Owners of an iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV get an update this week. Check your general settings to find it and you’ll see a few new features.
Operating systems aplenty from Apple are getting updates, as Apple rolls out changes across its iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV models, granting new features, and support for some of the new things the company recently launched at its Spring Forward event last week.
It means if you own an iPhone, an iPad, or and Apple TV from the past few years, you probably have an update waiting to be installed to your device sitting in settings ready for you to download and install.
The release is the 14.5 update for iOS on the iPhone, iPadOS on the iPad, and tvOS on the Apple TV, all coming to the same number, even if the feature set is a little different, though can also be shared.
For instance, iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 share quite a lot, including support for improved transparency on websites, with owners of either an iPhone or iPad able to change which apps and websites have access to their data so it can’t be shared, and they’ll also get more emoji including skin tones in kissing emoji plus a woman with a beard, a. mending heart, and a heart on fire.
Apple Podcasts will see redesigned show pages, the subscription service of Apple News+ has a new tab to find magazine and newspapers, and voice control in the accessibility function now supports Australian English, as well. Apple is also changing the default voice of Siri in that it no longer has a default voice, and you can select which ever one you want with more options for use around the world.
They’re the small changes, but big ones will include support for Apple AirTags, which upon release this week can be set up from both an iPhone and an iPad.
Unlocking an iPhone also gains a major change if you own an Apple Watch, as Apple now supports unlocking the phone with the watch if you’re wearing a face mask at the time. In our COVID world, this sort of thing makes sense, with an iPhone using the proximity to the Apple Watch to unlock the phone while Face ID remains unable to see through a face mask.
And Apple TV owners will gain support for more controllers, with the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller and the Xbox Series X controller now working with the Apple TV, plus support for the new Apple TV Siri remote on the way from the new model.
And finally, Apple TV OS 14.5 brings a colour balance technology to the Apple TV HD, the older Apple TV 4K, and the new upcoming Apple TV 4K, allowing you to use a recent iPhone to tweak the colour balance of a TV.
