The best of the rest
Accessibility, Siri, HomeKit and CarPlay have all been improved in iOS 15
While the features we’ve covered over the last few pages are undoubtedly the most exciting, there are a wealth of other updates and improvements in iOS 15.
Wallet gets lots of new features for supported HomeKit hardware, cars, offices, and hotel rooms. All of them require an iPhone XS or later. You can store ‘keys’ for HomeKit-enabled smart door locks and then tap your iPhone, or Apple Watch if you have one, on the lock to open or lock it. When you make a reservation at a hotel with a supported door entry system, you can add your room key to Wallet and access the room using your iPhone. Similarly, in offices that support it, Wallet can act as your office pass, allowing you to access the building by tapping your phone rather than your physical pass.
Perhaps the most interesting additions, however, are for car keys. When you store your car keys in Wallet, you can unlock your car, beep your horn or open the boot as you approach the car. Or lock it as you walk away. You can also use it to start the engine, but only when your iPhone is inside the car. The iPhone’s sensors give it a spatial awareness that allows it to detect whether it’s inside or outside the car. So you can only start the engine from inside, and you can’t lock the iPhone inside the car by accident.
Take a pass
In addition, Wallet now allows you to download multiple passes at once and there’s a new archive section where expired boarding passes and event tickets are automatically filed.
CarPlay now has the ability to announce Messages you receive. There are new dictionaries for India and Hong Kong, and a new thesaurus and idiom dictionary for mainland China. There’s improved support for 5G on the iPhone 12 and later, including the prioritising of 5G over Wi-Fi when you are connected to captive or insecure networks or when a network is slow.
Shortcuts get support for syncing with the new Shortcuts app in macOS Monterey and they have been made easier to share.
Home Screen widgets have also been improved. You can now re-order Widgets in Smart Stacks directly from the Home Screen, and iOS will suggest Widgets for your Smart Stack based on apps you use regularly. You can then choose to add the Widget to the stack or not. There are new Widgets for Mail, Find My, Contacts, Sleep, App Store and Game Center. The Contacts Widget is particularly impressive: when you tap a contact with whom you interact a lot, you’ll see a summary of those interactions in tiles within the Widget.
In Siri, on iPhones with an A12 Bionic processor or better, audio is now processed on your iPhone. This means that Siri can now process some requests when you’re not connected to the internet, including those for timers and alarms, phone, messaging, launching apps, controlling audio playback and settings. Siri can also now share some content including web pages, photos and Maps locations, just by saying ‘Send to’ and the name of a contact. Siri is also better at understanding conversations in context, so you can follow up a question or instruction with another that’s related.
Access all areas
Accessibility has also been improved. New VoiceOver features enable you to mark up documents with VoiceOver notes, and you can explore images in more detail. Magnifier is now a default app that allows you to use your iPhone as a magnifying glass. And a background sounds feature allows you to play white noise-type sounds such as rain or the ocean to mask environmental noise. These sounds automatically dip when there is other audio such as system sounds playing.