How to adjust Live Activities updates in iOS 16.2
Knowing how to adjust Live Activity updates in iOS 16.2 can increase the frequency with which these alerts check for new information so that sports scores, delivery locations, and other data are transferred to your phone more quickly. Conversely, you can also compensate for more battery life by reducing the frequency of such updates. It’s all just a matter of knowing where to go in the Settings app.
As you may remember, Live Activities started with the iOS 16.1 update. These are alerts that appear on your lock screen – or if you have an iPhone 14 Pro model, in your Dynamic Island – giving you regular updates on an ever-changing status. Some of our favorite live activities involve workout timers and brainstorming sessions, although other live activities provide updates on sports scores, flight information and weather conditions.
iOS 16.2 adds the ability to adjust the frequency of Live Activity updates so that those alerts pull real-time information with greater frequency. The trade-off is that your battery may drain faster with more frequent updates enabled.
So you have a choice to make – get more frequent updates for live activities or conserve battery life? Fortunately, you can make that call on an app-by-app basis, as the update rate setting is contained in Settings for each app that supports Live Activities.
As of this writing, many third-party apps have yet to receive updates to support Live Activity Frequency settings for iOS 16.2. But some built-in iOS apps have the feature, so we can use it to show you how to customize Live Activity updates in iOS 16.2.
1. Start settings.
2. Scroll down to the app whose Live Activity rate you want to adjust. In this example we select the TV app.
3. Scroll to the Live Activities setting and tap on it.
4. On the subsequent page, make sure that slide the More frequent updates switch to the right.
While in Settings, you may want to make sure that the Live Activities feature is enabled so that updates appear on your iPhone’s lock screen. Here’s how to do it.
1. From the main settings screen, select Face ID and Passcode. You will be asked to enter your password.
2. Scroll to the Allow access when locked section of the subsequent screen, and make sure that Live Activities is turned on.
And that’s all you need to do to make sure that Live Events will appear on your lock screen on the frequency you choose.
Want to get the most out of iOS 16? Our iOS 16 feature guide shows you how to get started with many of the new features this software update brings to the table, like the ability to customize your lock screen or change the way notifications appear on your iPhone.
If you’re interested in iOS 16.2-specific features, we have a guide to the new Apple Music Sing feature added for Apple Music subscribers. We can also walk you through how to enable the new Advanced Data Protection feature for iCloud.
