Google shares customizable lock screen icons for iOS 16

iOS 16 is officially rolling out today after last week’s debut of the iPhone 14 and above series. Following this, Google has announced customizable lock screen icons and widgets for the new iOS 16.

The blog post shares a sneak peek of the features in the making; these include customizable icons of Google search, Google Maps, Gmail, and other Google apps. With the update, iOS 16 users will be able to access Google Search right from their lock screens, use the Google Translate feature, or get help completing various tasks.

There is also a set of Google Chrome icons that let users open Incognito tabs, play the Dino game on Chrome, complete a voice search or simply open a Chrome tab from their lock screen. The company also shared Drive icons that display shared Google Drive files, starred files, or folders. Google claims the capability will allow users to open the project from where they left it.

Additionally, Google added the Google Maps lock screen widget that tells estimated time of arrival (ETA) and traffic updates and lets users start navigation to their desired destination from their Google Maps lock screen icon.

Lastly, the company disclosed the Google News and Gmail icons. The Gmail lock screen icon displays the number of unread emails and can be customized to show the respective categories the emails belong to. iPhone users can also read news headlines from the Google News widget. These features will be coming out to iOS in the coming weeks; users can customize these icons by tapping and holding down their lock screens.