Apple unveiled iOS 15 at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote today, and it's packed with a lot of cool new features. For example, there are going to be some huge changes coming to FaceTime and Messages, a brand new Focus feature to help lessen distractions throughout the day, big Health features, and more.
But the biggest question remains: will your current iPhone be able to run iOS 15? Apple has revealed the compatibility list for iOS 15, and it appears to be the same as iOS 14. So if you have been running iOS 14 on your iPhone, then you should have no issue with getting iOS 15. We'll break it down for you.
What iPhones were able to run iOS 14?
If you have one of these devices, you should have iOS 14 on it and it should be running smoothly without any issues.
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone SE (2020)
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11
iPhone XR
iPhone XS Max
iPhone XS
iPhone X
iPhone 8 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 6s Plus
iPhone 6s
iPhone SE (1st generation)
iPod touch (7th generation)
What iPhones will support iOS 15?
Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any changes with the compatible devices list for iOS 15 when compared to the previous generation. Here are the compatible devices for iOS 15:
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 12 Pro
iPhone 12
iPhone 12 mini
iPhone SE (2020)
iPhone 11 Pro Max
iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11
iPhone XR
iPhone XS Max
iPhone XS
iPhone X
iPhone 8 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 6s Plus
iPhone 6s
iPhone SE (1st generation)
iPod touch (7th generation)
However, since the iPhone 6s uses Apple's old A9 chip, it may not be the most optimal experience for iOS 15. If you install theiOS 15 developer betaon one of the older devices and feel that it is a little slow, then it may be time to upgrade to thebest iPhone.
FaceTime improvements
FaceTime SharePlay(Image credit: Apple)
Apple have brought new features to FaceTime in iOS 15, with a focus on being more comfortable and lifelike.
Spatial audio is coming, which means 3D audio gives the impression that your recipients are in the same room as you.
Voice isolation now focuses on your voice only, and blocks out any other ambient noise. There's also Wide Spectrum, which focuses on you and the environment around you.
There's also Grid View, which shows a group call, alongside Portrait Mode coming to the application. The background is now blurred, and focuses on you.
There's also FaceTime links, which can generate a link to help plan a call, similar to how a Google Meet link works.
SharePlay is also new in iOS 15, where you can share music, watch TV shows and movies, alongside sharing your screen, so you can show a recipient how you use a certain app.
You can also extend SharePlay to an AppleTV, which is helpful especially for a movie. This is also an API, so an app can work with this very soon.
Supported services such as Disney+, Twitch, ESPN, TikTok and more are using SharePlay for iOS 15.
Messages
(Image credit: Apple)
Another massive improvement to iOS 15, group chats now gain collages, as a way to easily display multiple images.
Shared with You in the News app shows what your friends have shared with you, such as links, and they can be easily copied into a Messages chat. It's also available in Safari, Music and more apps.
There's also statuses, which look very similar to WhatsApp and other messaging apps.
Notifications
(Image credit: Apple)
After many refinements over the years, notifications are now redesigned for iOS 15. Notification Summary is now here, where these can be scheduled to appear at certain times, or even by Apple's own machine learning algorithms.
This looks to replace Notification Center, with better management for all your notifications on your iPhone.
Do Not Disturb is also part of the improvements here, with it showing for your friends and family if they have it switched on themselves.
Focus is also another feature for Notification Summary, which recommends you on your lock screen to let you know of certain apps, dependant on your calendar and even your location.
Apple are pushing Intelligence as a big part of this, which looks to be their renamed machine learning methods, such as for Siri Suggestions.
Safari
Safari sees a redesign in iOS 15(Image credit: Apple)
Apple's web browser has seen a big redesign in iOS 15, with extensions being carried over from macOS, to the iPhone.
The address bar is now at the bottom, with gestures to easily switch between different tabs and go back to a full screen view, alongside a pull to refresh web window, similar to refreshing your mail or even your tweets, now in Safari.
There's also a new home screen, which you can customize to your liking and even choose your own photos.
Live Text
(Image credit: Apple)
Craig Federighi also demoed a feature where you can take a photo of text, and it will highlight it, and then copy it into a document, or even translate it. This is a direct competitor to Google Lens and looks to be very convenient if you take many photos or you have a holiday booked.
Photos
(Image credit: Apple)
Photos are now in Spotlight suggestions, so you can look for someone in particular who are in a photo you've recently taken.
There's also improvements to intelligent Photos called Memories, where it creates new slideshows and carousels of photo collections with music, and it even shows the music being played during this.
Other features
(Image credit: Apple)
Apple Wallet has seen another improvement in iOS 15, with CarKey gaining U1 support, which allows you to unlock your car, or even open your trunk.
There's also the ability to enter your workplace or home with Wallet, and soon, hotels such as Hyatt will be enabling this feature for iOS 15 enabled devices.
Identity cards such as driving licences (in the US) will also be viewable in Apple Wallet, with TSA enabling security checkpoints soon.
As shown in its breakdown ofall iOS 15 features, the magnifier is now back when you highlight text, making it much easier to see the letters and words that you want to manipulate.
The weather app is now redesigned, taking advantage of the Dark Sky acquisition from last year, with more detailed and more accurate weather, with high-resolution weather maps to see the state of the weather around you.
There's now notifications for when rain or snow is about to occur in the next hour, and you can even mute certain cities that you've added from within the app, to control the amount of alerts you may get from however many cities you've added.
The Maps app is seeing some useful improvements in iOS 15, with new details for commercial districts and buildings. Elevations and a refreshed color scheme has also arrived, with landmarks being particularly highlighted.
Drivers are also gaining a refined look when setting routes from one destination to another, making it even easier to look at highway interchanges and upcoming traffic conditions.
You can now create favorites to your transit routes, so you can make sure of your commute, and even when you're in the subway, Maps will track your progress, and let you know of the next stop.
(Image credit: Apple)
Widgets have seen more improvements this year, with new ones for Find My, Game Center, App Store Today, Sleep, Mail, and more.
(Image credit: Apple)
With Shortcuts now available on macOS Monterey, it also means that any you create or edit can now be synced to your iPhone on iOS 15, so you can carry on the work on your Mac.
(Image credit: Apple)
There's plenty of small features that users are already discovering now that the developer beta is here.
Your DualSense or Xbox Controller can now have their rumble features be used when playing a game in iOS 15, so your games can be much easier to control if there's a plethora of controls that are covering your iPhone's touch screen.
When selecting a date and time for when you're setting an alarm, or an event in Calendar, you can now scroll through these times as you could in previous iOS releases. Now, you have the choice of scrolling or typing in the date and time you need to add.
You can now pull to refresh in the redesigned Safari, alongside muting notifications in an app or a Messages thread for either an hour or a day, similar to how you can mute chats in WhatsApp.
With drag and drop now in iOS 15, you can select a photo from Files, and drop it into an email for example, making it much easier to share your files and photos between applications.
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