iOS 15 has more than 100 new features and improvements, but not all are available for all supported devices.
When Apple released its preview of iOS 15 on 7 June 2021 there was much to celebrate. One of the big surprises was that Apple granted the six-year-old iPhone 6S another generation of iOS.
But as always, there is a downside: there are lots of new features to get excited about in iOS 15, but not every new feature will work on all devices. (Read Which iPhones will get iOS 15 and how to get iOS 15).
Nor will they work in every country because Apple restricts some functions geographically. For example, some map innovations are only available in the USA and some European countries support offline Siri (after downloading language models), while others don’t.
Some of the new features rely on 5G functionality, so, obviously, these improvements are only available for iPhone 12 and later.
Other challenging features are limited to the A12 Bionic Chip and newer, which means that only the iPhones XR/XS and newer can fully exploit the potential of iOS 15. (There is a similar limitation on Macs when it comes to macOS Monterey, read: Which Monterey features run on my Mac.)
Here you will find the entire overview of all the new iOS 15 functions, specifying which are limited to specific iPhone models or regions.
iOS 15 feature | Availability |
| 3D spatial sound in FaceTime | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Portrait mode in FaceTime | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Interactive globe in Maps | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Immersive pedestrian routes | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Text recognition for objects (live text) | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Detailed travel guides | From iPhone XS/XR |
| House keys in Wallet | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Hotel keys in Wallet | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Office keys in Wallet | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Car keys in Wallet | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Share health data with the doctor | US only |
| Test results | US only |
| Continuous blood sugar measurements | US only |
| Risk of falling | From iPhone 8 |
| Offline Siri | From iPhone XS/XR. Requires download. German, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese |
| Speech recognition | From iPhone XS/XR. Requires download. German, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese |
| On-device speech processing | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Zoom in QuickTake videos | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Advanced 5G connectivity | From iPhone 12 |
| Offline dictation | From iPhone XS/XR in Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Yue Chinese |
| Dictate for more than 1 minute | From iPhone XS/XR. Requires download. In Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Yue Chinese |
| Spatial audio | From iPhone XS/XR |
| Air quality in Maps | Canada, China mainland, Germany, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, UK, and US |
| Weather warnings | US only |
Read: iOS 15 vs iOS 14: Should you update your iPhone?
This article originally appeared on Macwelt. Translation by Karen Haslam.
Author: Halyna Kubiv, Contributing Editor
Halyna Kubiv has been at Macwelt since 2010. She covers Apple products and many other categories in the Apple environment.