This week we learned about a new way Apple plans to let us use the always-on display of the iPhone 14 Pro in iOS 17. If you’ve ever wanted your iPhone to display more information panels in landscape, you’re in luck.
I hope there are other updates to customize the default lock screen. In particular, there is one thing about the lock screen version of Photo Shuffle in iOS 16 that I hope will change in iOS 17.
Apple does a good job of updating photos in your library, allowing you to see them in context. Shuffle photo lock screen is not one of those examples.
Do not misunderstand me. This is a great feature. I recently started using a shuffle photo lock screen that fetches my kids’ photos and cycles through them every hour. Not every photo makes a great wallpaper, but I’m always in awe of what photos she finds.
Sometimes it has a photo that I think is especially nice to use. Other times, he chooses photos that are really funny in context, but shouldn’t be used for long.
There were many opportunities to embarrass my kids by showing them which photo would be shown for the hour. More often I show them a pleasant memory of them when they were much younger, which surprises them.
To be honest, the photo shuffle lock screen has been surprisingly good at retrieving photos from my library that I might actually want to show off.
Sometimes it even demonstrates that framing someone’s face in a group shot actually makes for a good portrait shot. These are really the ones I want to dig out of my photo library, duplicate and crop.
But as far as I can tell, and I wish I was wrong, there is no way to go from the lock screen in shuffle to the photo provided in your library. My workaround was to take a screenshot of my lock screen as a reminder to come back and find that photo. You can also view photos of specific people based on faces, but finding the exact photo you want is still tricky.
If I’m right in thinking I’m not mistaken, I hope Apple took this into account when preparing iOS 17. I found out about this quite late, but I’m sure others noticed it much earlier.
Update! Wish fulfilled! There is a way! Five presses are clumsy and probably too many, so the photo icon next to the settings button after one long press might work better.
You really can do it. Go to the wallpaper selection screen, tap “Customize”, then “Lock Screen”, then tap the 3 dots in the bottom right corner, and the top option is “Show photo in library”.
— Brian (@briggio) May 26, 2023