Today is Election Day in the United States, so you should be glued to the latest news about which presidential candidate is currently in the lead. To help with this, Apple has released a Live Activity widget within the Apple News app. This brings real-time election updates directly to your iPhone or iPad's home and lock screen.
Rather than providing a static view of data that doesn't change, this widget takes advantage of the ability for iOS apps to continually update the widget with new information. The feature, which Apple calls “Live Activity,” will be introduced with the release of iOS 16 in 2022 and will be useful for widgets that show updates on news, stocks, weather, and more.
To use Apple News Live Activity in the US, you must first launch the News app and tap the banner at the top of the page that provides live updates. This will display the message “A live activity has been scheduled'' indicating that you will start receiving real-time updates on both your home screen and lock screen once the event has started. (iPad added live activities to the lock screen in iOS 17.)
Image credit: Screenshot from Apple News
This widget displays real-time electoral count updates from each state in the United States.
You can also add other classic Apple News widgets from your home screen that are set to follow breaking news and 2024 Election “topics” to highlight top stories.
In addition to the Live Activity widget, the Apple News app also offers an in-app US election hub called America Votes 2024. Top election stories, how-to-vote guides to Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Minnesota on Apple News. Tap again to dig deeper into election coverage, including news stories, perspectives and analysis, and articles focused on specific campaign issues like climate, the economy, health care, immigration, and reproductive rights.
From this screen, you can also read and stay up-to-date on selected articles about Republican, Democratic, and third-party candidates.