Apple is reportedly temporarily halting development of new features for iOS 18 and other operating systems. What’s going on at Apple?
Apple is temporarily suspending iOS 18
Apple has made a striking choice, the company has reportedly temporarily halted the development of iOS 18. And that is not the only software version that has been paused, macOS 15, watchOS 11 and visionOS are also temporarily suspended. These updates will only be released next year, so new functions for the software are no longer being worked on at this time.
Also read: iOS 18: new features mainly focus on AI
After the release of a new operating system, it is common for a group of developers to immediately focus on the next major update. The development of iOS 18 had therefore already started, but it is now temporarily halted. Apple cites the problems in iOS 17 and watchOS 10 as the reason for this interruption. According to the company, the errors in these systems must first be resolved.
Problems with iOS and watchOS
Apple is therefore pausing the development of iOS 18, because the release of iOS 17.1 and watchOS 10.1 was accompanied by a number of annoying problems. For example, Apple Pay no longer worked properly with iOS 17 and users complained about a worse internet connection. With watchOS 10.1, a bug caused battery problems, as the battery of the Apple Watch drained far too quickly. For example, the battery of the Apple Watch Series 9 only lasted three hours in some cases.
Most bugs have now been resolved with interim updates, as Apple released iOS 17.1.1 and watchOS 10.1.1 yesterday. Troubleshooting updates also appeared for the iPad, Mac and the HomePod. So it’s clear that almost all of Apple’s operating systems suffered from annoying bugs, which the company is now trying to fix as quickly as possible. That’s why all developers are focusing on that now, instead of iOS 18 and other future updates.
Break lasts approximately one week
According to the usually reliable Apple analyst Mark Gurman, the development of iOS 18 has been halted for about one week. This also applies to iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11 and visionOS. It is not yet clear what impact this pause will have on the final release date. There is little chance that the release will be delayed, as this is only a one-week break.
Also read: iOS 18: Siri gets a massive update – you need to know this
If anything, Gurman describes this one-week break as a rare move. As a result, some new features may not be available immediately upon the release of iOS 18. This happens more often, for example, the Diary app cannot yet be installed with iOS 17. We already have an idea which iPhones can soon be updated to iOS 18. Check here whether you can install the update next year!
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