iOS 15 is out now with new FaceTime features and Focus notifications

iOS 15 is here, so saddle up your iPhone and commencement downloading the latest update to try out all of the new features. This twelvemonth's update is overall pretty bland, especially compared to the new hotness that is Cloth Yous over on Android, but it'southward a worthwhile update nonetheless.

Below I highlight a few of my favourite new features and what I like nearly them based on a few weeks I've spent with the latest iOS 15 beta, but before that, let's go over how to install the update. As with all iOS updates, only navigate to your Settings app, open the 'General' section and select 'Software update.'

The update is compatible with smartphones equally old as the iPhone 6s and the iPhone SE.

What is this new Focus mode?

The almost noticeable iOS 15 update is the new wait for notifications. This time around, the app icon with each notification is larger to make it easier to see at-a-glance which app is begging for your attention.

Across that subtle visual flourish, there'southward a new 'Focus' button inside Settings and Command Middle (the menu that allows you to change screen effulgence and play/pause music playback). When you open this, it shows you a few new notification filters that can block preset apps during specific times. You need to prepare this upwards on your own, only one time activated, it can be useful for blocking social notifications during work hours and work notifications during social hours.

FaceTime invites Windows and Android to the party

FaceTime Gridview

Perhaps the part of iOS fifteen that will be used the well-nigh is a new FaceTime characteristic that allows users to set chatrooms that you can invite people to with a link. This is just similar how Zoom, Google Meet and Teams all work, putting FaceTime on slightly more level ground with those competitors. Information technology besides allows FaceTime users to invite Android and Windows users for the outset time.

To be articulate, non-Apple users can merely be invited to a FaceTime conversation; they tin can't start one.

On top of all this, Apple has besides added some new layouts to Facetime to make it easier to see everyone in a chat at once.

The new iMessage updates have a scrap to become used to

One of the more than subtle updates that's come with iOS fifteen is a new course of iMessage. For the well-nigh role, the app looks the aforementioned, simply now, when you transport or receive multiple photos, they get stacked in the chat instead of all displayed at in one case.

This looks nicer, only you lot can easily mistake it for but a single photograph if you merely glance at it.

1 of the more exciting updates that seems cool only might non catch on is the new 'Shared with you' sections inside Safari and Photos. In each of these sections, you tin see links or pictures that people accept sent y'all via iMessage, then you can quickly open up them or bank check them out afterward.

Copy text from anywhere

One of the sleeper updates added in iOS 15 is the power to copy text from pretty much anything.

Inside the Photos app, you tin can click on a piffling icon in the bottom right of each picture to copy text from within the photo. If you're in Safari, you can tap and hold onto text in images and, in pretty much every case, the telephone will be able to copy it accurately.

You tin can also highlight telephone numbers to instantly call them or addresses to get directions in Maps.

Spotlight search is the real mode to become around your iPhone in 2021

If yous're non already utilizing the ability of Spotlight Search on iPhone, you should really offset with iOS fifteen.

When y'all pull down on the abode screen in the new update, yous can search for pretty much anything now. This includes the spider web, your photos, contacts and messages, amid many other sources. You can even now use it from the iOS lock screen.

Auto translate

The iOS translate app can automatically detect when a person is speaking and volition begin translation immediately. Since you lot can also select text in images and other things in iOS 15, you can likewise translate them quite easily.

This isn't the new Safari iWanted

The new pattern is on the left and the old is on the right.

When Apple first revealed iOS 15 and its other software updates earlier this summer, information technology planned to revamp the await of Safari on all of them. While I was really excited about these visual changes, the world, apparently, was not.

The first version of iOS 15 safari was a simple bubble that floated at the bottom of the screen. If you lot tapped on the chimera, you could search using Google. There was also a three-dot menu and a button to see all your open tabs. Swiping across the bubble also allowed users to jump through all their open up tabs quickly. This functionality, thankfully, is even so in iOS 15.

The search bubble didn't final, and instead, Apple tree replaced it with a much more accessible and technical-looking bottom navbar. While this version might not expect as nice, it'southward probable going to be a lot easier for people to adapt to.