Our first experiences with the iPhone update

iOS 15 Preview

After months of anticipation, predictions, and desires from concept makers, Apple announced at WWDC Conference 2021 finally iOS 15 On. It is the latest OS version for iPhone and ipod touchApple has added countless new features and improvements, just like every year. This year, Apple mainly focused on the so-called quality of lifeImprovements, that make using your iPhone more enjoyable. Especially the improvements in notifications and Do Not Disturb are striking. Read how we tested the new features in our iOS 15 preview.

To get straight to the point: We haven’t been able to test many improvements in iOS 15 yet, simply because they aren’t available yet or aren’t working properly. Share Play in FaceTime It’s not yet available, for example, but we’re very much looking forward to testing this feature out in the coming months. Sharing your screen privately via FaceTime is a godsend for anyone with less tech-savvy parents (grandparents). In this iOs 15 preview, we’re mainly focusing on the most important improvements already available.

New notifications take a while to get used to

One of the main pillars of iOS 15 is the Enhanced Notifications. The new look makes notifications more compact, but that sometimes makes them feel a bit cramped. Especially on the youngest iPhone 12 mini We found that the notifications are sometimes a bit messy, due to the relatively large amount of text in the notification, compared to the size of the notification. You also notice that the apps are not yet adapted to the new notifications. Apple no longer puts the corresponding app name in the notification by default, because the app icon is displayed larger.

The app name is now in the top bold line, unless an app enters its own text there. But this text is longer than the line allows, causing it to be truncated prematurely. This is mainly because this text is now on the same line as the notification time. As a result, there is less space for text, which results in a somewhat cramped message.

In addition to the new look, there are also new features that keep us happy. Apple offers more options from iOS 15 to make sure notifications are less intrusive. Summaries of new notifications are helpful here. You want to receive notifications from some apps, but not necessarily when they are sent. There is less rush to display the notification, for example from a shopping app promoting new actions. You can now aggregate these types of alerts into a summary that is sent multiple times a day. This way you get an overview in the morning, noon or evening. It’s a great way to get notifications, without requiring you to take immediate action and distracting from really important notifications.

It’s better to focus on the real thing

Do Not Disturb feature on Iphone It has always been a bit limited. Until recently, for example, this was not easily possible Group do not disturb schedule per dayFor example, if you want to sleep longer on the weekends. from iOS 15 Will Apple finally address this with New focus function. Everything in Focus and Do Not Disturb now hangs under the umbrella term focus. Do not disturb, sleep function, do not disturb while driving and more. You can create your own focus for each type of activity: for sports, games, reading a book, work and much more.

The advantage of this focus is that you can indicate which apps are allowed to annoy you. If you don’t want to be bothered by all kinds of trivial notifications during your workout, but you want to receive notifications from your sports app, you can do so. There are endless options for creating your own focus. You can turn it on automatically based on time or location or let everything run completely automatic based on your use of the app. This way you can turn on your athletic focus when you automatically get to the gym.

The options offered by Apple are very satisfying. Since you can even indicate which apps and people get a focus notification, activated focus is never in the way. For example, we have set up a separate focus for work and private time. We like to receive notifications from Slack during business hours, but we don’t have to on weekends or evenings. The drawback is that when you create a focus, by default, no app gives a notification and you have to indicate which apps are allowed to send a notification. We would have preferred that you could also set this in reverse: all apps are allowed to send notifications, except… This makes it a little easier to set focus, for example, private time.

Getting the focus right requires a great deal of work. Once set, you’ll also regularly make small adjustments to make the focus perfect. For the average user, a file Focus feature in iOS 15 Which is a very good thing, but for those who want to put in a little effort, the job is really a godsend.

Enhanced apps: Weather and Safari

In this iOS 15 preview, we also want to highlight two new apps: Weather and Safari. Both the widely used apps have been given a major visual makeover and also work differently. Weather looks beautiful and in our opinion, thanks to this update, is one of the most beautiful weather apps out there Iphone has become. The animation always matches the weather and is more diverse than before. The application also adjusts the layout of the various measurements, so that the relevant information is always on top. For example, if air quality drops suddenly or if it rains heavily. We think the new app is much nicer and more fun to look at, with clear stats and icons showing the values. But the quality of the forecast does not change: Apple still uses The Weather Channel, which is not always accurate in the Netherlands.

Safari It is undoubtedly the most controversial of iOS 15. The new design is sure to come as a shock at first. We think some of the changes are positive, like the title bar which is now a thumbs up at the bottom, but other parts are more hidden and work more complex. The share button, reading list, and other options are all hidden under one button. We actually hope so an Apple This is still changing, because we found Safari Minimalistically this way. What we are happy about is switching between tabs. Now all you have to do is swipe the address bar from left to right to see the other tabs, and it’s much faster than before. You can also quickly open a new blank tab.

The new location of the address bar can sometimes cause some problems. The address bar appears at the top of the website, not at the bottom. As a result, the buttons are sometimes inaccessible because the address bar is in the way. While scrolling, the address bar disappears, but it does not exit the image immediately in all cases.

Live Text: A nice new feature
Another feature we would like to emphasize in this preview is functionality Livetekst. The Photos and Camera app now indicates with an icon when text is recognized. You can immediately select and copy the text and paste it somewhere else. It is a very practical function that has come in handy to us many times already. Apps have been available for some time that recognize text in images and documents, such as the Belgian app Prizmo. But we love the fact that it’s now built in as standard and always close at hand. Job makes like this Document Scanners for iPhone Not immediately necessary, as there are many add-ons that are not available in Livetext.

Privacy in iOS 15: Another step forward
Apple enters as usual iOS 15 Privacy Improvements Necessary Across. Many new features will be added to ensure the security of your data. For example, you can override emails and newsletters with Privacy Protection in Mail and you can create a new random email address if you have iCloud +. There will also be an App Privacy Report, similar to the Safari Privacy Report, with which you can see which tracking apps you are using. an Apple It also makes some improvements that make security easier. A good example of this is Binary Codes in iCloud Keychain. You no longer need an additional app, which makes it easy to sign in securely.

iOS 15 also brings several other improvements that are worth checking out. You can read more about it in the overview Useful iOS 15 Discoveries.

Initial conclusion of iOS 15 preview

iOS 15 It’s not a huge update that causes major changes to your iPhone usage, but we don’t think that’s necessary either. iOS 15 makes the most important changes where you notice them most. For example, think about notifications and what’s new focus function. They are all useful quality of lifeImprovements, without significantly changing how you use your iPhone. This year, Apple has also mainly focused on improving its own apps, for example in Weather and Safari. There is not much news for developers, which means that there are fewer developments in this area. We look forward to more iOS 15 testing in the coming months and will share our final verdict in our iOS 15 review in September.