Apple Briefly Paused Work on New Features for iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Clean Up Bugs

[guzhogi]

I said it before, and I'll say it again: I really wish Apple would take a year off between new major OS versions, and just clean them up. Plus, with going from Core Data > SwiftData, do that with all its frameworks/libraries. Transition as much of its base code to Swift, SwiftUI and Metal, and then rebuild its first-party apps with these new frameworks/libraries. Maybe make this the first Apple Silicon-only major OS version, as a "Goodbye old Apple stuff, hello new Apple stuff".

 

[zorinlynx]

Great so another year of small changes, and boring updates, I was hoping next year would be a complete design change and nice new features

Why would you want "a complete design change"? This results in a LOT of new bugs. It's better for them to slowly iterate the design over the years than to make a drastic change. Remember the disaster that was iOS 7? If you don't, trust me, we don't want to live through that again.

 

[rick3000]

MacOS should be a on a two year cycle, one year for new features, one year for stability and bug fixes. Like Leopard then Snow Leopard. The OS is free these days, so I don't see it being a financial problem to have every other year be a minor update focused on stability,

I'd much rather have a stable OS, than rushed new features.

 

[Manzanito]

Why not taking longer to release new versions of the OSes? You can live with the same version of the OS for as long as there are security updates, skip a couple of years before releasing a new OS. Thus, you get:

*Enough time to fix bugs.
*Enough time to develop new features, so it’s worth to update.

 

[wankey]

Fair points, but who's to say it was literally only a week? what if they did prep the week before and a debrief the following week?

This article is mostly ********. 1 sprint is 2 weeks minimum. If they're running agile sprints, it's at least 4 weeks (2 sprints) to get stuff done.

Article is obviously written by non techie.

What really happened was probably this, upper management had a meeting with QA and top level software execs, started identifying a huge surplus of bugs (I'm sure Apple employees themselves have noticed)

They then spend several weeks to months prioritizing these bugs, making sure they are carefully identified and easily produced. Then have an action plan to fix these in the next quarter.

Some bugs take minutes, some bugs take weeks, some need some major rewrite.

I'm guessing the week downtime is basically to do the first part, stop production of new bugs, have the teams sit down and carefully analyze areas of improvement, parts that need to be fixed, rewritten, refactored, then start up the development again.

 

[Henrikr]

About time! The recent software releases feels like beta-versions.

 

[nutmac]

My top bug fixes and quality of life improvement wishes:

iOS and iPadOS:

• Temporary storage: Users should not have to worry about the storage space due to temporary data running amok. There should be a button to delete temporary data per app basis and a global slider option to limit the temporary data storage.
• Optimize storage: For apps that use iCloud, I should be able to set how much local storage space they can use. I am looking at you, Messages, Notes, and Photos apps.
• In Transfer or Reset iPhone settings page, there should be a "Repair" option that will reset the iPhone and restore applications and only the essential settings and data from the backup.
• In Batteries settings, identify apps that are in an unusual state.
• In iCloud settings, there should be an option to force a resync.
• In Photos settings, an option to disable AI recognition OR force rescanning of AI recognition.

macOS:

• iCloud backup for settings and folders outside Desktop and Documents (e.g., Movies, Music, Pictures).
• Disk Utility's First Aid repairs common file system errors (e.g., Spotlight index corruption).
• Storage settings page lists temporary files, log files, and local Time Machine snapshots.
• Allow users to disable "allow in background" notifications.
• Bring Cellular data app management from iOS.
• Passwords settings page becomes a dedicated app.

 

[JustAnExpat]

MacOS should be a on a two year cycle, one year for new features, one year for stability and bug fixes. Like Leopard then Snow Leopard. The OS is free these days, so I don't see it being a financial problem to have every other year be a minor update focused on stability,

I'd much rather have a stable OS, than rushed new features.

Everyone likes Snow Leopard for some reason, but I like Tiger best. Tiger was rock solid when Leopard was released. Tiger to Leopard was over 2 years in length!

 

[OrenLindsey]

I said it before, and I'll say it again: I really wish Apple would take a year off between new major OS versions, and just clean them up. Plus, with going from Core Data > SwiftData, do that with all its frameworks/libraries. Transition as much of its base code to Swift, SwiftUI and Metal, and then rebuild its first-party apps with these new frameworks/libraries. Maybe make this the first Apple Silicon-only major OS version, as a "Goodbye old Apple stuff, hello new Apple stuff".

Yes, so true.
Also, add feature parity between all the different platforms: MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, and maybe watchOS and tvOS.
Apple would never do this now though, they need to add new stuff to stay in the news and stay relevant.

 

[fhall1]

Would prefer if they did this every quarter.

I'd prefer it if they did it every MONTH!

 

[Altis]

All I've wanted for the past few years was a release that made iOS fast and reliable again.

 

[ignatius345]

As always, I very much would prefer brakes being pumped on new features than for stuff to be broken.

 

[freediverx00]

Apple briefly paused work on upcoming iOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, and tvOS 18 updates last week in order to make a serious effort to address bugs in the future iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Mac releases, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

Employees were told about a development pause last week, with engineers asked to focus on fixing flaws and boosting software performance.

Apple's software chief Craig Federighi has been making an effort in recent years to ensure that software bugs are addressed, sometimes resulting in features that need to be delayed. Sources that spoke to Gurman said that with the upcoming software updates, the software engineering management team working under Federighi found too many bugs that were missed in internal testing, leading to a week-long sprint to address the issues.

During that week period, all development on future features was stopped to allow engineers to work solely on improving the existing software. Apple is lifting the pause this week so that work on new capabilities for iOS 18 and its sister updates can continue.

Apple last month finished the first "M1" versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15. Work on further development was paused, with Apple also taking a brief break from working on iOS 17.4, expected to be released next March. Given that work on future software was only paused for a week, no release delays are expected next year.

Article Link: Apple Briefly Paused Work on New Features for iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Clean Up Bugs

While I’l all for Apple taking time to address quality issues, I’m skeptical that they could have accomplished much in just one week.

 

[Numbah One]

Has Apple "discovered" that quality is a feature too? 🤔

 

[ignatius345]

Why not taking longer to release new versions of the OSes? You can live with the same version of the OS for as long as there are security updates, skip a couple of years before releasing a new OS. Thus, you get:

*Enough time to fix bugs.
*Enough time to develop new features, so it’s worth to update.

For better or worse (I think worse) the iPhone-buying public has now been conditioned to expect a new OS and a new iPhone every year. What they've been doing lately is deliberately holding back unfinished parts of that new OS release, and I for one am quite fine with that. Nothing worse than a shiny new feature that doesn't work, or breaks bad enough to make other things not work.

 

[Robin Bonathan]

About time, the same bugs keep coming up over and over again. One release its fixed next its back.

 

[GtrDude]

First good news coming from Apple since iPhone 6 came out.
Bout time.

 

[eropko]

It's always a good thing to have a release focused on bugfixes.

 

[JPJones]

Aaaaa Ok…
Craig - why is my AWU2 still loosing battery like crazy??

Unless 10.1.1 releases today? 🤔

No joke.

My battery complication could be used as a minute countdown timer.

 

[eropko]

First good news coming from Apple since iPhone 6 came out.
Bout time.

Lol what? ))

 

[Kylo83]

Trillion dollar company that can’t do new features without bugs for the year, every iOS update has been boring and bland for years, maybe Apple should go back to hiring the best person for the job

 

[Saturn007]

That Gurman sure speaks strangely! (Or, did MR misquote him?)

”Apple briefly paused work on upcoming iOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, and tvOS 18 updates last week in order to make a serious effort to address bugs in the future iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TVand Mac releases, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.”​

Huh? Sounds contradictory. Pause work on “upcoming” releases to address bugs in “future” releases… 🙈 ❌

Later in the article, MR explains clearly what he meant to say and what actually went on:

“During that week period, all development on future features was stopped to allow engineers to work solely on improving the existing software. Apple is lifting the pause this week so that work on new capabilities for iOS 18 and its sister updates can continue.”​

Then, there was this head scratcher:

“Employees were told about a development pause last week, with engineers asked to focus on fixing flaws and boosting software performance.”​

Hmm…

Isn't “fixing flaws” and “boosting software performance” key parts of software “development”?

Asking for a friend! 😁

I guess not if it means going back to current software, and making it work, rather working on new versions.

In any event, I’m all for it. But only 1 week? They could mine MR forums and come up with an agenda that would them busy for at least a full year!

They especially need to return to the Human Interface Guidelines, and emphasize consistency, transparency, and functionality. Those have been sorely lacking across and within each of their platforms.

As Jobs used to say, “It's that simple!”

 

[nfilipek]

I never had any issues as I got mac mini m1 till macos sonoma. I bought it in 2021 and installed all macos updates as they came and had not a single one issue. On first day macos sonoma there are bugs in ui, finder, messages and bluetooth waking mac from sleep and turn the monitor on every couple of hours. After downgrade from sonoma to ventura all problems are gone so there arent any problems with pheripherialls but with sonoma.

 

[tehabe]

The PDF engine could need some serious work, support for PDF 2.0 and full support for AcroForms would be great. CardDAV and CalDAV could need some work. On macOS CardDAV only supports one address book and only the first one it finds, iOS it supports more but treads them as Lists or Groups. Also using VCard 4.0 instead of using a combination of VCard 3 and Apple specific things would be nice.

 

[jbachandouris]

Yet the promised fixes still haven’t dropped.