this update does not appear to have any of the features we are still waiting for Apple to release.

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