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Apple This story is part of the Apple event, our full coverage of the latest news from Apple headquarters.
iOS 15 has officially arrived. On Monday, during the online keynote for WWDC, Apple’s annual App Developers Conference, the company presented a preview of iOS 15, the next major release of the iPhone software. It’s a follow-up to last year’s iOS 14 and will be fully released this fall and is likely to debut on the highly rumored iPhone 13.
iOS 15 brings a huge amount of new features, improvements, and improvements. FaceTime is packed with more Zoom-like features, including links that allow Android and Windows users to participate in a FaceTime video call via a browser. You can have your phone’s least important bundle of alerts delivered to you as a notification summary. Live Text is basically Apple’s version of Google Lens. You can watch videos and listen to music with friends via FaceTime call. Messages can collect and organize links and content so you can view them once as per your choice. You can also add your driver’s license to the Apple Wallet app.
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The upgrades in iOS 15 are aligned with four main themes: staying connected, finding focus, using intelligence, and exploring the world. Apple’s fast-paced, feature-packed preview on Monday was in contrast to the real-world surroundings of iOS and the Apple App Store as of late. Over the past year, Apple has responded to inquiries about its App Store from lawmakers and regulators at home and abroad. The company released iOS 14.5 that brought new levels of user privacy and new ad tracking controls which led to a small corporate ownership battle with Facebook. Apple is also awaiting judgment in a lawsuit from Epic Games, one of the largest app developers for iOS.
An upgraded version of iOS 15 will be available for download today, with a public beta launching this summer.
In iOS 15, the links allow Windows and Android users to make a FaceTime video call from the browser.
Apple iOS 15 adds FaceTime support for Android and Windows
One of the biggest updates comes to FaceTime, Apple’s video and audio calling app. Over the past year, many of us have relied on video calling to keep in touch with friends and family and collaborate with colleagues. Apps like Skype and Zoom have become the norm, while FaceTime has struggled due to its limitations. iOS 15 makes FaceTime a bit like Zoom while still maintaining some of its antics.
Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, said the goal of updating FaceTime in iOS 15 is to make it look more natural and comfortable to use. You can now schedule FaceTime calls and create links in advance. FaceTime links can be accessed on Apple devices, or via a browser on Android phones and Windows PCs.
Read more: FaceTime on Android: Apple announces major upgrades at WWDC
The FaceTime video interface gets an overhaul with a new grid view. Gone are the random sized squares, replaced by a neat grid of identically sized squares for all your callers. Grid view makes it easy to see the speaker at one glance. FaceTime in iOS 15 adds portrait mode. Just like portrait mode for photos on the iPhone, which separates you from the background, FaceTime turns the background of a video call into a gorgeous artistic blur.
There are also new tools to improve the sound. FaceTime in iOS 15 supports spatial audio during a call and makes your friends and family’s voices sound more natural, giving the effect of being in the room with you. Your microphone gets smarter and can isolate your voice or expand its pickup to capture all the details in your environment. Apple showed a video of two people making a FaceTime call. Behind someone was a child using a leaf blower. When sound insulation is enabled, the leaf blower sound disappears. (I don’t know how many people would give their kids a leaf blower, let alone let them use it indoors, but it was a fun example.)
Read more: FaceTime gets spatial audio for ‘more natural’ calling in iOS 15
While in a FaceTime video call, you can now play a song or video, like Mythic Quest on Apple TV Plus, and anyone on the call can listen to or watch it together. The feature is called SharedPlay and it works with TikTok, Disney Plus, Hulu, and more.
Apple Watch movies, listen to music with FaceTime in iOS 15
Another new feature of FaceTime is called SharePlay, which allows you to share your screen, music or videos over a video call. For example, if you’re on a FaceTime call, you can play a song in Apple Music and listen to it on the call with your friends and family. The feature works with Apple Music, as well as video content from Apple TV Plus, TikTok, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu, and more. Developers can add SharePlay API to their apps, so maybe there is hope that YouTube will adopt this?
You can also share a FaceTime video with your Apple TV. SharePlay adds a wealth of multitasking and integration when you’re on a FaceTime call.
The Messages app in iOS 15 gets a new look when you receive multiple photos from a friend. Images can be viewed in a collage or placed in a set of images, as in this screenshot from WWDC.
Apple Messages gets a new design and more organized content
Messages undergo a visual overhaul and become more organized. In an iMessage conversation thread, the photos are displayed in a new collage design or, if there are several, in a photo collage. You can scroll through the group of photos only from view within the thread or click to open all the photos in a separate screen.
Another new feature called Shared with You, which takes videos, music and story linking people who have been shared with you in Messages and organizes them in a new tab of the corresponding app. For example, if a friend sends you a link to an Apple News story via iMessage, it will automatically be added to the Shared with You tab in the Apple News app. The tab does not only show the link but who shared it with you. When you click on the person’s name, you are taken back to that place in the message conversation with them.
Shared with you also brings photos shared with you in Messages to the Photos app. Obviously, the Photos app will only import those you care about. Screenshots and memes will not be added.
Shared with You works in the following apps: Apple Music, Apple News, Apple TV, Safari, Photos, and Podcasts. You can also pin and promote a message, link or content in Shared with You and appear in search.
iOS 15 adds a new notification digest that groups unimportant alerts together and presents them to you at a time of your choosing.
Apple iOS 15 fixes notifications, adds tools to help you focus
The notifications on your iPhone are renewed to help you deal with all of your phone’s alerts. Notification Summary is a new feature that lets you schedule when unimportant notifications will be delivered. He can prioritize which ones are most important and assemble the rest for delivery in the morning (or any time you choose). Siri can now automatically read time-sensitive messages when you don’t have your phone with you. For example, if you order a food delivery and you arrive, Siri can read the notification via your HomePod or Apple Watch.
You can also use the new Focus tool in iOS 15 to help you focus on certain things when using your phone. For example, if you’re at work, you can choose to only receive notifications from co-workers for apps like Mail, Calendar, or Slack. Other settings for the focus tool include Do Not Disturb, Personal, and Sleep, which you can schedule to appear when you set your bedtime.
Live Text in iOS 15 lets you digitize and interact with text in photos or through the viewfinder on your iPhone. It is similar to Google Lens on Android.
Apple Live Text lets you digitize and interact with text in your photos
Live Text in iOS 15 uses artificial intelligence to find text in photos or through your iPhone’s viewfinder. You can copy and paste the text, or you can open the link if it’s a website. It looks similar to Google Lens.
In the Photos app, Live Text automatically generates image tags for the device-wide Spotlight search feature. With a new search feature called Visual Lookup, you can search for the word “beach” and the iPhone will display any photos that have a beach or were taken at the beach. This seems like a huge improvement when it comes to searching your photos and it might help the Photos app to keep track of the detailed image searches you can do in Google Photos.
You can now digitize your driver’s license and store it in the Apple Wallet app.
Apple Add your driver’s license to Apple Wallet in iOS 15
The Wallet app in iOS 15 lets you add company key cards and driver’s licenses. Apple says it is working with the TSA on ways to accept them at US airports. This comes in addition to the ability to hold credit and debit cards, taxi cards, and car keys (for phones with an Apple U1 chip for broadband).
Read more: How to store a digital driver’s license on your iPhone will work
Everything else in iOS 15
There’s a lot more in iOS 15. For people like me, it’s fun to dig deeper and try out features you’ve never seen, like the new outfits for Memoji stickers. I will update this article as I find more.
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