iOS 15: What (Little) We Know So Far

According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, iOS 15 will include an updated Lock Screen, plus new privacy and notification features detailed below. We’ve also heard less reliable rumors about iOS 15, and many of the features remain a mystery. What we do know is outlined below.

Notification Updates

Users will be able to set different notification preferences based on current status, so if you’re awake for example, you may get notifications with sound, while sound might be disabled if you’re sleeping.

Users will be able to choose categories like driving, working, or sleeping, plus there will be an option to create custom categories for handling notifications in different ways. The menu options for choosing a mode will be available on the Lock Screen and in the Control Center.

Apple is also adding new options for setting automatic replies to incoming messages based on these statuses. The only currently available auto-reply option works when driving but not in other situations.

iMessage

There are updates to iMessage in the works, though specifics are not available at this time. Apple is said to be aiming to better compete with WhatsApp.

Privacy

Apple will add a new menu that shows which apps are silently collecting data from users, with Apple aiming to increase device privacy even further.

Food Tracking

An unconfirmed rumor suggests that Apple plans to add a new food tracking feature to the Health app, but it is unclear how expansive this feature might be. It could potentially allow users to log the food items that they consume, providing nutritional details and calorie tracking functionality. It is not known if users will need to manually enter all info or if Apple is working on some kind of food database.

Dark Mode tweaks

There may be some minor dark mode tweaks to the various color options, such as iMessage bubbles.

Settings App Updates

We could see minor user interface changes that were spotted in screenshots of Accessibility features believed to be coming in ‌iOS 15‌, unveiling inset cells and merged navigation bars in the Settings app.

iPadOS Additions

For the iPad, Apple is planning to introduce a new Home Screen for the iPad. Users will be able to place widgets anywhere on the Home Screen, and an entire app grid will be replaceable with widgets.