We’re sure you already know that Apple held its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last night. You’d have to try really hard to remain unaware of that. We’ve covered the company’s latest home-brewed silicon, the M2 chip, as well as the new MacBooks it’ll appear in already.
The company also announced the newest version of its mobile operating system — iOS 16. But with the great innovation that comes from copying Android features, comes disappointment for some. Not every iPhone will be eligible for the shiny new iOS version.
All those “new” features come at a price
If you’re still using an iPhone from 2016 or earlier, then you’re going to be stuck on iOS 15.5 or 15.6 when that eventually releases. If you’re still unsure, iPhone 7 owners, we’re afraid your time is up. That includes all versions of the iPhone 7 and the original iPhone SE. iPhone 8 users are still covered, for one more year anyway.
It would be nice of Apple to have an easily accessible list of devices and dates so that one could tell when to expect their device to fall out of favour with Apple. But in Apple’s world, things are changing constantly, so that’s probably never going to happen.
It isn’t all bad news though. Apple said iOS 16 will launch ‘this fall’ which is American for early September. We’ll presumably get a new iPhone along with that, to take advantage of the great Android ideas Apple is implementing.
And Apple will continue to keep iOS 15 going with security patches and minor bug fixes for another two years, if the past is any indication. So you’ve got time to shop around for your next iPhone. Or maybe you want to wait for the iPhone 14. Either way, it’s decision time.