With WWDC 2022 kicking off Monday (June 6) we’re very likely to get our first look at a new version of iOS that launches in the fall alongside the iPhone 14.
While the iOS 16 rumors are a bit thin at the moment, the rumors that iOS 16 features suggests we’ll be looking at improvements to the lock screen, notifications, some AR/VR integration, and more health tracking capabilities.
But each iteration of iOS demands a greater processing toll, which some handsets inevitably have to miss. Apple has a very good track record of supporting handsets for the long haul — iOS 15 supports phones that first came out in 2015 for example — but there are limits. With that in mind, we believe that the next iPhones will be limited to iOS 15 for the rest of their working lives.
iPhone 6S and 6S Plus
Practically old in smartphone terms, the iPhone 6s and bigger 6s Plus were launched in September 2015, when Barack Obama was still in the White House, there was no such thing as AirPods, and the first-generation Apple Watch was only six months old.
Those two phones launched with iOS 9 and have been out of stock for nearly four years, so the end of support shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The iPhone 6s family had it very well indeed.
iPhone SE (2016)
Though a good seven months younger than the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the original iPhone SE actually uses the same Apple A9 chipset and 2GB of RAM.
In other words, as the 6s goes, so does the first-generation SE. But the good news is that the two newer iterations should be safe for some time, given those versions of the iPhone SE that launched in 2020 and this year respectively. The iPhone SE 2022 even has the same A15 Bionic processor that powers Apple’s more expensive iPhone 13 series, so it will be supported for some time.
Which iPhones will get iOS 16?
Indeed, if these are the only three iPhones missing out on the iOS 16 upgrade, then these handsets are all eligible through elimination:
- iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
- iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
- iPhone X
- iPhone SE (2020)
- iPhone XS and XS Max
- iPhone XR
- iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max
- iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max
- iPhone SE (2022)
- iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max
If your iPhone is eligible to download iOS 16, Apple should be sure of its usability. But if you own one of the older models, we’d recommend getting one of the best iPhones to replace your current handset or decide whether it’s wiser to wait for the iPhone 14 this fall.
What about iPads?
While iPads technically run a different operating system — iPadOS — it’s a very close relative of iOS and will almost certainly be upgraded to iPadOS 16 this fall. With iPadOS 15, support went even beyond iOS 15, with the aging iPad Air 2 coming out. 2014 was eligible for the upgrade.
This time we suspect that multiple tablets will not make it. Not only is the iPad Air 2 ready to miss, but we’re willing to bet that the 5th-generation iPad, 4th-generation iPad mini, and maybe even the original 2015 iPad Pro might be too slow to make the cut.
We’ll probably find out if all of these assumptions are correct at next week’s conference for Apple developers. Here’s how to watch WWDC 2022 if you want to tune in live.