What’s new in iOS 15?

Apple has finally announced iOS 15 and it brings with it a bunch of new features. Right now, iOS 15 is available as a developer beta with a public beta launching in July. Meanwhile, Apple will release iOS 15 for the general public in the fall, alongside the rumoured iPhone 13.

In this blog post, I’ll briefly discuss the new features included in iOS 15.

Let’s see them!🤩

FaceTime and SharePlay

Apple’s video-calling app is receiving some of the largest upgrades this year that turn it more into video conferencing services like Zoom and Google Meet.

• Video calls sound more natural, with FaceTime using spatial audio to space out sounds based on where your friends are on the grid view of a group call, making it feel more like you’re all in a room.
• Voice isolation: iOS now detects background noise and tries to suppress it so that you can hear your friends and family members more easily. That’s an optional feature, which means that you can disable it in case you’re showing a concert during a FaceTime call for instance.
• FaceTime links to share and invite others to a video chat, and these can be added to your calendar. Those with the link can join these calls through Google Chrome or Microsoft’s Edge browser even if they’re using an Android phone or a Windows laptop, and the calls are still end-to-end encrypted.
• There’s a Portrait mode — like the similar feature in the Camera app, it keeps your face in focus but blurs out your messy room in the background.

• Users can now share experiences with SharePlay while connecting with friends on FaceTime, including listening to songs together with Apple Music, watching a TV show or movie in sync, or sharing their screen to view apps together.
• Supported services such as Disney+, Twitch, ESPN, TikTok and more are using SharePlay for iOS 15.
• You can also extend SharePlay to an AppleTV, which is helpful especially for a movie. Apple also said third-party apps are going to support SharePlay with help of new SharePlay API🤯

Messages

iMessage in iOS 15 will let users quickly find articles, photos, and more that are shared in chats and group chats.

• There are new collage and stack designs for photos, letting users swipe through them, tap to see full screen, and react.
• Shared With You sections will appear in Apple News, Apple Music, Photos, Safari, Podcasts, and other apps to conveniently surface links or media sent by friends.
• Shared photos can be automatically brought over to the library, while filtering for screenshots and memes that you don’t want to save.
• Shared media can be pinned for easier retrieval, and will also surface in systemwide search.

Focus and Notification Summary

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the endless list of notifications on your iPhone, well, worry no longer. In iOS 15, notifications have a new look and some new ways to manage them.

• There are contact photos for your messages, larger icons for notifications that come from apps, and a new Do Not Disturb mode to silence all notifications.
• The systemwide Do Not Disturb mode can now be used to show an away status in the Messages app. Users sending an iMessage will see that you won’t immediately be notified, but will be able to override to get through if they need to urgently.
• It will use AI to suggest one of four modes: Do Not Disturb, Personal, Work, and Sleep.You can choose between profiles like Work, Personal, and Sleep, (or create up to 10 Focuses) and your home screen will show apps and widgets related to the respective mode.

• iOS 15‌ also introduces Notification summary, which uses on-device machine learning to automatically populate notifications based on priority in a new lock-screen design.
• A new notification summary collects non-time-critical notifications for delivery at a more opportune time, such as in the morning and evening.
• Urgent messages will be delivered immediately, so important communications will not end up in the summary, and it’s easy to temporarily mute any app or messaging thread for the next hour or for the day.

Live Text , Spotlight and Photos Memories

Live Text is a new feature that uses on-device intelligence to recognise text in a photo that users can search for, highlight, and copy it.
Spotlight now uses intelligence to search photos by location, people, scenes, or objects.

• Point your camera app at anything with text, and it will highlight the text, making it ready for you to easily copy it and paste it to another app. This works for images with text in your Photos library too — just swipe your finger across any line of text to copy it.
• If there’s a phone number in the photo or an address, Live Text will turn it into a link so you can tap it.Phone numbers launch in the phone dialer and addresses launch in Maps. Translation can be done quickly too, to or from 7 language supported by Apple’s other translation tools.
• Spotlight now offers web image search and all-new rich results for actors, musicians, TV shows, and movies.

• Photos Memories has a fresh new look including animated cards with smart, adaptive titles, new animation and transition styles, and multiple image collages for a cinematic feel.
• There are hundreds of new songs and if you’re a subscriber to Apple Music, you can choose from that library of songs, too.The Memories making tool will suggest songs from Apple Music that were popular at the time or place, or that you listened to while traveling.You can customise your memory as well as you want.

Digital Wallet

CarKey was released back in iOS 13.6, but doesn’t have a ton of support yet. With iOS 15, you can add additional keys. Add a home key if you use a smart lock, an access card you may use to enter your office, or a hotel room key and yes, you will be able to tap your Apple Watch to enter your room.

• You can add your driver’s license and state ID to Wallet on your iPhone and a paired Apple Watch and present them securely at TSA checkpoints.It’s encrypted and stored in the Secure Element, so nobody ever collects that data (not even Apple).

Maps

Apple Maps continues to improve. The new mapping data was a big step, and will continue to spread to more countries over the coming year, but the app itself will get lots of new features, too.

• When navigating using iPhone or CarPlay, Maps features a three-dimensional city-driving experience with new road details that help users better see and understand important details like turn lanes, medians, bike lanes, and pedestrian crosswalks.
• If you ride public transit, Maps will tell you when to get off your stop, and if you don’t know which way to head once off the bus or outside the subway station, just point your phone at the buildings in front of you to have Apple’s augmented reality point the way. It’s similar to AR Live View in Google Maps.
• At nighttime, 3D buildings on the map feature a moonlight glow that doesn’t add much function, but looks really cool.

Safari

Safari gets a new design that makes controls easier to reach with one hand and puts content front and center.

• The URL bar is now situated on the bottom, and it hides away when you scroll to maximize your screen’s real estate.
• You can swipe through tabs easily and group them together.
• Customize the start page to make it your own. You can set a background image and select new sections to display, like Privacy Report, Siri Suggestions, and Shared with You. Customizations sync across devices, so you can have the same Safari everywhere.

Weather and Notes Apps

The Weather app has a fresh design with more detailed graphics, a background that more precisely changes to current weather conditions, plus access to high-resolution weather maps.

• There’s also new animated backgrounds that more accurately reflect the sun’s position and notifications highlight when rain or snow starts and stops.

• The Notes app can support for hashtags and @ mentions to organise and notify participants.
• There’s new activity view that lets you see all previous action in a shared note.

Privacy

iOS 15 update will give iPhone users even more insight and control over their own data.

• With App Privacy Report, showing how location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts have been accessed in the last seven days and which domains have been contacted. This will finally give the average user a way to see who else their apps are sharing their data with, though it doesn’t do anything to stop that sharing from happening in the first place.
• Two of the new features are only available for iCloud subscribers.
  Private Relay: When you use Safari, your traffic is encrypted and routed through two relays, which means no one can intercept it.
  Hide My Email: which will let you generate a fake email address for the many websites that now force you to enter one just to use or read them, or make you sign up for accounts.Those emails will then go to your real email inbox, but the website won’t know your real email address.
• If you don’t have an iCloud(+) subscription and don’t want to or can’t pay for one, you’ll still have a free Safari privacy update that hides your IP address from trackers on websites you visit.

Health

“Many people around the world are caring for someone, and we want to provide a secure and private way for users to have a trusted partner on their health journey,” Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said in a statement.

• If you want to give your doctor a peek at your stats, iOS 15 will let you share things like heart rate, detected falls, hours of sleep, or exercise minutes. Your doctor will need to be part of a participating healthcare organisation.

Other New Features

• Find My
  introduces new capabilities to help locate a device that has been turned off or erased, as well as live-streaming locations for family and friends who choose to share their location.
  Separation Alerts notify a user if they leave an AirTag, Apple device, or Find My network accessory behind in an unfamiliar location.
• Siri
  Siri adds Announce Notifications on AirPods, the ability for users to share what’s on their screen just by asking, and more.
• Memoji
  iOS 15 features a wide range of new Memoji outfits, new glasses, multicolored headwear, support for two different eye colors, and new Memoji stickers.

Reference link: https://developer.apple.com/ios/

Thanks for reading this blog. I hope to see you again in the upcoming blog!

Let us know about your favourite new feature in the comments below👇