How to Get a 3D Lock Screen on your iPhone (iOS 26 Public Beta)

Hi, it’s Jacob here, and in today’s short QuickTip, I’m going to show you how you can use a new feature of your lock screen on iOS 26, which gives you a 3D photo. As you turn your phone, it looks like you’re right there in the scene — it’s really cool!

Here on my lock screen, I’ve got a photo of myself in California last month at the conference. At the moment, it’s just a regular flat image, which I could have used in any version of iOS from the last few years.

But with that photo chosen, I can press the new Spatial Scene button in the bottom right-hand corner here, where I’m pointing now. It’s going to extract the foreground and background to create a kind of 3D parallax effect.

Here you can see as I tilt my iPhone, the picture has layers to it. It has depth and has zoomed in on what it thinks is the key part of the photo. I don’t really want myself as my lock screen — this is just for demo purposes — but if I use two fingers to pinch out and reposition the image, I can choose the exact part I want, and that 3D spatial effect will still be there.

Then, when I press Done and finish the customisation, every time I pick up my phone or tilt it slightly, that image looks really 3D.

It’s a really fun, neat effect that’s new with iOS 26. If you’d like to see what else is new, please do check out my channel down below — there are loads of QuickTips waiting for you there!