A quick guide to the latest iOS version your iPhone supports, plus whether it will get iOS 17 or not.
Unsure which version of iOS your iPhone can run? Here’s a quick guide so you can find out if your iPhone is compatible with the most recent iterations of the iPhone operating system, and, if it isn’t, which version you can install on your iPhone.
Apple gives iOS a major update each year, usually introducing new features and some stability upgrades to the previous version, plus numerous smaller updates in between. The new version of iOS is iOS 17 (launching in September 2023).
Although the company is better than most at keeping older models on the list of supported devices, hardware limitations can sometimes mean that an iPhone gets left behind. This doesn’t mean the device will stop working, but you won’t be able to access the newer features and capabilities that come with the updated software and you may be vulnerable to security flaws. If your iPhone can’t run one of Apple’s supported versions of iOS then it’s probably time to upgrade your iPhone. To find out more read how long Apple supports the iPhone for.
If you want to see a brief history of iOS, then take a look at our guide to Every version of iOS released so far.The latest iOS version supported by each iPhone
To show you which version of iOS your iPhone can run, we’ve broken down each iPhone generation so you know which version it originally shipped with (as that will be the earliest it can run) and the latest iteration it currently supports–including whether that iPhone will support iOS 17. We’ve not listed the smaller ‘point’ releases, as they change all the time, so take it as understood that any version of iOS that the iPhone is shown as supporting (such as iOS 16) also means any smaller point updates too (such as iOS 16.4.1).
It should be noted that Apple has stopped supporting a lot of the older versions of iOS now, meaning there are no new security patches for them. Apple currently supports the last two generations of the iPhone operating system: iOS 16 or 15. Because iPhones that could run iOS 13 and iOS 14 can run iOS 15, those versions of iOS are considered obsolete by Apple and aren’t updated.
