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Here's what's coming in iOS 15.5

Don't set your hopes too high.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor

We're a few weeks away from the first official unveiling of iOS 16 at Apple's WWDC 2022 developer conference, but the official release of that update is still a few months away.

So that means there's still life in iOS 15. We're expecting iOS 15.5 to drop any day now.

So, what's Apple got planned?

Time to lower your expectations I'm afraid. Even lower than that. Keep going... 

According to the release notes for the release candidate -- the version likely to drop onto users' iPhones assuming no major show-stopping bug -- it's all rather underwhelming.

Here's what's coming:

iOS 15.5 includes enhancements to Apple Cash card, Apple Podcasts, and other features and bug fixes.

iOS 15.5 includes the following improvements and bug fixes:

  • Wallet now enables Apple Cash customers to send and request money from their Apple Cash card
  • Apple Podcasts includes a new setting to limit episodes stored on your iPhone and automatically delete older ones
  • Fixes an issue where home automations, triggered by people arriving or leaving, may fail

I told you that you needed to lower your expectations.

This is not to say that there isn't more exciting stuff coming to iOS 15 in future updates (iOS 14 was getting features added up until iOS 14.7, released in July 2021), but we're at that point in the iOS lifecycle when all eyes are on the next release.

Because it seems likely that iOS 16 will drop support for the older crop of iPhones -- it's also likely the end of the line for the iPhone 6s/6s Plus and the first-generation iPhone SE -- Apple may want to give these iPhones some selected features in order to keep them relevant for a little longer.

If you're currently running an iPhone 6s/6s Plus or a first-generation iPhone SE then you need to prepare for these to no longer get security updates. 

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