iOS 15 was officially released yesterday at 1pm EST for all users. iOS 15 released with almost 300+ features as per Apple and you can find the detail list here. Below are some of the features we are going to review, like Focus, Facetime enhancements, Photos Live Text and Visual Lookup, Advanced Fraud Protection for Apple Card and more.
Focus
First feature which I was interested was Focus. In today’s world everyone will be checking their phones when in meetings, gatherings with family and friends, when working and almost everywhere and all time. Even though we try to focus on our work or talk, the notifications keep on bombarding to distract us. Focus is a feature where you can filter out unwanted notifications or calls and just focus on what you are doing. You can start setting up focus types by going to Control Center (Image 1) and selecting Focus or go to Settings > Focus (Image 2). Focus comes with 4 options by default Do Not Disturb, Sleep, Personal and Work. But you can add custom focus from Settings > Focus by clicking plus(+) sign, which has additional pre-defined options and also custom option (Image 4). You can enable focus from Control Center and you can set how long the focus should be set to (Image 3).
In all focus types we can select from whom you can receive notifications or calls (and also you can setup if you want to receive repeated calls) during that focus time. You can also set which apps can notify during focus time.
Driving focus has an option to get enabled automatically once you start driving, how cool is that 🚗 🚘
Facetime
Facetime, the biggest feature of Shareplay where you can enjoy watching videos, listening to music or sharing screens via Facetime has been delayed and no official date yet. But other facetime features which released are as below,
- Portrait Mode, which is similar to Portrait Mode while taking photos where background is blurred and focuses only on face.
- Grid View, when you have group facetime call you can arrange callers as tiles (six callers at a time) and also highlights talking person.
- Mic options (Image 1), along with standard voice option there are 2 new options. If you want the other person to just hear your voice you have Voice Isolation mode where sounds around you are blocked, and Wide Spectrum is another option where the other person can hear every sound around.
- Facetime Links (Image 2 and 3), where you can invite friends/family to join a factime call using a web link and this is open to all not just iPhone users.
Photos – Visual Lookup and Live Text
Now Photos app can identify plants, animals, landmarks and more using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence called Visual Lookup. And can lookup for details, how cool is it. I was using PictureThis for plants but now we can use directly from Photos app. If you have any plants, animals or landmark photos, you can select info option and if the Photo app identifies the object, it will show option to Lookup. Once you select Lookup it provides details. I didn’t get a chance to test any animals but below are plant, flower and landmark.
Another feature which is new in iOS 15 is capturing text called as Live Text when taking a photo, if camera identifies any text it will provide an option to capture that. Below is the demo,
Apple Card Security
Advanced Fraud Protection is the option where Apple Card security code changes regularly to make online Card Number transactions even more secure.
Safari
Safari got new enhancements where address bar moved to bottom so it is easy to access, and also the tabs are arranged as tiles for easy access. Also, we got an option to translate the text.
We had some enhancements in messages, memojis got new emotions, glasses, lenses, and option to select different clothing and many more enhancements. Other main feature which is delayed is to store the driver’s license and/or state id card in Wallet, no official date about release of this feature.
Hope this gives you an idea of what is in iOS 15 and can decide if you want to upgrade now or wait for some more time.
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