Live Action in iOS 16: Everything you need to know

The iOS 16 update brings some nice changes to iOS. Apple introduced home screen widgets with iOS 14, and now we’re getting support for lock screen widgets and a few other tweaks. Another useful addition to iOS 16 is live actions on the lock screen and Dynamic Island.

If you’re wondering what is live action? How it works? What apps support Live Activity? Are interactive actions different from widgets on the lock screen? Read on to find the answers to all these questions.

Online activities are available for iPhones running iOS 16.1 and later.

What is live action in iOS 16?

According to Apple, “Live Activity is a new feature that helps users stay up to date with real-time events such as sports games, workouts, trips, or food delivery orders right from the lock screen. “Wait, does that make you even more confused? Let me explain this in simpler terms.

For example, you order food from Grub Hub, put your phone down and get back to work. Now, whenever you want to check the status of an order, Live Activity lets you do it from the lock screen or from Dynamic Island itself.

There is no need to unlock your iPhone to check that your order has been completed. Your time and efforts are saved. Apple will also share the Live Activity API with developers to help them implement the feature in their apps.

Live activities will be available for apps that share real-time activities such as sports scores, rides (Uber, etc.), food delivery apps, workout tracking apps, etc.

So, are interactive actions and widgets the same thing? Not really. Live Activities use a different mechanism than widgets. Updates that a Live Activity receives come from remote push notifications or from the app itself via ActivityKit. In contrast, widgets use a timeline mechanism.

Live Action in iOS 16

iPhone apps that support live action

Social media

• Apollo for Reddit – Follow the comments on the Reddit thread in real time.
• Aviary – Cancel tweets (up to 30 minutes) or view changes to tweets.

Sports/Exercise/Outdoor Activities

• FotMob – live broadcasts of football matches.
• SmartGym – Show information about the current workout.
• Liftin’ – Track your workout with rep counts, rest timers and more.
• Steps – View your workout progress in real time.
• Landscape – Track your ascent with real-time statistics and a continuous elevation graph.
• Slopes – Stop and resume tracking skiing or snowboarding.

Performance/multitasking

• Calzy – keeps track of the calculation.
• Sticky timers. Track multiple timers at the same time on Dynamic Island.
• Forest – see how much time is left to complete the current task.
• MoneyCoach – Tracks your spending.
• Just tap Record – record/pause audio with a single tap on the lock screen or Dynamic Island.
• Structured – Day Planner – View the countdown for the focus timer.
• Subjects – Students can track their class schedule, homework, and more.
• TV Remote – Gives quick access to some of the remote control buttons.
• Flighty – get information about upcoming flights up to three hours before departure.
• CardPointers – Track credit card rewards.

Other fun apps

• Carrot Weather – View specific alerts such as rain, storms, and more on the lock screen or Dynamic Island.
• Soor – View lyrics of currently playing Apple Music songs in real time.
• Pestle – Shows the current recipe step with a timer.
• Crouton – Display recipe timers and steps for each recipe.
• Lumy – Track any sun event from your lock screen.
• Tide Guidance – Track real-time tide height as well as the height of the sun or moon.
• PosturePal – Tracks posture and notifies you if it’s wrong.
• GPS Tracks – Track your route for navigation and set a waypoint.

Apple news

Apple News has added a new “Sports”category. This section will help you display graphs and results for professional and collegiate sports. Users can add teams to favorites and never miss updates. However, the Live Activity for sports feature will only be available in four countries: US, UK, Canada and Australia.

How to use live action on iPhone?

The functionality depends on the application and the permissions granted. For example, you’ll have to manually add your favorite team to the Sports category in Apple News. And later, you will automatically receive live notifications in the Live Actions widget displayed on the lock screen.

In some cases, like the Apollo app for Reddit, you need to click/toggle the “Start Live Activity”button in the options menu.

FAQ

No. If you remove a Live Activity from the lock screen, it won’t complete the original activity. For example, let’s say you delete a live activity that displays the time left until pizza delivery; it will not cancel the order.

A live stream can stay on the lock screen for a total of 12 hours. A Live Activity can last up to eight hours, unless the app or user chooses to end it. It can stay on the lock screen for another 4 hours in a completed state, after which the system will remove it from the lock screen.

The Live Activity feature is only available for iPhone. (at the time of writing)

Doom scrolling is becoming more and more common every day. Unlocking your phone is one of the contributing factors to this. Sometimes I unlock my phone to check the status of my order, but get bogged down in social media notifications etc. I also tend to forget the main purpose of unlocking my phone due to a few spam notifications from apps and companies.

I find Live Activity to be a great addition to the iPhone lock screen. I’m glad Apple is finally being more flexible and allowing users to customize their lock screen. Let me know what you think in the comments below.