- Apple News provides real-time updates on the US elections via live activity
- Alerts will appear on iPhone and Apple Watch
- You can enable Live Activities lock screen widgets in Settings
It’s Election Day in the United States and it’s clear from social media and our conversations with our American colleagues that stress levels are reaching fever pitch as they wait to see who will emerge victorious in the presidential race . However, for people who feel like they’re not stressed enough yet or for those who really have no interest in sleeping tonight, Apple News is able to provide iPhone and Apple Watch users with updates. real-time election updates via live activities.
Live Activities uses lock screen notifications, banners, and Dynamic Island to display up-to-date information about a live event or activity, like the score of a sports game, the distance to your Uber driver, or the results of the 2024 US presidential election.
So if you turn it on, you can spend your election night with a constant visual reminder of which candidate is leading with a live election count – with the lock screen widget also giving you quick access to more in-depth election coverage.
How to enable live activities
While they’re not for everyone, if you want to enable live activity reporting for the US election (or other events), here’s what you need to do.
First, go to your iPhone’s Settings app, find the “Face ID & Passcode” section, enter your passcode when prompted, and under the “Allow access when locked” subsection , enable live activities if you haven’t already – this will enable the app. Live Activities Lock Screen Widget.
Next, you’ll need to open Apple News on election night, then tap the “Follow the 2024 Elections Live” banner and turn on Live Activity. The banner should either appear on your homepage (perhaps under Top Stories), or you can find it by navigating to the “Election 2024” special coverage.
Phones without Dynamic Island (iPhone 14 and earlier, ignoring iPhone 14 Pro) will still get the lock screen widget, but they won’t see the constant live countdown at the top of their screen. As for Apple Watch users, once you enable Live Activity, it should automatically appear on your smartwatch provided it’s running watchOS 11.
It’s not yet clear how long Apple News will keep the activity live, but it could last for a while. Some presidential results were announced within hours, others took days while states confirmed their scores for each candidate. If at any point you want to turn it off before the activity ends, simply find the Apple News banner and turn off the live activity by tapping on it again.