A week with iOS 15

I’ve been using iOS 15 for just over a week and there are some changes that have made a big difference. Here’s a quick rundown of the things that stood out the most:

• Face ID bypass for sunglasses with an unlocked Apple Watch
• Weather:
  • Loads more detail in the redesigned Weather app! No more guessing what numbers mean, and lots more useful information, including map overlays
  • No more disorienting scroll-snap past the relatively small header area in Weather
  • Weather notifications, so I know when to bring the washing in from the line!
• Maps:
  • The redesign looks great; the higher contrast makes at-a-glance reference while driving easier
  • You can now zoom all the way out to view the earth as a globe, which is great for showing the kids how places on the map actually relate to one another
• Multiple photos in Messages appear in a fan, which is much easier to look at and flick through; turns out carousels can be useful!
• Safari:
  • The address bar is now at the bottom of the screen, very much in range of my thumb
  • Swiping on the address bar to switch tabs is really handy
  • Swipe left from the right-most tab to open a new tab
  • Tab overview is now really useful
  • Extensions look great; I’ve been using Noir, which forces a Dark Mode theme on websites that don’t already have a Dark Mode variant

One thing I’m very excited about but haven’t done too much with yet is the new Password management and built-in two factor authentication. I want to ditch 1Password, and this could be a good bare-bones replacement; I just need to wait until Monterey is released so I can get a feel for how it all works cross-device.