Rumor: iOS 16 will not be available for iPhone 6s and iPhone SE from 2016

Apple may end support for eight iOS and iPadOS devices next year. These include the iPhone 6s, the first iPhone SE, the iPad Mini 4 and the iPad Pro tablets. That claims a French iPhone website.

French website iPhonesoft relies according to internal sources at Apple. The software would run on all iPhones from the iPhone 7, which came out in September 2016. That would mean iOS 16 requires an Apple A10 chip or newer. This means that support for the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus will expire. Those two phones appeared in September 2015.

The iPhone 6s models will continue to receive iOS 15 updates until iOS 16 comes out. This will probably happen in the second half of 2022. This means that these devices have received seven years of updates during their lifespan. The first iPhone SE will also not get an upgrade to iOS 16, according to iPhonesoft. That phone came out in March 2016. The current iPhone SE from 2020 is still supported. IPadOS 16 would also drop support for the iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 2, the iPad Pro 9.7″ and 12.9″ from 2015, and the fifth-generation iPad. All newer iPad models are still supported.

iPhonesoft has correctly predicted in the past which iPhones would no longer be supported with new iOS versions. For example, the website announced early that iOS 14 would run on all iPhones that supported iOS 13. However, the website incorrectly reported last year that the iPhone 6s would not be supported with iOS 15. The year before, iPhonesoft was partially correct in its iOS 13 prediction. The website then reported that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s would not be supported in iOS 13, which was correct. However, the website also incorrectly wrote that the 2016 iPhone SE would not get iOS 13.

No concrete details are known about iOS 16 and iPadOS yet. For example, it is unknown which new features will be introduced in this version of the operating systems. Apple is likely to announce upcoming versions of iOS and iPadOS at its WDDC developer event. Presumably that event will take place in June; this has been the case for the past fifteen years.