StandBy on iPhone has always felt like an underwhelming feature to me. It does turn a charging iPhone into a glanceable display. However, until now, Apple has offered fairly limited customization options. Well, that seems to be changing.
Apple’s first iOS 27.3 developer beta, released Tuesday, brings the new StandBy features. While they debuted on the iPhone Duo, they’re now available for other iPhones that support StandBy.
What’s actually new in StandBy?
Let’s start with the clocks, because they’re the first thing you see in the dark anyway. The Analog and Digital clocks have been refreshed with a wider color palette. You’ll also get more complications to choose from (or the scaled-down widgets for particular information); you can finally customize them.
Apple has also added new Calendar and Weather faces, which, I’d say, are the most obvious picks for a screen that sits beside your bed all night. As someone who works with dates a lot, I myself open the calendar a couple of times before I go to sleep.
The Photos face can now show Shared Albums as well, so your nightstand can double as a slideshow of whatever your family or friends have been adding.
Do you need an iPhone Duo to use them?
My favorite change is the quietest one: you can keep several versions of every face and switch between them. I can already picture a minimal clock for bedtime and a Calendar for the morning scramble, one swipe apart.
No, and that’s the best part of this update. The Duo still keeps one trick exclusively for itself, though. It also runs StandBy when folded open like a book or propped like a tent, even without charging.
Everyone else still needs a charger and the phone resting in a sideways position. So if your iPhone already supports StandBy, you’re the target audience.
In my experience, though, beta software and a daily phone don’t go together, so I’d wait for the public release, which should happen sometime in December.