Be Patient; These New iOS 16 Features Won’t Be Available Until ‘Later This Year’

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Over the past few years, it’s become quite apparent that when Apple announces a major new iOS release, it’s actually spelling out the roadmap for an entire year’s worth of point releases.

Gone are the days when the first iOS release included everything Apple promised right out of the gate. These days, Apple saves some features for later point releases.

To be clear, this isn’t usually about Apple holding back on things. It’s more likely it just can’t get everything ready in time for the initial “.0” release. It began with iOS 10 in 2016 when new iPhone 7 Plus owners didn’t get to take advantage of the brand new Portrait Mode feature until iOS 10.1 arrived in late October.

When Apple debuted iOS 11 at WWDC 2017, it announced a wealth of features that didn’t make it into iOS 11.0, including new emoji (iOS 11.1), Apple Pay Cash (iOS 11.2), AirPlay 2 (iOS 11.4), and Messages in iCloud (iOS 11.4).

After that, spreading features across multiple iOS point releases became the norm. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that iOS 16 won’t be an exception.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot packed into iOS 16.0. It may fare even better than iOS 15.0 did last year. We can expect the new Lock Screen experience to be ready, along with editing and unsending iMessages, new Focus features, SharePlay in Messages, Dictation and Siri improvements, new Live Text, and Visual Look Up features, and much more.

Nevertheless, there are a few things we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see. Some of these are understandable, as they’ll require support from third-party software and hardware developers. However, others may need a little more time in the oven.

1. Matter Support. Apple came out and admitted that Matter won’t be a thing until sometime after iOS 16 is released. That’s because the first Matter accessories aren’t entirely ready yet. Matter support is “coming in an update later this year” and will require an Apple TV or HomePod running as a Home Hub, which means some version of tvOS 16 or HomePod OS 16 will also be needed.
2. Freeform. Apple’s new shared canvas for diagramming and brainstorming likely isn’t going to make the cut for iOS 16.0. Apple hasn’t said when it’s coming, other than “later this year,” so it’s probably going to be an iOS (and iPadOS) 16.1 thing.
3. SharePlay and Contacts in Game Center are also both slated for “later this year,” so while we’ll probably get the redesigned Game Center dashboard in iOS 16.0, you’ll have to wait to start playing SharePlay games with your friends on a FaceTime call, or tapping through to their Game Centre profiles from the iPhone Contacts app.
4. Live Activities on the Lock Screen is also oddly slated for sometime after iOS 16.0. While this naturally includes the API that Apple is offering developers, we may also have to wait for the feature even in Apple’s first-party apps, such as seeing real-time sports scores from the TV app. That naturally also extends to Live Activities with App Clips.
5. Web Push Notifications to allow website developers to send push notifications through Safari aren’t coming until 2023.
6. The next generation of CarPlay is even farther away since it relies entirely on automakers. Apple has said the first announcements of new vehicles supporting “CarPlay 2.0” aren’t coming until late 2023.
7. Focus Filters on iPad. Oddly, Apple suggests that Focus Filters won’t fully arrive in iPadOS 16.0. From where Apple has placed the asterisk on its iPadOS 16 Features page, it’s unclear if this refers only to the feature in Safari or if that will be the case across the board.

The good news is that it doesn’t look like Apple is holding back too many significant new features this year, but it’s still very early in the beta cycle, so a lot could change between now and September. For instance, last year, SharePlay was supposed to arrive in iOS 15.0, but Apple pulled the plug in August, delaying it to iOS 15.1. While never promised for iPadOS 15.0, Universal Control was initially slated to arrive “later this fall” in 2021, yet it took until March.