Apple Event: New iPhone 15 Features for Travelers

Apple revealed travel-related features available in the next generation of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. 

The tech giant shared the features on Tuesday during an announcement about the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, available for purchase starting September 22.

Most notable is a feature that enables easy access to flight information on the iPhone homepage. 

The capability is a feature of what Apple calls the “dynamic island” – a widget at the top of the home screen that changes and expands along with alerts and live activities, allowing users to more easily interact with certain apps and notifications.

The widget was introduced in the iPhone 14 Pro, and now it’s a feature of both newly announced models — it includes an update that shows flight information connected with a user’s boarding pass. 

The compact version of the widget shows the gate listed on the user’s boarding pass. 

The user can tap the widget, and it then expands to show more flight-related info:

• Flight number
• Group number and seat number
• how long until boarding 
• Departure and landing times
• Departure and arrival airports
• Gate, terminal, and concourse 
• Whether the flight is on time

Users can also use the dynamic island widget to control music and see an arrow from Apple Maps showing the next direction. With the update, users can track things like food delivery or live sports updates. 

A demo of the dynamic island, including the flight feature, can be viewed in the timestamped video below.

There were some other features shared that may also be useful to travelers: 

• A voice isolation setting for talking in noisy places
• More precise GPS with a tool can help iPhone user more easily find each other in crowded locations
• Roadside assistance via satellite in partnership with AAA, for when stuck in service dead zones
• “All day” battery life
• Best camera yet with better performance in the dark

The iPhone 15 Pro enables capturing “spatial video” using the ultra wide and normal camera, which the company said creates a three-dimensional video that can be watched using Apple’s new virtual reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro.

“You can then relive these memories in a magical way on Apple Vision Pro,” said Greg Joswiak, SVP of worldwide marketing for Apple, during the announcement video. “This is really important, as your iphone is with you all the time, so you won’t ever miss capturing a special moment using spatial video, like your family’s beach vacation. Spatial video lets you feel like you’re right back to that moment in time.”