Samsung is so terrified of the iPhone 14 that it launched an ad campaign to mock Apple (again) right before the launch event. Samsung keeps pulling the same stunt only to copy Apple’s biggest decisions later. To that point, in a recent One UI 5 beta, Samsung basically cloned one of the best new iOS 16 features: Lock Screen customization.
The new Lock Screen experience in iOS 16 is something smartphone users who love customizing their handsets have been excited about. The Lock Screen is more exciting than ever, allowing you to add all sorts of widgets and visual effects. You can also change fonts and colors to match the static or dynamic images that act as the Lock Screen wallpaper.
Moreover, you can set up different wallpapers for each Focus mode. And each one of them can have its own widgets that are relevant in the context of that mode.
Finally, if you have an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max, you can pair the new Lock Screen with Apple’s always-on display feature for even greater utility.
Apple wasn’t the first to do this, and Android fans point out that they had access to Lock Screen widgets long before iOS 16 rolled out. But Apple built its own Lock Screen customization, giving users plenty of customization options to suit their needs.
How Samsung cloned iOS 16’s Lock Screen feature
In turn, Samsung could have come up with an original Lock Screen customization experience for its own smartphone users. Instead, Samsung just copied Apple.
Maybe there’s no other way to make a Lock Screen with widgets now that Apple released iOS 16. Perhaps Samsung had no choice but to arrange user interface elements in One UI 5 just like Apple did in iOS 16. The same goes for the available customizations.
Just like there probably wasn’t any other way to make the first Galaxy phones than to copy the iPhone pixel by pixel.
However, 9to5Mac points out that the customization options aren’t totally identical. iOS 16 offers eight clock styles for the Lock Screen, while Samsung has just five. And the wallpaper picker’s choices aren’t all that similar either.
Moreover, Apple supports more third-party widgets than Samsung. Samsung only supports notifications icons for the time being. But One UI 5 is still in beta.
What’s missing from Samsung’s iOS 16 Lock Screen clone is the Dynamic Island of the iPhone 14 Pro. Then again, iOS 16 beta 1 came out in mid-June. Samsung had plenty of time to study it. The Dynamic Island didn’t see the light of day until Apple’s iPhone 14 reveal earlier this month. We’ll likely see how Samsung responds to that feature soon but they may need to be more worried about Samsung Galaxy batteries swelling.
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