The always-on displays of the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max received mixed reviews from early adopters. iOS 16’s always-on display mode dims the screen, but your wallpaper is still visible and notifications continue to pop up. Some users found all the visual effects to be distracting and ended up turning off one of the iPhone 14 Pro’s key features.
That might explain why Apple is upgrading the feature in iOS 16.2.
Apple seeded iOS 16.2 beta 3 to developers this week. The beta included several interesting changes, but one stood out. Apple added two new toggles in the Always On Display settings menu: Show Wallpaper and Show Notifications.
If you turn off both toggles, the display of the iPhone 14 Pro will actually go dark when you put it to sleep. All that remains are the time, the date, and your Lock Screen widgets. This is the always-on display many users wanted in the first place.
9to5Mac editor-in-chief Chance Miller shared a photo of the new options on Twitter:
This is the best of both worlds for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max owners. If you like having a splash of color and a stream of notifications on your display at all times, you could ignore the new options altogether. If you find them distracting, you can turn them off with a few taps. There are plenty of exciting new features coming in iOS 16.2, but this addition may have jumped to the top of the list for many iPhone 14 Pro owners.
iOS 16.2 doesn’t have a release date, but it will likely roll out before the end of the year. In the meantime, be sure to download iOS 16.1 immediately if you haven’t already to patch a dangerous security flaw that could allow hackers to spy on you with Siri.
More Apple coverage: Check out the best Apple deals online right now.
