It’s also possible that newer software will slow down an older phone with an aging, less nimble processor.
Features like the Google Lens-esque Visual Lookup, Live Text in photos, portrait mode in FaceTime, and immersive walking directions in Maps won’t be available to 6S users, since they all require a device with an A12 Bionic chip a la the XS and XR or later.Īpple WWDC 2021: the 15 biggest announcements To be sure, there are a lot of new features that won’t work with the 6S’s A9 Bionic processor.
But six years of OS updates and security support puts the 6S in an entirely different league. On the Android side, Samsung has made recent moves to improve its device longevity by offering four years of security support for some of its phones. The iPhone 5S was five years old when it got its last OS update with iOS 12 but wasn’t eligible for iOS 13.
Six years is an awfully long life span for a mobile device, and certainly puts the 6S in the running for the longest supported phone to date. The iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, and first-generation iPhone SE, which all shipped with iOS 9, will be among the oldest devices to receive the OS update. If you’ve managed to hold onto one this long, then Apple has some good news for you - your phone will be eligible for the iOS 15 upgrade when it arrives for the public this fall. The iPhone 6S will turn six years old this September, an eternity in phone years.
