iOS 16 Code Reveals iPhone Always On Display

The highlight of iOS 16 is the new lock screen. With plenty of new ways to customize it, the most notable one is that it moves notifications to the bottom of the screen so you can add widgets. It’s a preview of one of the features we’ll see in the upcoming iPhone.

according to 9to5MacThe iOS 16 icon has several references to the new Always On display feature, which has been around for a while on Android, but isn’t available on any current iPhone.

As its name suggests, always active screen is an option that displays relevant information on the mobile screen when we are not using it, such as the time, notifications or data updated from a widget.

This feature is not entirely alien to Apple. Introduced it in Apple Watch Series 5 as “Always show” when it achieved sufficiently efficient OLED LTPO technology. OLED panels can save battery power by turning off all pixels on the screen individually except for those that display information. LTPO technology further saves battery life by reducing the screen refresh rate from a maximum of 60 Hz (60 times per second) to a minimum of 1 Hz (one time per second). The iPhone has already had this technology (called an upgrade) since the iPhone 13 Pro, but unlike the Apple Watch, it can only transmit from 120 to 10 Hz.

Now, according to 9to5Mac, Apple has set up iOS with three new frameworks to manage the display’s backlight in case there’s an always-on display. Most likely, Apple is paving the way for the iPhone 14 Pro in the future with the Apple Watch’s “Always Show” feature, and it’s making use of LTPO OLED panels so it doesn’t waste a lot of power. It is even possible for the iPhone 14 Pro to drop to 1 Hz to save more.

The funny thing is that according to 9to5Mac, the Always On Display option can also be activated on unsupported devices, such as the iPhone 13 Pro. What does this mean? Sure, Apple engineers are testing this feature with current iPhones, but when it comes down to it, It will be activated in the latest model, the future iPhone 14 Pro.