Apple Releases iOS 16.5 With New Pride Wallpaper, Sports Tab in Apple News, More: All New Features

iOS 16.5 alongside the iPadOS 16.5 was released by Apple on Thursday. The update consists of multiple bug fixes alongside a few new features. This new iOS update introduces a new Pride section in the inbuilt wallpaper editor. The iPadOS update does not get the Pride wallpapers, but comes with other significant visual changes. Earlier this week, the Cupertino-based tech giant unveiled a fresh set of accessibility features including Assistive Access, Live Speech, and Personal Voice among others to assist disabled or impaired Apple product users. The features are expected to roll out later this year.

The iOS 16.5 update with the build number 20F66 introduces a new Pride Celebration selection of wallpapers claiming to honour the LGBTQ+ community and culture. These new wallpapers are offered in both light and dark mode variants and also include dynamic animations, making them more vibrant.

iOS 16.5 update

This update also integrates the Following and Search tabs in the Apple News app on iPhone into one single tab. It also adds a new Sports tab in the News app and as the name suggests it enables iPhone users to access relevant sports news faster by navigating stories, scores, standings, and more, for teams and leagues that the users choose to follow. 

More additions in the Sports section in Apple News include My Sports score and schedule cards that gives users direct access to game pages, which hold additional information regarding specific games.

Spotlight and Podcasts in CarPlay issues have also been fixed in the iOS 16.5 update. It also offers a bug fix to Screen Time settings, that would previously reset or not sync the features across all Apple devices. The iOS 16.5 update is available for all models starting from iPhone 8 and later.

The iPadOS 16.5 update, on the other hand, does not come with the new Pride Wallpapers, but it gets the similar Sports section updates in the Apple News app. Similar fixes for Spotlight and Screen Time settings issues are also offered for iPad users. The update is available for all iPad Pro models, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later.

Apple also released the macOS Ventura 13.4 update, which along with the Apple News features and Screen Time settings, also offers fixes for Auto Unlock with Apple Watch, Bluetooth keyboard connection, and VoiceOver issues.

In a minor update, the watchOS 9.5 release also includes bug fixes and adds the new Pride Celebration to the watch face on compatible Apple Watch models.