As the iOS 16 betas have continued to march out of Cupertino, I increasingly see third-party app betas add support for the new feature. While I don’t want to disclose anyone’s secret betas, I can tell you that adding third-party widgets is a level-up improvement for the lock screen. Any app developers that want to share glanceable information should be looking into it.

However, I also don’t think any of us will really understand the utility of the new lock screen until we have always-on screens. As it is, when I glance at my iPhone on my desk (even on a charger), the screen is nearly always dark. There is a widely circulated rumor that the iPhone 14 Pro will remedy that with an always-on-screen. At that point, lock screen widgets get a lot more useful.