Apple is changing up its plans for this year’s mobile software, a new report claims.
As a result of a recent string of criticisms concerning security and quality issues (outlined by my colleague Killian Bell here), Apple will now reportedly delay some of the big iOS features it had planned to 2019.
“Apple has shaken up its iOS software plans for 2018, delaying some features to next year in an effort to put more focus on addressing performance and quality issues,” reporter Ina Fried writes for Axios.
Software boss Craig Federighi reportedly told employees about the revised plan earlier this month, prior to a company offsite with top execs.
The delayed features include a home screen refresh, changes to the in-car user interface, improvements to core apps such as Mail, and updates to the camera, photo-editing and sharing features. Features relating to ARKit, digital health and parental controls will stay on track.
As much as we’re big fans of new landmark features for mobile, if Apple can concentrate on ironing out iOS bugs, rather than adding extra features, we certainly wouldn’t complain.
What do you think of the revised strategy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
15 responses to “Apple delays big new iOS features to focus on stability in 2018”
Yes this will be very welcome & hopefully improving Siri through all OS.
4 new animojis huge feature /s
Translation: X bombed gave it our best shot leading up to it, so taking a year off to roll back to LCD and try to recapture some share. Almost retirement time.
You’re right. They’re doomed. It’s not a question of how many years it will take them to dig out. It’s how many months they can hang on before the inevitable bankruptcy and fire sale. ? Lets face facts. You’re an anonymous troll hiding behind an avatar of clouds with, wait is that a Windows Mobile logo? No wonder you’re so bitter. Congrats tho on picking a perfect username.
Can we come live with you in fantasy land?
Well not sure its fantasy land like animoji and send heartbeat central?
Wanna bet money that Samsung debuts Animoji with the S9?
Don’t care… its silly crap. Try looking up HoloLens Oil rig or Spinal surgery or any of the other 1000 or so applications of MR
Most people have no idea what HoloLens can already do.
Animoji at best is five yo thrill, want to see monkey! Not poopy.
In other news FREE Chemistry update for Minecraft (MSFT owns them) wisely so.
Hahaha it’s so fitting that you’d bring up Minecraft. Shows the age level we are dealing with here.
remind me of apple watche’s killer app ? oops.
What part of what I said wasn’t true?
1. Anonymous? True.
2. Troll? Also true by definition.
3. Windows logo in user icon? True.
4. Bitter? Subjective, but sure looks that way from where I sit.
Now lets contrast to what you said.
1. “IPhone is an iterated 11 yo product” Only in the sense that it began as a smart phone and is still a smart phone. The only way in that it’s any less iterated than any other smart phone that’s been around 11 years is that it took the competition three years to copy it and Microsoft 7 years to finish failing and another 2 to admit it. If you meant “iterated” in the sense that they are continuing to make product, then you’re 100%. But I don’t think that’s how you meant it.
2. “Apple is going to struggle because what they offer is no longer compelling.”
Go to a hospital and try to find a doctor who isn’t carrying around an iPad. Go to any creative agency and try to find a creative who is using anything other than Apple products. The Apple Watch is improving affordable preventative health care, long term medical studies and heart attack prediction, and is the only smart watch robust enough to work with FDA approved medical devices. The Apple Pencil is making drawing tablets a thing of the past. Those are real world solutions.
3. “Face ID and notch were huge miscalculations, they sealed their fate, will take years to dig out of those decisions.”
And yet the iPhone just hit they JUST reached it’s highest market share in HISTORY.
You don’t like animojis and think Hololens is way cool. I get it. But you’re dead wrong that Apple is in trouble. Why not just go back to calling Apple users lemmings and sheep like you used to. It’s much less embarrassing over time while still conveying that sense of hurt superiority. You’re right, we really don’t understand Hololens because we never even took the time to get to know Hololens.
Lol that’s my bad. My reply was meant for the idiot above you that you were replying to.
Oooh a fighter nice,
IPhone …lame overpriced
iPhone 4 …extra row to basic ui
iPhone 6.. Big but bends
iPhone 7… stiffer take away headphone
iPhone 8/10 ..who cares?
Iterated!
Are iPads compelling, in a vacuum maybe. Next to a Surface no.
Highest market share , weird Android now a whopping 88 % add in 2% for windows phone leaves iPhone with some scraps
As for HoloLens…it wins because its untethered computer on you noggin. No one will ever use an existing smartphone to do AR its silly
.
This will be welcomed big time if Apple follows through on it. My perception is that Apple software quality has fallen off significantly since Job’s death. Very few upgrades are trouble free without having to take additional measures or steps to correct, or to have to install patches and bug updates after the initial install.
Besides other phones gaining leads in being user friendly and price friendly, I’m waiting for those redhead emojis. Is there a prejudice involved? I’m not ready for the next iPhone until they get their security act together and stop relying on their brand to sell themselves.
This is a wise decision and a good follow-up to the recent decision to delay the launch of HomePod in order to spend more time perfecting it. This is encouraging, if it means Apple has started to recognize that its reputation for quality (“it just works”) has seriously suffered over the last couple of years and that protecting and restoring that reputation is of far more importance, both immediate and long-term, than being the first on the block with a gazillion fancy new emojis. Nothing has pushed me closer to seriously considering abandoning the Apple bubble after over a decade as an Apple customer than the atrocious iOS 11 – but rectification of those issues would go a long way towards ensuring my continued loyalty.