Apple does the impossible with this six-year-old smartphone

A six-year-old smartphone can be called old these days. Apple is doing the impossible with this smartphone. Read here how and what.

The iPhone 6S turns six in September. Nowadays an eternity in smartphone land. Not many people still have one, but Apple does have some good news for those who have kept one. This fall, this device will be eligible for an iOS15 upgrade. And that’s cool of Apple, that they still do this.

Update for six-year-old Apple smartphone

They are the oldest devices that will receive the iOS update. We’re talking about the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus and the first-generation iPhone SE, all of which came with iOS 9. It could just be that the 6S is the longest supporting phone to date. In comparison, the iPhone 5S was five years old when it got the last update. This was with iOS 12 at the time.

The big competitor Samsung is also making efforts to extend the life of their smartphones. Some of their devices now get four years of security support. But it’s pretty unique for a six-year-old phone to get another update, well done Apple.

Not everything will work

Of course, such an old phone does not have the latest chips. Therefore, many new features from iOS15 will not work. Think of the Google Lens-esque visual lookup, Live Text in Photos, Portrait mode in FaceTime, as they all require a device with an A12 Bionic chip like the XS and XR or higher.

Another thing that can be quite annoying is that the new software can slow down your beloved 6S. This does not always have to be the case, but it is possible. This has already been tested by Ars Technica and Macworld, but they noticed no significant impact on the performance of (then) iOS 14 on the 6S. What these testers did experience is that the battery runs out quickly. It is, of course, years old.