All the Top Features Coming to Your iPhone This Fall

This fall, you'll be able to add your driver's license to your Apple Wallet, listen to a new album with your friends through FaceTime, and customize your iPhone's home screen to only show work apps and notifications when you're on the clock.

These new features are a part of iOS 15, the newest version of Apple's mobile operating system for iPhones, which it debuted at the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, June 7. The event was virtual just like last year, due to the pandemic.  

Apple's video-calling app is receiving some of the largest upgrades this year that turn it more into videoconferencing services like Zoom and Google Meet. For starters, there's a grid view for multi-person chats that works like Zoom's conference calls. 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. You can also create 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 any web browser even if they're using an Android phone or a Windows laptop, and the calls are still end-to-end encrypted.  

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. And there are two new options for the microphone: Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum. The former will cut out all ambient noise so whomever's on the other end just hears your voice. The latter will try and pick up all sounds in your surroundings.  

Then there's SharePlay, and as you might've guessed, it allows you to share movies, music, and your screen with anyone you're FaceTiming with. Want to listen to a new album with your friend in sync at the same time? You can bring in tunes from Apple Music. Maybe you want to watch a movie with your long-distance partner while video chatting? Easy. You can AirPlay the movie to your TV at the same time to watch it on the big screen. 

Apple says any other developer with a content streaming app will be able to add support for the SharePlay feature, though services like Disney+, HBOMax, ESPN+, and TikTok will already be on board when iOS 15 arrives this fall.

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. 

A new Notification Summary function lets you check unimportant alerts at specific times of day, like in the morning or evening. The latter function is powered by on-device machine learning that identifies your phone usage patterns and parses what notifications should fall under the summary and when it should deliver them to you. Don't fret—your Messages and missed phone calls won't fall into Summary. That said, if you don't want to be disturbed, your friends and family will see when you have Do Not Disturb turned on in Messages (they can still send a message if it's urgent).

Perhaps the best new feature is a way to organize your entire iPhone's home screen to match your mood. You can choose between profiles like Work, Personal, and Sleep, and your home screen will show apps and widgets related to the respective mode. So if it's 9 am and you switch to work, you can customize your home screen to show work apps, widgets, and messages from coworkers only. 

One of the coolest features in iOS 15 is Live Text, and it's tied to upgrades in Apple's computer vision technology. 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. And 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 seamlessly launch in the phone dialer, and addresses launch in Maps.

Perhaps a little stranger is the integration between Apple Music and the Photos app. When you open the Photos app, you'll be shown a selection of Memories—this feature automatically generates a mini-movie of specific trips or events and automatically chooses a relevant song from Apple Music. You can customize the movie as you view it by changing up the pace, switching songs, changing filters, or swapping images. It's not far off from a Google Photos feature introduced in 2018, but Apple gives you far greater control with music integration here.    

Apple is continuing its quest to take over your physical wallet. Last year it let you add car keys, but in 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—Apple says Hyatt will roll this functionality out to 1,000 properties worldwide, and yes, you will be able to tap your Apple Watch to enter your room. 

Even better, you can scan your driver's license with the iPhone's camera and add it to the Wallet app, though this only is available in participating states. One of the first places you'll be able to make use of your digital ID is the airport; Apple says the Transportation Security Administration is enabling checkpoints that support the feature. 

Speaking of travel, the improved version of Apple Maps the company introduced last year is now rolling out to four new countries: Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Australia. Apple's map data is getting even more detailed again in iOS 15. You'll find more street-level details in commercial districts, elevation information in cities, as well as custom designs for landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge. When driving, Maps will now show highway interchanges in 3D so you have a better idea of exactly which lane you need to be on. These features will come to CarPlay later this year. 

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.

Just like every year, iPadOS, the operating system for Apple's tablets, nets almost all the same new features available in iOS. That's no different here, but of course, iPadOS is getting a few new tricks of its own. The most visual? You can place widgets anywhere on the home screen just like you can on your iPhone. There are larger widgets to make use of the more copious screen real estate, and Apple has even brought the App Library over so you're not left dealing with dozens of home pages. You can access the App Library from the iPad's dock.  

Multitasking is finally getting a small boost—at the top of the screen, a new menu lets you quickly toggle on Split View or Slide Over, no swiping needed. Tap it in any app and it will move to the far right, letting you see the home screen to choose a new app to open alongside it. Whenever you want to switch apps, swipe down on the app to choose something else from the home screen. If you want to cycle between multiple app windows, you can put your instances into a new area called the shelf. These new multitasking options support new keyboard shortcuts so you don't need to tap the iPad's screen to utilize them. 

The Notes app is turning into something that sort of resembles Google Docs. You can now mention your contacts in shared notes and they'll get an alert, you can add tags for organization, and there's an activity view to see exactly what has changed in the note. The best new perk? Quick Note. It turns Notes into a system-wide feature you can access anywhere on the iPad. Just swipe in from the corner and a Post-It-sized notepad shows up that you can use to jot down notes instantly. 

And finally, language translation is getting an overhaul. Now, the Translate app will automatically know when someone is speaking and will start to translate the conversation, no need to tap a screen. Translations now work system-wide too. Just select text and tap "translate" in the context menu to convert it.

There are tons of other features in iOS 15, here are a few more that stand out. We'll add more to this list as the beta continues this summer. 

Apple says iOS 15 is available as a developer preview now, and it will arrive as a public beta in July. The official release will be in the fall, likely around September alongside the iPhone 13 announcement.