Apple Seeds iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 Release Candidates to Developers for Final Testing

Apple on Tuesday seeded the release candidates of the iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 updates to developers.

The release candidates are available to developers through the Apple Developer Center or over the air on devices with the proper configuration installed.

Clean Energy Charging

iOS 16.1 adds a toggle to enable “Clean Energy Charging” which is designed to lessen the iPhone’s carbon footprint when charging the device.

The “Battery” section of the Settings app, includes a “Clean Energy Charging” toggle switch that when enabled, selectively charges your device when lower carbon emission electricity is available in an effort to provide a more green charging method.

Apple says that the ‌iPhone‌ will still receive a full charge before it’s needed based on a user’s daily routine, and the feature can be toggled off if desired. The feature is enabled by default.

Apple’s official release notes are as follow:

This update introduces iCloud Shared Photo Library making it easy to keep your family photos up to date. This release also adds support for third party apps in Live Activities, support for Apple Fitness+ on iPhone even if you don’t have an Apple Watch, and includes other features and bug fixes for your iPhone.

iCloud Shared Photo Library
– Separate library for seamlessly sharing photos and videos with up to five other people
– Setup rules allow you to easily contribute past photos based on start date or people in the photos when you set up or join a library
– Library filters for quickly switching between viewing the Shared Library, your Personal Library, or both libraries together
– Shared edits and permissions let everyone add, edit, favorite, caption, and delete photos
– Sharing toggle in Camera lets you choose to send photos you take straight to the Shared Library, or enable a setting to share automatically when other participants are detected nearby using Bluetooth

Live Activities
– Live Activities from third party apps are available in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen for iPhone 14 Pro models

Fitness+
– Apple Fitness+ is supported on iPhone even if you don’t have an Apple Watch

Wallet
– Key sharing enables you to securely share car, hotel room, and other keys in Wallet using messaging apps such as Messages and WhatsApp
– Savings account enables Apple Card customers to grow their Daily Cash by depositing it in a high yield savings account

Home
– Matter, the new smart home connectivity standard, is supported enabling a wide variety of smart home accessories to work together across ecosystems

Clean Energy Charging
– New setting that can try to reduce your carbon footprint by selectively charging when lower carbon emission electricity is available

Books
– Reader controls are automatically hidden as you start reading

This update also includes bug fixes for your iPhone:
– Deleted conversations may appear in the conversations list in Messages
– Dynamic Island content is not available when using Reachability
– CarPlay may fail to connect when using a VPN app