iOS 16.2 Coming Mid-December With Freeform App, New iPhone Features

iOS 16.2 will be released in mid-December and will bring new iPhone features such as Apple’s new Freeform app, more frequent real-time activity updates, and other improvements.

• What is happening? Apple is rumored to release iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1 updates around mid-December.
• Why care? Just before Christmas, you will receive new features for your iPhone.
• What to do? Update your devices to the latest OS versions if you haven’t already.

iOS 16.2 will be released in mid-December with new iPhone features

In his Bloomberg Power On newsletter, reporter Mark Gurman mentioned that Apple will release iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, tvOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1 around mid-December 2022. Read: How to back up your iPhone

While the new Macs won’t be released until next year, the company still has the software. The iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 updates, which began beta testing last week, should be released around mid-December.

iOS 16.2 is currently available for developer testing.

What’s new in iOS 16.2 and other Apple OS updates?

iOS 16.2 will include feature enhancements and internal changes, including more frequent updates to active activities displayed on the lock screen, a more modern architecture for the Home app, and the ability to report accidental SOS calls.

We’ve rounded up the best new iPhone features in iOS 16.2.

As of iPadOS 16.2, Apple’s new app for real-time collaboration, sketching, note-taking, link sharing, and more, dubbed Freeform, is coming.

Both updates will add a new Sleep widget, display sports scores from the TV app on the lock screen, and provide other quality-of-life improvements. The State Manager multitasking feature in iPadOS 16.2 will support external displays.

As for Apple TV, tvOS 16.2 will bring voice recognition to Apple TV. With this feature, a person takes their Siri Remote and presses the Siri button to summon a smart assistant, which then recognizes the user by their voice and automatically activates their tvOS profile for personalized recommendations and more.

iOS 16.3 will be released in early 2023

Gurman went on to say that there will be no new Macs this year. Instead, the journalist expects MacBook Pro laptops with an M2 processor to arrive by spring 2023.

And before those machines hit store shelves, the Cupertino-based company will roll out iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, and macOS Ventura 13.3 software updates.

I was told that Apple intends to introduce updated models, including M2-based versions of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, in the first quarter of calendar year 2023 and has tied the launch to the upcoming macOS Ventura 13.3 and iOS 16.3. These software updates are expected to be released between early February and early March.

We don’t know what new features will be in iOS 16.3, iPadOS 16.3, and macOS Ventura 13.3 because Apple hasn’t started testing these updates with developers yet.

As a general rule, expect further feature improvements and bug fixes. Some iOS 16 features announced by Apple at WWDC22 have yet to be implemented. It’s safe to bet that iOS 16.3 will bring most if not all of the features that are still missing.