The Ultimate iOS 15 Walkthrough: Guides and How Tos for Every New Feature

Thursday October 14, 2021 2:03 PM PDT by Juli Clover

While iOS 15 was in the beta testing phase, we here at MacRumors wrote up a series of in-depth feature guides to highlight everything that's new in the update, along with how tos to walk you through using those features.

Ultimate iOS 15 Guide Feature
This is a comprehensive guide with all of our coverage, and it's a great resource for casual users who haven't had a chance to test out iOS 15 prior to its launch. Everything is organized by app or feature to make it easy to find what you might be looking for.

Overview

Safari

Messages

FaceTime

Photos

Focus Mode

Mail

Notifications and Home Screen

Maps

Siri

Find My

Privacy

Spotlight Search

iOS 15 Spotlight Improvements: Rich Results, Web Images, Photos Search, Lock Screen Access and More

Wallet App

What's New With the iOS 15 Wallet App: ID Support, Home Keys, Car Keys, Archived Passes and More

Translation Features

Weather

HomeKit

What's New With HomeKit in iOS 15

Notes and Reminders

Podcasts

Everything New in the iOS 15 Apple Podcasts App

Accessibility

How to Use Background Sounds to Minimize Distractions and Stay Focused

Downgrading

How to Downgrade From iOS 15 to iOS 14

Guide Feedback

Have a question that we didn't cover here, know of a feature that we left out, or want to offer feedback on the content of this guide? Send us an email here.

Related Forum: iOS 15

Upcoming

iOS 26

September 2025

Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.

iPadOS 26

September 2025

iPadOS 26 brings Apple's Liquid Glass design overhaul, new Phone, Preview, Games, and Journal apps, and more.

macOS Tahoe

Fall 2025

Liquid Glass redesign, Phone app, revamped Spotlight, and more.

watchOS 26

Fall 2025

Apple's new Liquid Glass design, a Workout Buddy for motivation, a Notes app, and more.

• iPhone 17

• iPhone 17 Pro

• iPhone 17 Air

See full product calendar

Top Rated Comments

Analog Kid

52 months ago

These stories always remind me how few new features I use. I hear people complaining that Apple isn't innovating enough, but I feel like I've stopped using new features about 5 years ago. That's not entirely true, but certainly if I need to memorize some hidden gesture then I'm not using it.

I guess that's why I update hardware so rarely.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

I7guy

I'm going to go through the list. Wow, MR. Nice job with the feature index.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

fbr$

When I turn on the "iCloud Tabs" option on "Customize Start Page" in Safari on my iPhone, it shows up dozens of websites I visited months ago on my iPad.

Then I longpress on one of those ancient website links and select "Close" and it disappears. But then I reopen the Safari app on my iPad (with no webpages opened), and that same website link reappears on "iCloud Tabs" on my iPhone. There's no way to permanently delete them. It's weird!

I'm sick of having issues with iCloud. A few days ago it took more than 30 minutes to upload a 15MB file on my Mac. I'm talking about 15MB, not 15GB! And also few days ago a screenshot I took on my iPad it took about 1 hour for it to show up on Photos on my iPhone!

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

[AUT] Thomas

How do I restore the App-Icon spacing to something that doesn't look hideous? There's half a mile on the left and right side between bezel and icons -and the icons are centered in the middle, super tiny, but again with enough space between them to park a truck.
Selecting "Use Large App Icons" improves it, but the gap left and right remains... ? WTF, Apple? Did noone test this on an iPad mini?

_Spinn_

These guides are helpful to remember what is all in this update.

jz0309

Thanks for posting MR / @jclo

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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