These days, it’s not uncommon to come across stunning and thought-provoking iOS 11 concepts that aren’t necessarily feasible. Indeed, some designers, when putting together iOS 11 mockups, seem to focus on cobbling together fantastical features without ever stopping to contemplate whether or not their designs are practical or even doable. Imagining futuristic iOS 11 features can certainly be fun and entertaining, but sometimes we’ve got to take a step back and focus on iOS features Apple might actually implement.
Stepping up to the plate in this regard, Matt Birchler of Birchtree recently put together an interesting list of iOS 11 lockscreen ideas that not only seem doable, but might actually be extremely useful.
As a quick example, Birchler envisions a scenario where Apple might put weather information onto the top corner of the lock screen. Birchler reasons that many people turn on their phones to get a quick weather update so putting that information in plan view would be extremely efficient. Now I’m not sure people check their weather that often during the day, but the mockup below illustrates just one way in which Apple could take advantage of the mostly empty real estate on the iOS lock screen.
Another intriguing idea Birchler raises is threading Messages notifications on the lock screen. I’m not sure Apple will go down this route, but Birchler’s idea could easily help clean up some notification clutter on the lock screen.
Some other ideas Birchler puts forward include a smart notification system and the ability to add third-party apps to the lock screen itself, an intriguing idea to say the least.
With Apple set to unveil iOS 11 in just about three months, we curiously still haven’t heard much about what type of features Apple’s next-gen mobile OS will bring to the table, save for a few rumblings about Dark Mode, enhanced Siri support, group FaceTime chat functionality and few other minor tweaks.
The following iOS 11 concept video, this one from designer Jacek Zieba, encapsulates a few of these ideas.
