Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Apple has begun working on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, and watchOS 11.
- However, after a development milestone, too many bugs were spotted to have escaped beta testing. As a result, Apple has paused feature development and focused its resources on fixing these bugs.
- This pause is unlikely to affect the release schedule of the updates to consumers.
The launch of the iPhone 15 series was marred with heating issues that spoiled the experience of early adopters. Apple had to roll out an update to iOS 17 that ultimately fixed the issue. Apple also had to roll out an update to watchOS 10 to fix battery drain issues. There are likely more bugs that affect users all around, and it seems Apple has had enough of them, too.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple has temporarily paused the development of its next round of major software updates. With this rare move, employees have been refocused on clearing out bugs as a priority and improving the performance of Apple’s software across its product portfolio rather than adding new features to the updates.
Apple has reportedly completed the first development milestone for the next version of its releases, namely iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 (internally called “Crystal”), macOS 15 (“Glow”), and watchOS 11 (“Moonstone”). But apparently, there were too many bugs that hadn’t been spotted in internal testing. As a result, instead of moving on to the second development milestone, Apple’s software engineering management team decided to halt the development of new features for one week and focus on fixing bugs.
This halt also affects iOS 17.4, which is expected to be released in March 2024. It is also said to affect the future version of visionOS.
The report does note that the feature development halt is unlikely to affect the actual consumer release. So you can expect to see the new releases make their debut at WWDC 2024.
