Just when you thought there was little Apple could do to improve upon the huge changes it implemented in iOS 14, Cupertino this week announced several impressive updates and new features coming to its mobile OS in iOS 15.
FaceTime updates lead the news here, but accessibility, privacy, web browsing, translation, home automation, Maps, and Weather improvements are also on tap.
Many of the features will arrive across Apple’s various platforms—including the new macOS Monterey, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8—in the fall. Until then, here are some of the top features we’re excited to try out.
FaceTime
Many of the new features coming to FaceTime have long been available from competing video chat offerings like Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Zoom—things like background blur, grid view, and background noise reduction.
What’s most astounding, coming from Apple, is that you’ll be able to use FaceTime on Android and Windows. This is an unheard of move from the company, which favors a proprietary, walled-garden approach. Sadly, Apple still refuses to open up iMessage to other platforms.
Also coming to FaceTime is SharePlay, which takes a page from Facebook’s Watch Together to let those on FaceTime simultaneously take in a flick on video-streaming services like Disney+ and Hulu or listen to music on Apple Music. Apple TV users can also partake in the fun.
Focus
You’ve long been able to set quiet time for your iPhone with the Do Not Disturb feature, which stops notifications, calls, and message dings. With iOS 15, Apple expands on this, with Focus, which offers not just one but four ways to step away from your phone. It will use AI to suggest one of four modes: Do Not Disturb, Personal, Work, and Sleep. The middle two let you use designated apps (for which you can create a special home screen) just for work or family time.
Notifications
Apple has tweaked notifications on the iPhone often over the years, and for iOS 15, the company goes so far as to claim a “New Notification Experience.” But don’t worry, they don’t look that different. The most noticeable updates are the addition of contact photos where available and larger app icons for easier identification. The new system can also prioritize notifications and deliver them in batches so as not to disturb you with unimportant trivia, and your iMessage contacts will see if you’re in Focus mode before they send a message.
Shared with You
Messages in iOS 15 will enable some cross app sharing, with the new Shared with You feature. For example, if a contact shares a photo, you can open it in Photos. Ditto for songs with Apple Music, news items and Apple News, and podcasts and Apple Podcasts.
Maps
This mobile necessity app gets an update seemingly at every Apple Event, but what Apple showed at WWDC 2021 looks truly next-level. Expect 3D views for overpasses (always a bane for map apps), realistic-looking night views, and lots more local details. A cool new feature for public transit users will show them exactly where to enter those underground mazes, and will alert them when it’s time to get off.
Weather
You have plenty of options for weather apps, but Apple is hoping that its built-in one can pry you away from Weather.com or Yahoo Weather. The home screen looks pretty much the same, but now you get animated maps and backgrounds that change to reflect the time of day.
Live Text
This is actually one of the cooler new features in iOS 15, even though it pulls from existing technologies. You’ll be able to point the phone at a sign with a phone number and jump right to the phone app. The Camera app can convert text in an image to actual text you can copy and paste. You can also search based on images, finding info about art or performers, for example.
Notes App
The Notes app gains support for hashtags and @ mentions to organize and notify participants. It also has a new Activity view that lets you see all previous action in a shared note.
Safari
Safari finally gets a new tab view—its longtime stack view was my least favorite of any browser. There’s also a new tab bar at the bottom of the screen that eases one-handed site switching. A new Tab Groups features is reminiscent of Microsoft Edge’s more-powerful Collections feature (also available on iOS). It lets you save a group of sites and syncs them to your other Apple devices. Unlike Collections, it doesn’t let you add notes or output to documents. One big feather in the new iOS Safari’s cap, however, is extensions for the mobile browser—something that’s unfortunately far from universal.
Privacy
In a continued bid to differentiate itself from Android (which has also added some strong privacy features in recent versions), Apple is adding yet more privacy features to iOS 15. A big one is Siri’s on-device speech recognition. This stops your spoken requests to Siri from going over the internet, that land of privacy vulnerability. The iPhone’s newer, stronger CPUs no doubt play a role in this local machine learning capability.
Another new privacy feature is the Privacy Report, which shows you the personal data each app you have installed is collecting. Apple has already irked internet marketers by encouraging users to turn off app tracking, and this may push you to uninstall offending apps and use Apple’s own instead. But any transparency about how your private info is used is a good thing.
The Mail app also gets a privacy update: It will shield your IP address and read receipts from those who email you.
Health
Apple Health is a free service that runs on every iPhone, showing you how many steps you’ve taken along with lots of other physical data. The iOS 15 update will let you share this data with your physician or trusted family member. A new walking steadiness metric in the app can warn you if you’re likely to suffer a fall, and Respiratory Rate informs you if breathing patterns change.
Keys and Wallet
You no longer have to be lucky enough to own a BMW that works with Apple CarKey to unlock with Apple. With iOS 15, you may be able to unlock your home, office, or even a hotel room with the Apple Wallet functionality. Wallet will also be able to serve as your official government ID; you can scan in your driver’s license, and several states have already signed up to honor it. Even the TSA is working on letting you use this smartphone ID for travel.
