iOS 15 is expected to arrive this fall alongside the iPhone 13, but if Apple was short of inspiration for new features, the company could do worse than take a look at this new concept video shared on YouTube by Nicholas Ghigo.
Over the course of the video, Ghigo mocks up many of the most requested iOS features into a video that feels it could be bookended by Tim Cook platitudes on a stage in Cupertino.
The most frequent request is a customizable look, and this concept isn’t short of options there. In addition to icons that look like they’re straight out of macOS’s Big Sur update, the concept goes big on widgets, allowing various health, smart home and media toggles to be applied to any screen, Android style. The lock screen also gets this treatment, with a selection of small, stylish icons below the time and date. It’s a strong look.
Going further with Apple’s privacy options, Ghigo also imagines that individual apps could be locked, with a small padlock icon appearing above sensitive icons. It would certainly be reassuring to know that your emails, iMessages and WhatsApp account were all locked safely behind an extra layer of Face ID protection.
Support for multiple timers is there in the iOS 15 concept, plus a ‘Goodnight mode’ that turns the display into a giant clock once the iPhone is safely connected to a MagSafe wireless charger – much like compatible Pixel phones when placed on the Pixel Stand.
iOS 15: Split-screen multitasking
The most appealing addition of the concept is a split-screen view for multitasking. When Steve Jobs was in charge and Apple created adverts boasting about smaller screen sizes, such a feature would be a waste of time, but now three of the four available iPhone 12 handsets have screens of over 6 inches in size it would certainly be welcome.
The clip shows the ability to edit an email on one side of the screen, while dragging and dropping an attachment from the other, which would certainly make the phone most usable as a productivity device.
Of course, all of these changes are pure wish list stuff, and there’s no guarantee that any of them will be adopted by Apple for iOS 15 when it’s released later this year. Hopefully we should get our first look at the OS update very soon, as Apple’s annual WWDC 2021 is due to take place on June 7. If it looks anything like this concept, we’ll be very happy indeed.
