(notification bell dings) - [Jonathan] Do you remember what you were doing in 2014?
I was 25 and bored.
God, that was seven years ago. Man, how time flies.
But there is a milestone from 2014 worth noting
because it's when this came out. It's the iPad Air 2.
And despite its age, it will be getting the latest iOS 15 update in the fall.
That makes it the longest supported iOS device in Apple's history.
So that's through eight generations.
And on the iPhone, the six-year-old 6s and SE
will get the update as well. That's frankly, unprecedented in this segment.
It shows how Apple's tight integration of software and hardware really stretches the longevity
of their products. And I thought it might be a neat way to get a taste of what's to come in iOS 15,
before it gets released in the fall. So let's see how these devices run with the latest beta.
(drawer slides) (objects rattling)
There it is. For comparison's sake, let's look at Android.
Google announced their latest version, version 12 of their mobile software this summer too.
And when it gets released in the fall, the oldest supported device that I knew of
will probably be this, the Pixel 3.
It came out three years ago in 2018. Now, that year, I can remember a little bit better
because I moved to Winnipeg.
Nevertheless, Pixel phones have been reliably getting updates for three years now,
because Google committed to it. Get any other Android phone and chances are,
you'll get one update, if you're lucky.
With the iPhone, only the original got three years of updates,
everything released after got more, but that didn't mean they got all the fancy new features
included in their updates. And so, there are a few things admitted
from the iOS 15 update for these devices too.
Fancy 3d maps and turn-by-turn navigation, no live text recognition and no spatial audio
in FaceTime calls among other things. That's fine.
And we'll dig into those when the software gets released, make sure to stay subscribed for that.
The question is how does the iOS 15 update run on these aging devices?
Rather well, I must say. These are both old devices though.
So there are slightly slower loading times here and occasional stutters there,
but it's not unusable like an iPad 2 with iOS 9.
I'm still waiting for that picture of the dress to load. Apparently, it's white and gold?
If you're worried about any of the update slowdowns we remember from the past, (coughs) battery gate, (coughs)
I wouldn't worry too much about it with this one. After over a week running both of these devices,
they don't seem to run all that much slower than equivalents running iOS 14.
Appearance-wise, the operating system is still as flat and plain as ever.
On the iPad, one can now add large widgets to the home screen, which is nice,
and multitasking is a little bit more discoverable. There are three dots on the top of open apps
that allow you to move Windows to split view or slide over.
Generally speaking, it works well on this iPad Air 2, but if you do try to web browse,
while watching a YouTube video, you'll hear some stutters.
The most annoying thing happens regardless of what iPad you're using,
because look what happens when you miss the button.
Mercifully, it's much easier now to add apps into slide over
because before, you could only add apps available in the dock, which was a royal pain to deal with.
Here's what you had to do. Close the open app, then open the app you want to have in slide over
to put it in the recent three on the dock, then close that up, then reopen the original app,
and then drag the new app into slide over.
Now, though, all apps are available on an app library located on the dock.
(upbeat music)
Now how about old iPhones? In iOS 15, many inputs no longer span across the screen.
The group together in rounded squares, like in the classic iOS days, only with less definition.
It's not so bad, except that borders take up so much space
on this SE. So that in-apps like calendar,
critical information, like the date gets truncated.
Why don't you prioritize the year? Now, there is a solution in iOS 15 to help with that.
It's a feature that lets you adjust the text size on an app by app basis.
So by adding this aA button in the control center, I can shrink the text in only the calendar app
to 85% to fit the date. Great.
But I'm not the only one who nitpicks Apple's design decisions to this degree.
One of the biggest changes with iOS 15 is with Safari.
They've moved the address bar to the bottom, and now you can swipe between tabs.
Yay! Another swipe gesture! But this final design came after many weeks of outrage
from the community. I'll explain what happened right after thanking this video's sponsor, Privacy.
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to get $5 off your first purchase. Now, where was I?
Ah, Safari. When it was unveiled at WWDC back in June,
everything was to be compacted into one interface row on all platforms.
What was problematic about this design was that it required too many buttons and options to be hidden in an all-encompassing submenu,
like the junk drawer in your foyer. So things were hard to find.
And when Apple tried reintroducing the buttons back into the floating orb,
it got real crowded real quick. That and the fact that a floating pill shape
flooded over many website's bottom interface buttons.
Ultimately, the current interface is much like it was before all of this,
but I'm still a little bothered by the way tabs look on iPad OS and macOS.
They're contained in these weird and wide pill shapes that just waste space and make it hard to tell what's open.
Tab groups are the big new feature in Safari and it lets tab fiends organize their tabs
better into groups with titles, et cetera. You can even turn your clusters of already open tabs
into a group to get them out of the way. Now, they're supposed to be syncing across devices,
but the tab groups that I've made on my iPad aren't showing up on my iPhone and vice versa.
So beta bugs? (notification bell dings)
Oh yeah, notifications. There are new focus and notification settings in iOS 15
that provide you an interesting way to better manage your notifications
for the different states you might be in. So when you set up the work state,
you could choose what apps and people can make your phone chime.
You can also set up custom pages on the home screen full of apps
that you'd only use at work and make it visible only during work time.
It appears to be a more customizable and robust version of Apple's Do Not Disturb feature.
The default focus states are driving, sleep, personal and work.
You can choose who disturbs you and when, or even where,
and then label it for the times and states of your life when this would be handy.
So a work focus is good to make sure only colleagues and apps that you use at work notify you.
Though, it's a little tedious to have to go through one's contact list
to choose the right people for that focus.
Like all your work colleagues in work, friends for personal and study buddies for study?
A Select All toggle would also be really nice here.
My personal problem with this is FOMO. I always get the feeling that I'm missing out
on something important when I'm in my work focus mode, which turns on automatically
whenever I arrive at the office. But I guess, that's what this feature is all about anyway,
isn't it? You do get a while in focus notification
in your Notification Center during those times. I think it'll be useful,
even though it might be yet another thing to maintain as life flows.
Now there are a lot of apps on iPhone that send you notifications right away
when you really don't care, but Apple's notification summary feature
might be a good solution for that. There are a lot of apps
that you probably don't want bugging you every day. So you can put them in the notification summary,
which can be scheduled to pop up once or more times a day
to show you what you missed. But this doesn't solve the most infamous notification problem.
The sharing economy. You know those apps where you require instant notifications,
like when you're getting your meal delivered, but you don't need to know about the 5% off deal-
(notification bell dings) Right now, really?
I tried notification summary by turning on all of the apps
I previously had off to see what I'd get. And after a few days, I have to say,
it's just as annoying as using notifications
that would normally appear on the lock screen. Easier to clear perhaps, but I'm just turning this off.
Oh, and look here. I have two sub levels in notifications
where my While in Work Focus contains my notification summary.
(Jonathan laughs) I feel like notifications are somehow more complicated than ever.
Perhaps, the defaults will lead you into a more manageable life.
And there are plenty of options for power users, but I don't know,
I just feel like my mom's gonna avoid all this anyway.
(tranquil music)
The quick obsolescence of technology has been an ongoing discussion for a while now,
but using these two seemingly ancient devices over the past week with a beta version
of the latest software, it shows that Apple's mobile devices are being given longer lifespans
than I ever expected them to get. This iPad Air 2 is impressively competent,
even after all these years, but there is however one fly in the ointment
worth mentioning. While Apple's software support is unparalleled in its longevity,
the hardware still has batteries, which aren't accessible and wear out quickly.
It would be nice to see the devices last equally as long in hardware as it does in software.
Otherwise, if you own an iPad Air 2 that you bought new and still working,
you made a extremely good long-term purchase,
all thanks to iOS 15.
Thanks for updating to this Mac Address. And since you made it this far,
I think it means the video is worthy of a like, or even a subscribe.
Now, one thing to note is that Apple plans to provide bug fixes
and security updates to users who choose not to update to iOS 15,
so that means that you can update this old phone,
but you don't necessarily have to.