1. Customizable Default Apps for All Services
Apple made a great start (even if it was late) with an iOS 14 feature that allows you to set default third-party browsers and email apps. However, the company should take that one step further.
Plenty of people prefer to use third-party apps for Reddit, Twitter, and even Instant Messaging, and iOS 15 should support that use case.
Whenever you tap a Reddit link, you should be allowed to open it in Apollo for Reddit by default. Similarly, iOS 15 should let people open Twitter links in Tweetbot and Apple Music links in Soor, or other apps for these services.
There’s also a case to be made for being able to replace Reminders with apps such as Things, among others. We’d really like to see Apple go all-in on this.
2. Better VPN Management
While Apple lets you run VPNs pretty much as long as you want, it’s really painful to enable or disable VPNs right now. It would be great to be able to add VPN settings in the Control Center for quick access.
More than that, Apple should allow you granular access controls for VPNs. Quite a few streaming services don’t work if you’re running a VPN, and in such cases it would be great to automatically disable the VPN whenever these apps are launched.
3. Improved Dual-SIM Support
If you travel abroad often, or if you live in a country where everybody uses two different carriers for maximum network coverage, the iPhone’s dual-SIM support is likely to frustrate you.
In contrast, Android phones are far ahead in their dual-SIM management.
4. Enhancements for Shortcuts and Automations
Apple’s Shortcuts app is a goldmine for anyone interested in automation on iPhones. The company should enhance this experience by letting you share automation routines with other people, which is not possible in iOS 14. We'd also like to see the ability to properly back up shortcuts, similar to a Time Machine backup.
5. Revamped Notifications
iOS somehow still lags behind Android in how it handles notifications. The stack view for notifications sent by various apps takes up too much space and doesn’t even look good.
Ideally, all notifications from one app should be within a single card and you should see a maximum of the previous three notifications in this card.
6. Removing the Duplicate Back Button
iPhones don’t actually have a back button, but most apps put it in the top-left. For example, if you go to Settings > General, you’ll see a button in the top-left that lets you go back to the main Settings page.
This is fine, but when you switch to a different app, you will now see a tiny little button in the top-left to return to the previous app. This means that you will actually see two different back buttons very close to each other.
I don't know about you, but I often end up hitting the wrong one. A minor UI tweak to fix this duplication would be welcome in iOS 15.
7. Live Widgets
Apple did a great job of adding widgets in iOS 14 and people found a way to create lovely transparent widgets too. Unfortunately, widgets can only be refreshed once every 15 minutes, so you can’t have widgets for live scores from MLB or NBA games. This could negatively impact battery life, but this feature is too good to miss out on.
