iOS 15 latest features, release dates and what will change on your iPhone

While iOS 15 was announced at WWDC 2021 in June, it went through significant changes until it was released on September 20. The update focuses on three aspects – staying connected, finding focus with productivity, and privacy.

A release date for iOS 15 was confirmed at the September 14 Apple event, where the company announced the iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and other devices.

Although the public beta went live in June, some features have since been delayed to iOS 15.1, such as SharePlay.

If you’re struggling to update to iOS 15, we’ve created a guide to help you update your iPhone to the newest software.

iOS 15: cut to the chase

• What is it? The next big update for iOS
• When did it come out? September 20
• How much will it cost? It’s free

iOS 15 release date

At the September 14 event, the iPhone 13, Apple Watch 7, and the new iPad and new iPad mini all saw new releases announced, but the release date for iOS 15 wasn’t confirmed.

Apple announced after the event that iOS 15 was to be released on September 20, four days before the release of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, which it did.

Make sure to back up your device just in case before updating to iOS 15, and follow our guide for how to get iOS 15 beta on your phone. 

Of course, while we’re talking about iOS 15 here, iPadOS 15 also arrived for your iPad.

iOS 15 supported devices

As Apple’s main section on iOS 15 states, the update works with an iPhone 6S and above.

However, if you’re wondering which features are missing from an older iPhone on iOS 15, we’ve created a guide that delves deeper into this.

FaceTime improvements

Apple has brought new features to FaceTime in iOS 15, with a focus on making it easier to connect with family and friends, while improving the audio and visual quality.

Spatial audio can be used with an iPhone XS and above, 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 now able to be used, where 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, and can be accessed by others who have an Android or Windows device.

SharePlay

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 and above.

However, SharePlay is being held back for a future release of iOS 15, perhaps iOS 15.1.

Messages

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.

You can even mute notifications in group chats if you wish, individually. So if you want to mute for an hour or for a day, now you can.

Notifications

After many refinements over the years, notifications are now redesigned for iOS 15. Notification Summary is here, where these can be scheduled to appear at certain times, or even by Apple’s own machine learning algorithms.

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.

Safari

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.

Many buttons that were accessible are now hidden behind a button, so this user interface may change as we receive new betas in the coming months.

During the beta period, Safari saw a lot of design changes, which has now resulted in a design that more reflects iOS 14, with some small design improvements.

You can have the address bar to be at the top as before, or at the bottom so you can easily reach your thumb.

Live Text

You can now take a photo of text, and it will highlight it, and then copy it into a document, or even translate it. If you have any previous photos that displays any information, you can also use LiveText here, it’s not exclusive to any photos you take on iOS 15.

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

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.

Apple Wallet

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 (rolling out in the US) will also be viewable in Apple Wallet, with TSA enabling security checkpoints soon.

Other features

As shown in its breakdown of all 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 sees 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.

Widgets have seen more improvements in iOS 15, with new ones for Find My, Game Center, App Store Today, Sleep, Mail, and more.

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.

There’s plenty of small features that users are already discovering now that iOS is available.

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.