Josh Centers, TidBITS:

We’re all eagerly awaiting iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12 Monterey, and watchOS 8, but will they run on the devices you have now? Apple continues to do an excellent job of supporting old devices, but many iPhone and iPad features will require at least an A12 Bionic chip. On the Mac side, some of the new features require an M1 processor.

Dig into the lists, see if your current hardware will support the features that interest you.

For example, here’s a list of features that require an A12 Bionic or later processor:

• Spatial Audio and Portrait Mode in FaceTime
• The “all new city experience” and immersive walking directions in Maps
• Live Text in Camera
• Visual Lookup in Photos
• Siri on-device processing, on-device personalization, on-device dictation, and continuous dictation
• Animated backgrounds in the iOS 15 Weather app

This is what I’d call “feature coaxing”, the addition of new features coaxing you to upgrade your hardware. Apple has this down to a science.

Great, useful, post.