iPhone 14 Pro Always-On Display
It’s such an Apple simplification to show the exact same lock screen whether the phone is awake or not. It’s so similar that it is a stretch to even describe it as a “mode”. It’s just your lock screen, dimmed.
I like it. It’s the same way the Apple Watch works, it makes sense to me. When you invest in customising your lock screen using all the new widgets, dynamic wallpapers, font and colour options available in iOS 16, you get to enjoy your personalisation choices (quite literally) all day long on the iPhone 14 Pro. It feels like you have made the phone your own. The always-on feature also benefits from the iOS 16 maximised album art lock screen view, adding a splash of colour and vitality when your phone would otherwise be sitting dormant on your desk. The ability to glance at notifications and widgets adds some degree of utility, but it’s mostly just nice-to-have the screen stay on. Screen and battery technology have advanced to make it possible, so why shouldn’t phones work this way?
Of course, personal preference matters a lot here. Indeed, it’s never a good look when a significant portion of the initial embargoed reviews mentioned they turned off the feature entirely — arguably disabling one third of the Pro-exclusive features this generation — because they found the permanent aliveness of Apple’s always-on implementation too distracting. Some people simply prefer a simpler, muted, always-on state.
The OS integration does feel a little incomplete. Obviously, some people want an option to get an Android-like always-on mode, where it just shows the time on a wholly black background. I don’t care for that so much but I do want a little more flexibility in how I am allowed to conditionally enable or disable always-on.
As I already said, I happen to like the feature as-is — but I don’t want the screen to shine brightly through the night whilst I’m trying to sleep, if only to avoid unnecessary battery drain. As of right now, the only way to get the screen to turn off at night is to use the Sleep Focus mode. The Sleep Focus is blessed with abilities other Focuses are not, and turning off always-on is one of them. I don’t do sleep tracking and I don’t really want to have a Focus-oriented device lifestyle. Until I got my 14, I had stuck to the pre-iOS 15 binary system of Do Not Disturb, or nothing. I have resorted to using Sleep, but I shouldn’t have to. Why can’t I set it so that Do Not Disturb also tames the always-on display?