In fact, there’s a glimmer of hope in this area. It would be really cool if you could set the Photos wallpaper to use a darkening color wash, or apply a black/white filter, when in dark mode, for instance. Hopefully, over time, Apple can include Dark Mode versions of its wallpapers again and bring back a dimming option for your own photos once again. The wallpapers ignore the system appearance setting and look the same all day long.Īs such, this is the first time since Dark Mode was introduced that the stock wallpaper does not have a dark mode look… and the bright vibrant colors of the iOS 16 stock wallpaper are particularly harsh on the eyes at night time. If you used your own photos as wallpaper, there was a “Dark Appearance Dims Wallpaper” option that would reduce the brightness of images in dark mode. On iOS 15 and earlier, most of Apple’s stock wallpapers were bundles of light and dark images, that would automatically switch to match the active system theme. Switching your iPhone to Dark Mode on iOS 16 has no effect on how wallpapers are displayed on the lock screen or home screen. You can see this in action when you transition from Home Screen to Lock Screen with a wallpaper like Astronomy the perspective of the Earth swerves toward you as you swipe up.Īll this investment into dynamism makes it even stranger that dark mode has been almost entirely forgotten about. They are dynamic and lively, and sometimes animated. The iOS 16 wallpapers are not simply static images. Here are three things missing from iOS 16 lock screen experience that hopefully Apple will bring back in a future update … Dark mode But we also lost some capabilities compared to iOS 15 in the process. We also lost a few capabilities compared to iOS 15. The iOS 16 lock screen experience is undoubtedly a big step forward compared to what we had before, with animated wallpaper options like Weather and Astronomy, a sleek overlapping effect for portrait-style photos, the addition of widgets, the ability to easily switch been multiple lock screens, and more.

Live photo as wallpaper