iOS 10: The Basics

The release of a new version of the iOS always brings with it excitement about the new features it delivers to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners. When the initial excitement starts to wear off, though, that excitement is replaced with one extremely important question: Is my device compatible with iOS 10?

For owners who bought their devices in the 4-5 years prior to the release of iOS 10, the news was good. In this article, you can learn all about the history of iOS 10, its key features, and which Apple devices are compatible with it.

iOS 10 Compatible Apple Devices

If your device is in the chart above, you can run iOS 10. This is particularly impressive for how many generations it encompasses. On the iPhone, iOS 10 supported 5 generations of the phone, while on the iPad it supported 6 generations. That's pretty good. Even better: unlike some versions of the iOS in the past, all features of iOS 10 run on all compatible devices.

Key iOS 10 Features

iOS 10 was so desirable because of the key new features it introduced. The most significant improvements that came in this version were: 

• Improved Siri
• Revamped interface for Apple Music
• iMessage apps
• iMessage effects and animations
• Improved lock screen features and options
• The ability to delete pre-installed apps
• Voicemail transcriptions
• Home, an app to control Homekit compatible smart-home devices.

Later iOS 10 Releases

Apple released 12 updates to iOS 10 after its initial release. All updates maintained compatibility with all of the devices in the table above. Most of the updates primarily delivered bug and security fixes. However, some delivered notable new features, including iOS 10.1 (depth-of-field camera effect on iPhone 7 Plus), iOS 10.2 (TV app), and iOS 10.3 (Find My AirPods support and the new APFS filesystem).

What to Do If Your Device Isn't Compatible

If your device isn't present in the chart earlier in this article, it can't run iOS 10. That's not ideal, but many older models can still use iOS 9 (find out which models are iOS 9 compatible).

If your device isn't supported, that suggests that it's fairly old. This may also be a good time to upgrade to a new device, since that not only gives you compatibility with iOS 10 but also all sorts of hardware improvements.

iOS 10 Release History

• 10.3.4 release: July 22, 2019
• 10.3.3 release: July 19, 2017
• 10.3.2 release: May 15, 2017 
• 10.3.1 release: April 3, 2017  
• 10.3 release: March 27, 2017
• 10.2.1 release: Jan. 23, 2017
• 10.2 release: Dec. 12, 2016  
• 10.1.1 release: Oct. 31, 2016
• 10.1 release: Oct. 24, 2016
• 10.0.3 release: Oct. 17, 2016
• 10.0.2 release: Sept. 23, 2016
• 10.0.1 release: Sept. 13, 2016
• iOS 10 release: Sept. 13, 2016

Apple released iOS 11 on Sept. 19, 2017.