iOS 16 is here, and the first thing you’ll notice is the new customizable Lock screen. You can now create multiple Lock screens, each with its own wallpaper, clock font, and widgets, and cycle through them much like Apple Watch faces. Beyond being able to increase the visual diversity of your iPhone experience, you can tie a Lock screen to a Focus and switch your Focus by swapping Lock screens. Similarly, if the Focus switches on its own, such as due to a time-based trigger, the Lock screen will automatically change to match.

Each Lock screen can hold up to five monochromatic widgets. These are distinct from the widgets on the Home screen and Today View, and more closely resemble Apple Watch complications. They can display information like upcoming Calendar appointments, Apple Watch charge level, Activity rings, and temperature, and they can also offer shortcuts to actions in particular apps. Third-party developers can create Lock screen widgets, but the selection is limited right now, and there are some bugs we’ll discuss.

Before you can customize a Lock screen, you must create a new one by touching and holding the Lock screen until it appears in the Lock screen switcher, and then tap the blue plus button. (On an iPhone 14 Pro with the Always-On display, you have to make sure the screen is awake before you touch and hold, which Adam says is actually quite annoying.)

Later, you can return here and tap Customize to alter that Lock screen’s settings. But let’s first talk about how to create a new Lock screen.

When you first install iOS 16, you’re given only the regular default Lock screen, which cannot be customized, though it does pick up your existing Lock screen wallpaper. (That lack of customization is confusing numerous people; we wouldn’t be surprised to see an update to iOS 16 change it.) After tapping the blue plus button described above to create a new Lock screen, you must first select a wallpaper type.

If you find the wallpaper selection screen confusing, you’re not alone. Along the top is a horizontally scrolling list of buttons for the main types of Lock screen wallpapers: Photos, People, Photo Shuffle, Emoji, Weather, Astronomy, and Color. Below that is a vertically scrolling gallery of Lock screen wallpapers, some preconfigured with widgets. Confusingly, the Collections category is available only in the gallery, not among the buttons.

I encourage you to play with all the wallpapers and their options because the combinations are nearly endless. If you decide you don’t like a wallpaper, tap Cancel in the upper-left corner to try a different one. However, you can do this only while creating a new Lock screen. If you’re returning to customize an existing Lock screen, you can’t change the Lock screen wallpaper type—you must instead create a new one.

Let’s look at each of the categories:

Depth Effect works with any suitable photo. It doesn’t have to have been captured in Portrait Mode, though Portrait Mode photos have a few more options.

Once you have your wallpaper dialed in, tap the clock to bring up a panel that lets you choose the font and color. Apple offers only eight font options. A limited set of color options appear below the font choices; swipe all the way to the right to tap the color wheel that lets you choose whichever color you want with the Grid, Spectrum, or Slider pickers. You can tap the globe icon in the upper left to switch from standard Arabic numbers to Arabic Indic or Devanagari.

The Lock screen gets functional when it comes to adding widgets, something that has never before been possible on the Lock screen. iOS 16 provides two distinct widget zones, a short one above the clock and a taller, wider spot below it. The two aren’t interchangeable—the widget zone above the clock holds only a single line of text or other controls, and it always displays alongside the date (which shrinks to make space) rather than replacing it.

To add up to four more widgets below the clock, tap the zone below it (conveniently labeled Add Widgets). I say “up to” because these widgets come in two sizes: small ones that take up one slot and large ones that occupy two slots. You can mix and match any way that fits—four small widgets, two large widgets, two small and one large—and there’s no requirement that you fill all four slots.

iOS 16 suggests widgets at the top of the Add Widgets panel but provides no description of what each does. Instead, scroll down to view widgets by app, where tapping one offers a description of what it does. Many apps provide multiple widgets—swipe left to see more—and add the desired widget by tapping it or dragging it into the desired slot.

Once your widgets are in place, you can further configure them:

If you don’t see the third-party widgets you expect, it’s not your fault—there are bugs Apple has yet to stamp out. Many users and app developers are reporting that they’re not seeing newly added widgets.

I tested with two iPhones, both running iOS 16 with the same set of up-to-date apps. On the iPhone 11 Pro, I saw Things as a widget option, but not Todoist. On the iPhone 14, I saw Todoist but not Things. Then I installed Flighty on both iPhones but its widget option did not appear on either.

The developers of Hello Weather suggested uninstalling and reinstalling the app. I tried that but saw no difference. I also tried restarting both iPhones. That helped somewhat on the iPhone 11 Pro, because Todoist appeared alongside Things. But it made things worse on the iPhone 14, causing Todoist to vanish. The Halide team suggested temporarily changing your language in Settings > General > Language & Region to refresh the Lock screen. I had no success with that workaround either. Adam Engst didn’t experience any of this weirdness, with the Agenda, CARROT Weather, Fantastical, Flighty, and Todoist widgets all appearing on his iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro once their apps were updated.

If you have problems, first make sure all your apps have updated in the App Store app—tap your avatar in the upper-right corner and then tap Update All. It’s also worth trying all the suggestions above. But you may just have to wait until Apple releases a fix.

Once you’ve customized the Lock screen as you like, tap Add in the upper-right corner.  That presents you with one last step: choosing between Set as Wallpaper Pair and Customize Home Screen. The first option sets both your Lock screen and Home screen wallpaper and usually works well, although the Home screen wallpaper may be pretty bland.

If you tap Customize Home Screen, you’re presented with four options:

If you chose a photo, you can tap the Blur button to choose whether or not to blur it down to a single background color. I prefer the blur because it prevents the photo from detracting from app icons and text, but its utility depends on the image you’ve chosen.

I’ll save a deep dive into Focus in iOS 16 for another time, but for now, let’s briefly discuss how you can link a Lock screen to a Focus. After setting up a custom Lock screen, touch and hold the Lock screen to open the switcher. (If necessary, switch to a different Lock screen; you can’t link a Focus to your default Lock screen.) You should see a Focus button toward the bottom. Tap it, and you’re presented with a list of your Focus modes—tap one to connect it to that Lock screen.

One Lock screen must remain unlinked; that’s the one that becomes active if no Focus is engaged.

Remember, when you link a Focus to a Lock screen, it’s a two-way street: switching to that Lock screen activates that Focus and activating that Focus switches to that Lock screen.

We see two likely scenarios for creating and switching among multiple Lock screens. First, just as with the Apple Watch, you may simply enjoy the visual diversity that the feature provides. Second, if you rely on Focus, you’ll likely both switch Lock screens manually and discover that Focus has switched them for you automatically.

To switch between Lock screens manually, touch and hold the Lock screen until the switcher appears, swipe to the one you want to use, and tap it to make it active. Remember, if you have linked a Focus to a Lock screen, switching to that Lock screen automatically activates that Focus, so make sure that’s what you want.

Everything we’ve done so far has been in the context of adding new Lock screens. But you don’t have to get everything right on your first pass. When you touch and hold the Lock screen to enter the switcher, you can tap Customize to tweak a Lock screen’s settings, which includes changing photos, selecting different widgets, and adjusting the font and color of the clock.

What you can’t do is change a Lock screen’s wallpaper type, so if you’re customizing an Astronomy Lock screen, for instance, you can switch among the different views of the Earth and Moon, but you can’t turn it into an Emoji Lock screen. That’s a minor limitation, but it’s easy enough to delete a Lock screen and create a new one.

Speaking of which, deleting a Lock screen is simple:

If you’ve updated to iOS 16, what’s your opinion of the new customizable Lock screens? Which wallpaper style is your favorite? Have you created multiple Lock screens, and if so, did you do so just for variety, or is each one linked to a different Focus?

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I believe that all regions have access to all numeral types. In the USA, I can tap the globe icon and see the 3 choices.

I don’t believe that it’s possible to center a large lower widget between 2 small ones. It appears that the large widget must touch either the right or left edge of the area.

the one customisation missing is the ability to remove the flashlight and camera toggles on the lock screen. nifty for those who want them but i’m always accidentally triggering the flashlight and would like to eliminate that.

Yep, those both sound right. Widget placement needs work.

the one customisation missing is the ability to remove the flashlight and camera toggles on the lock screen. nifty for those who want them but i’m always accidentally triggering the flashlight and would like to eliminate that.

Great point. I hope they do that for iOS 17. I like the buttons, but I’d like some customization options.

Apple seems to be slowly converting private APIs into public ones. For instance, “live” content used to be exclusively for Apple’s own purposes, like the timer display on the Lock screen. Now that’s a Live Activity, which will be open for all developers soon. So it only makes sense that those buttons will get the same treatment eventually.

I am disappointed, and befuddled, that in order to customize my lock screen I have to create a new one, and presumably then have at least two of them. Seems like an unnecessary complexity – why can’t I just have one and customize it too? C’mon Apple…

After you create the new lockscreen, you can delete the inflexible one.

I am disappointed by two issues:

The inability to use an existing lockscreen as a template for a new one ( a duplicate command would make this possible).

Treating the lockscreen and home screen wallpaper as a tandem set. I have a wallpaper, not necessarily related to the lockscreen that I wish to use with every lockscreen. Having to search out and crop the photo that forms that home screen is a pain. (The wallpaper is a double waterfall cropped so that the two falls lie between columns of apps).

Thanks, Alan. In my case the Lock Screen image I’ve had for years is no longer present in Photos, but still shows up on the Lock screen. I love it, for sentimental reasons, and don’t want to lose it by deleting that screen, so I’m stuck.

And I completely agree about how odd it is that the Home wallpaper and Lock wallpaper are linked/paired. Makes no sense to me, and as you said, makes for extra work.

I agree it’s funky to have to link a Home screen wallpaper to a Lock screen. I’d suggest making an album with images you want to be able to access easily for one or the other; that way they’re easy to find using the Albums tab.

I really like the linked lock screen and home screen wallpapers. I use a stack of photos that changes hourly as a lock screen at the moment, and the home screen has a blurred version of the photo as wallpaper (and you can turn off the blur if you wish). But you can still choose a separate home screen wallpaper if you wish.

That said, I miss some of the old wallpaper images that used to exist in iOS.

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