Tim Cook talks about the new iPhones at the Apple event on September 14, 2021.
Nathan Mattise
The next major release of the operating system for iPhones, iOS 15, will arrive on September 20, Apple announced at its product event on Tuesday. iPadOS 15 will arrive on compatible tablets on the same day and watchOS 8 will be available for Apple Watch.
iOS and iPadOS 15 bring several new features and design changes to the iPhone and iPad. iPadOS 15 allows widgets to reside on the home screen instead of relegating them to their own dedicated screen. The new multitasking controls make it easy to launch and control multiple applications simultaneously. Notifications have been redesigned and a new notification summary view tries to show more relevant notifications at a given time.
The new features are closely linked to Focus, which allows you to create profiles for work, family time, games, or other categories. You’ll see different apps and notifications in each Focus view, and the currently selected Focus syncs between devices.
iOS and iPadOS 15 include several apps redesigned by Apple, such as Safari and Weather. There are also many new or improved AI-related features throughout the operating system, such as the ability to type semantic search terms and show you photos that contain any objects you’ve typed. The “human” digital zoom and zoom followed by AI, called Center Stage and formerly limited to the iPad Pro, now also reaches the iPad Mini.
watchOS 8 offers new clock faces and new ways to view and share photos with the Apple Watch, as well as improved text editing, support for new smart home features, and new ways to use Wallet, among others functions. The update adds fall detection to cycling and improved support for e-bikes, with better detection of the amount of work humans and e-bikes do, to make more accurate calorie burning calculations.
iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and watchOS 8 will be free updates for compatible devices when they are released.