Itโs only a matter of time until our lock screens become the next hottest real estate in tech. Advertisers are upping the ante with rollout in the coming months, according to reports.
Have you ever sat peacefully with your phone locked beside you wishing it would, of its old accord, grab your attention with a fast-food offer, or a shortcut to a nifty app for filling out tax returns?
Despite my overly facetious tone, that genuinely could be a realistic prospect in the near future.
Apple recently announced that revolutionising the iPhoneโs lock screen will be a big staple of iOS16. A new feature called Live Activities will pin notifications that act like widgets to a dormant device, such as live sports scores direct from the Apple TV app.
While the tech giant is billing this simply as a way of making our lock screens more interesting than a simple security measure (boo), this is indicative of a wider Big Tech drive to find new ways of attracting consumers to their products and services.
I mean, we often talk about privacy within tech when referring to the flow of user data anyway, but this is arguably the first time our actual privacy is being monetised. For a second, imagine having a phone that is never blank.
Eerie as that thought is, this prospect is one that companies have longed weighed up and want to run with. Glance, a subsidiary company of InMobi and backed by Google, has been preparing for this moment since 2019.
As its name suggests, Glance is a software that autonomously runs background slides โ almost like the Snapchat Discover feed โ on the lock screens of Android owners. These include a rotating set of interactive โcontent cardsโ on news headlines, quizzes, games, and obviously ads. Itโs a Black Friday shopperโs dream.