The Latest Innovation, Only Through The Phone Lock Screen Advertisers Can Now Influence Us

JAKARTA - Your phone lock screen is the hottest new real estate in technology. Apple is now making the iPhone lock screen the core of iOS 16, giving users more control over how they look and work.

But when Apple talks about gorgeous clock fonts and color-matched wallpapers, they're also showing off a world where your lock screen is more than just a security measure. The lock screen is now another surface where companies can place information, apps, and even ads. Apple isn't the only company thinking about this either.

TechCrunch reports that Glance, a lock screen content company is now in talks with US carriers and plans to launch several Android phones in the US in the next two months.

The competition is now out of the app and onto your home screen, via widgets and notifications. Now it looks like it goes one step further: to the first thing you see when you turn on your phone, before you even pick it up or open it.

If you've never seen a device running Glance before, one way to think of this app is like the Snapchat Discover feed on your phone's lock screen. The company presents a rotating series of news headlines, videos, quizzes, games and photos that pop up every time your phone screen turns on. Glance calls these content cards “glances”, naturally, and says the average user consumes these gazes 65 times a day.

Of course, all of them are filled with advertisements. Glance is a subsidiary of InMobi Group, an Indian advertising technology company. They have partnerships with a number of manufacturers, including Samsung and Xiaomi, and the company says its software is built into more than 400 million phones across Asia. Google is an investor in the company, and so is Peter Thiel.

As quoted from The Verge, Glance or something like that is a very sensible idea. You don't need to be constantly logging in and out of apps looking for news and information, you don't even need to unlock your phone. You can simply trust your device to bring you something interesting every time you turn it on.

Apple has echoed this idea, too, talking about how they see a more feature-rich lock screen as a way to help you use your phone less. Apple's head of software, Craig Federighi, calls the lock screen "the face of your phone." He says that features like Live Activity can make it easier to get quick information without having to unlock your phone and expose yourself to all the distractions on it.

“If you can get the answer at a glance, then you won't unlock it,” he says, “and once you unlock your phone, you almost forget why you were there in the first place!”

But by opening up this space, these companies offer apps and advertisers the opportunity to get closer to you. Developers will definitely build Live Activities that last long after they're done to be useful, better to grab yours every time your phone boots up.

Platforms will find ways to attract more of their content to the lock screen, trying to connect you to the feed before you even hit a button.

In general, most users don't change their settings, and you should trust the developers to use it to their advantage.

“Consumers will move from looking for content to consuming what is shown to them,” InMobi CEO Naveen Tewari told Forbes at Glance's launch.

Most importantly, the future of apps like Glance is a way to further transform smartphones into consumer-only devices.

At first glance there will certainly be competition, but this is already a good example of where this is all going. In June, Glance Live Fest was held, a virtual three-day festival that takes place entirely on the user's lock screen.

It streams interactive concerts and challenges, live tutorials and interviews, and a wealth of live shopping content, to over 70 million users. It's like a music festival of choice, where you're taken every time someone texts you. It sounds annoying, frustrating, and downright exhausting.