iOS 15 review: Focus mode, FaceTime web links and live text are game-changers

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Live Text even picked out the name Tom Waits on my t-shirt despite it being bunched up.


Patrick Holland/CNET

iOS 15 features not available at launch

There are several iOS 15 features that won’t be available at launch, but I want to highlight two. The first is the ability to add identification cards like your driver’s license to your iPhone’s wallet. When I first heard about this feature I was skeptical. But after losing my wallet, I wish I had my driver’s license in my iPhone’s Wallet app as a backup.

The other thing I’m excited about is SharePlay. When you’re on a FaceTime call, SharePlay lets you listen to music or watch a movie or TV show together and in sync with your friends. You can even share your screen. I tried the feature out in an early beta version of iOS 15 and was impressed with the potential. It’s a little bit like a number of group video-watching features added to apps like Hulu, Prime Video and Disney Plus over the course of the pandemic, mixed with screen sharing over a Zoom call. The difference is that SharePlay is better integrated across your phone and not limited to just a couple of app. You can use it for TikTok, sharing music and any other app that opts in to use SharePlay. It has a clean interface that even allows you to broadcast SharePlay media from your phone to a TV equipped with an AppleTV device.

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