According to the latest report, with the release of the official version of iOS 15.2, the new year is approaching, and Apple will begin to focus on the next important version, iOS 16. According to iPhone soft, quoting insiders, Apple iOS 16 plans to abandon support for the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and the first generation of iPhone SE. This means that iPhone SE 2, iPhone 7 and above iPhones will get the iOS 16 upgrade.
In terms of iPad, it is said that iPadOS 16 is no longer compatible with iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad (fifth generation) and 2015 iPad Pro models. This means that newer iPad models can get iPadOS 16 upgrades.
Of course, this is not official news. Apple will announce iOS 16 at WWDC 2022, and will also announce a specific list of upgrade support at that time. In terms of accuracy, iPhone soft previously correctly reported the list of devices supported by iOS 13 and iOS 14 in advance. iPhone soft claimed last year that the iPhone 6s and the original iPhone SE will not be able to update to iOS 15, but this is incorrect. Apple finally allowed iOS 15 to continue to support all device models the same as iOS 14.
Assuming that iPhonesoft’s report today is correct, it will mean that iOS 16 will require the A10 chip as the minimum hardware specification to get the latest features. Earlier news broke that iOS 16 will be a major feature update. Nevertheless, this still represents the incredibly long lifespan of Apple phones in terms of upgrades and maintenance.
The first generations of iPhone 6s and iPhone SE were released at the end of 2015 and early 2016, respectively, which means they will receive regular software updates for more than 6 years. The iPad mini 4 devices will also be removed from the software update roadmap, even if the product is more than five years old when the iPadOS 16 is released.
Apple has also formulated a plan to continue to support the key security patches of the current and previous iOS major versions to further extend the service life of the old models. For example, now, customers can choose to stick to iOS 14 instead of updating to iOS 15. Assuming Apple sticks to its promise, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE users will continue to receive iOS 15 security updates for several years after the official release of iOS 16 in the fall of 2022.