iPhone 8 and later are getting iOS 16, support for iPhone 6s, 7 and SE dropped

Yesterday at WWDC Apple unveiled the new version of its major OSes – the ones that power its phones, tablets, watches and computers. Here are which of the current devices will be updated to the new version.

iOS 16

iOS 16 adds widgets to the lock screen, improves notifications, adds new features to Messages, Apple Wallet support for handling digital IDs and Pay Later. There is also Always On Display, but that will be available on the next generation phones.

iOS 16 supports the iPhone 8/8 Plus and iPhone X from 2017 and later models. This means that some of the older devices that ran version 15 – iPhone 6s (from 2015), iPhone 7, the original SE and the iPod touch (7th gen) – are no longer supported.

iPadOS 16

iPadOS 16 added improved multitasking capabilities and full support for external displays on M1-powered iPads. Additionally, there are new collaboration tools for Mail and Safari, the Weather app arrived on Apple’s tablets along with other improvements.

The new version supports all iPad Pro versions, iPad Airs (3rd generation and later), vanilla iPad (5th gen and later) and iPad mini (5th gen and later). Compared to iPadOS 15, this drops support for iPad Air 2 (from 2014, nearly 8 years old now) and iPad mini 4 (2015).

watchOS 9

Note that running watchOS 9 requires a phone with iOS 16, meaning that even if you have the latest Apple Watch, you also need an iPhone 8/X or later. As for the watches themselves, the Apple Watch Series 4 and later are supported, as well as the Watch SE. Support for the Series 3 was dropped.

For comparison, here are the devices supported by iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and watchOS 8:

Compatibility lists for the older versions: iOS 15 • iPadOS 15 • watchOS 8

macOS Ventura

macOS Ventura works on both Intel and Apple powered desktop and laptop computers, starting with 2017 models of MacBook (Pro) and iMac (Pro).