Apple Has Delayed Some Planned iOS 12 Features Until Next Year to Focus on Performance and Quality

[Kabeyun]

I agree. I really wish they’d do the same with OSX. I few there’s no need for yearly update. Anyone remember Snow Leopard?! Desktop should be rock solid. There’s way too many bells and whistles being added at the expense of stability.

Not to sound picky, but it’s called macOS now, and they are doing the same with it.

 

[MrGuder]

If this is true, it really means Apple is acknowledging they have been rushing each iOS out just to tout the latest and greatest features...allowing more and more bugs to surface which has hurt each new iOS in the long run.

People are forgetting how much money Apple is sitting on year after year, more money needs to be allocated to their bugs and fixes department to fix the bugs before releasing the official iOS.

Also Apple needs to fix the music app with every iOS it gets worse and worse and changes being made just to make changes and not helping the user.

 

[apolloa]

You update your software once a week? Are you on betas?

Not a chance with how buggy it is! Nope, just trying to keep up with Apples never ending regular public updates....
[doublepost=1517337608][/doublepost]

In fairness, Forstall wasn't exactly taking any huge risks in iOS and holding back features that Android had introduced successfully. You can't score unless you put the ball in the air and Forstall was happy with a yard and a cloud of dust.
Of course, that no excuse for some of Apple's recent sloppiness.
Let's not forget that Steve had his share of "oops". Mobile Me, the iPhone 4's antenna issues, etc. iTunes issues go all the way back to the Steve era as well and it's still craptastic.

Yeah but the iPhone 4 was just a design flaw, even if it looked damn sexy, but the bugs we have now are ridiculous!
As you said they can move on, not saying they shouldn’t, but if they are incapable of doing so without producing a buggy mess maybe they shouldn’t?
[doublepost=1517338035][/doublepost]

Yes. It’s also Amazons, Google, Samsung and most other upper tier electronics sellers.

Go back and look at Apple during the St. Jobs era and you had antenna gate and the original glass phones (I think the 4s which was my first iPhone) and only one distributor (ATT) who didn’t have real 3g but some network standard that they used because it’s what they had. And obsoleting Power PC’s and a few years later dumping Cocoa and bad iPod hard drives.....

You cannot replicate with testing ALL of the software/hardware/app combinations possible with a device and also fully develop next years OS and hardware. Any changes you make might screw up multiple years of OS’s and either need to be fixed quickly OR -here’s a popular option- you quit supporting the older versions and ignore the bad publicity that decision generates.

I have been criticizing a lot of Apple’s choices lately but I don’t live in a dreamworld where my preferences are better than other people’s. But this belief that EVERYTHING under Jobs was sweetness and light while EVERYTHING under Cook is garbage ignores what really has happened at Apple.

So even though Apple design and develop their own hardware and control it and get every single app on its devices and makes iOS ENTIRELY on its own, you don’t think they are actually capable of making a stable OS because if, erm, variables...

Well that must be ‘variables’ in Apple only then, I’d call it skimping on proper development to save costs and maximise profits like Cook has been doing.

Remember just how much money Apple has, and how many employees it has, how many offices globally it has.

In my experience iOS was a hell of a lot better under Forstell before Ives took over and flattened everything! And I blame Cook as I believe he is a profits first man and put Ive in charge of iOS.

 

[sbailey4]

A two year cycle would be much better than a 1 year cycle. It seems that as soon as the software is approaching the point where it woks as intended, the next version is out.

People mention Snow Leopard, which was great, but I look back to Panther, Tiger, Leopard where there was at least 2 years between them and they were better for it,

......and broken to h***. Maybe even an ongoing process. Just keep releasing updates as needed and every now and then a new feature update gets a new major build and rolls out. 11.0, 11.3, 11.5, 12.0, 12.3 .............

So when 10.3.3 is working great don't totally kill it and start over totally with a bug fest. Update a few items (bold fonts or whatever), then a redesigned calculator app (preferably one that can add numbers correctly) and so on.

 

[unobtainium]

No, it’s saying some planned iOS 12 features have been delayed until next year, which one can assume will be iOS 13.

No, the article says (or at least it originally said) that some of these planned features would be delayed to “iOS 12 at the earliest.” But the article also said the delay was “until 2019” which = iOS 13. The article was inconsistent.

 

[EdT]

If this is true, it really means Apple is acknowledging they have been rushing each iOS out just to tout the latest and greatest features...allowing more and more bugs to surface which has hurt each new iOS in the long run.

People are forgetting how much money Apple is sitting on year after year, more money needs to be allocated to their bugs and fixes department to fix the bugs before releasing the official iOS.

Also Apple needs to fix the music app with every iOS it gets worse and worse and changes being made just to make changes and not helping the user.

Every time they ”fix” the music app I no longer know how to do even some basic things like shuffle or repeat. I don’t use anyone’s streaming service so this is just iTunes.

I want to repeat this in case ANYONE from Apple reads these threads:

I don’t use streaming music.
I don’t use streaming music.
I don’t use streaming music.

My phone cell connection isn’t reliable and my single available ISP, the only company I can use, doesn’t offer a high enough speed. It’s why we don’t stream movies from Netflix or Apple TV movies either.

Have a damn good reason to change how you do things when playing in iTunes and if you do change anything then have a page explaining the changes online available from day 1. It’s irritating when something has moved or replaced and you search online for how to do that function and all the top answers relate to an older OS that isn’t accurate anymore. And other than people asking how to do those functions you can’t find anything on Apple Support or the forums.

After a day or 2 answers do start showing up online. Sometimes I agree it makes sense and sometimes I don’t. But either way I know how to do it again. I’ve gotten to the point that I wait a month to see what complaints show up before downloading either MacOS or IOS.

 

[cwwilson]

I wonder what this “new home screen” was supposed to look like? And we were supposed to get it in iOS 12? I don’t know what exactly they would change, it’s been more or less icons in a grid pattern and a dock for its entirety. I would love to see an updated look, but short of completely redesigning iOS from the ground up I don’t know what they could really change.

I’m guessing it would have been similar as the update from 6 to 7.

 

[MrUNIMOG]

I think this might be just another release like iOS 9, where every device supported by the previous version would be carried over. I'd appreciate.

Reasons why that seems plausible:

• So far, there's been a pattern in that the amount of major iOS releases an iPhone would get (i.e. years an iPhone would be supported) increased by one every other iPhone generation (see below). If that pattern is to continue, iPhone 5s will be the first iPhone to see 6 major iOS versions and thus 6 years of update support.
  • iPhone (1st gen) got iPhone OS 1.x through 3.1.3. Three major versions, three years of support.
  • iPhone 3G: iPhone OS 2.x through iOS 4.2.1. Same three years.
  • iPhone 3GS: iPhone OS 3.x through iOS 6.1.6. Four major versions, four years of support.
  • iPhone 4: iOS 4.x through 7.1.2. Same four years.
  • iPhone 4s: iOS 5.x through 9.3.5. Five major versions, five years of support.
  • iPhone 5: iOS 6.x through 10.3.3. Same five years.
• Every device supported by iOS 11 has a 64bit SoC and was significantly more powerful than its particular predecessor. Also they all have at least 1 GB of RAM, although that had already been the case with iOS 10.
• iOS 11 performs surprisingly well on iPhone 5s, given it's the 5th major version for that old device. It seems reasonable that the iPhone 5s might just get another major update.
• And now this rumor. Reminds just a lot of iOS 9, which saw similar rumors beforehand, that back then led me to expect support for iPhone 4s to continue, which turned out to be true.

Then in 2019 with the 13th major iOS release, I could imagine they then drop support for iPhone 6 and iPod touch (6th gen) alongside iPhone 5s, since the A8 in those devices isn't all that much more powerful than the A7 and they've got the same 1 GB of RAM. While that would break with the aforementioned pattern of iPhone software support duration which may or may not be coincidental, it would limit the devices "iOS 13" will have to run on to those with at least 2 GB of RAM (like iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, iPhone 6s onwards) which might give them some headroom for more substantial changes to the OS.

 

[9081094]

Headline: Apple rumored to add feature X!
Users: "They should focus on fixing bugs and improving performance!"

Headline: Apple rumored to focus on fixing bugs and improving performance
Users: "So we won't get new features?! Lame!"

A company the size of Apple with such little products to focus on should be able to do both to stay relevant in the future. With those exorbitant big profits they could hire more people for squashing bugs and delivering major improvements instead of counting cash and milking their old product line.

 

[Feyl]

Ok, I’ve been sort of defending Apple and needing to fix bugs rather than introduce new features, but emojis in general and Animoji’s in particular I never got why Apple was so fixated upon highlighting them. I usually don’t pick on some ‘feature’ like this but I honestly have not understood Apple’s excitement when releasing a new batch. Are there customers clamoring for these? I realize I’m older and it’s a feature not aimed at me but is this something that people make decisions for which phone to buy?

Don’t worry I think age is not the issue. I’m 24 and can’t care less about emojis, animojis and other kinds of mojis. Honestly, those can excite only small minded people. It’s definitely not pushing the human race forward. I miss the “Think different” campaign.

 

[Fiachers]

Got to give them credit....they are churning out updates at a pretty high clip these days to try and squash as many of these big bugs as possible.

Aww, aren't they great.

 

[jonblatho]

No, the article says (or at least it originally said) that some of these planned features would be delayed to “iOS 12 at the earliest.” But the article also said the delay was “until 2019” which = iOS 13. The article was inconsistent.

They’re not gonna debut a Home screen redesign in a point-release. Some of this is logic.

 

[Fiachers]

What bugs? Mine works great. I WANT DARK MODE!!! Who comes out with an OLED phone and still keeps their messaging obnoxiously white

Seriously? What do you mean "what bugs"? Sometimes I wonder if posts here are intentionally trying to p*** me off...

 

[Mike MA]

I never minded the skeuomorphic design, and iOS 6 was the most stable version of iOS, I believe.

They are not comparable. There was far less integration, features and complexity back those days.

 

[dk001]

Takes me back to the old arguments that Hardware Development is driving Software Development.
[doublepost=1517343965][/doublepost]

They are not comparable. There was far less integration, features and complexity back those days.

However back then you could use an OS that was pretty much intuitive. These days you need a user manual. Intuitive has pretty much gone by the way ...

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

iOS still doesn't have the ability to quickly and easily name files. You have a File Manager, it's not complete until yo can rename a file. E.g. take a picture and then name it...

You can rename a file, you have to long press a file, then tap "Rename." Maybe it's not as easy and quick as on the Mac, but the ability exists.

 

[mytdave]

About damn time.

 

[GermanSuplex]

They are not comparable. There was far less integration, features and complexity back those days.

For sure the features are more advanced, but the skeuomorphic design made some features more obvious.

It’s a balancing act that they managed very well until iOS 7. It’s not like I’m comparing iOS 6 to iOS 11, certain things that worked in iOS 6 were broken in iOS 7 and have never been fixed.

 

[ekwipt]

Not sure why they wouldn’t add Mail to the list for updates, it’s not the worst iOS app but knowing I have to wait until 2019 for any real improvements makes a migration to Spark as my main mail app on MacOS/iOS a priority for me, I mean Apple may as well buy the Readlle team at this point and just roll their apps into the Applesphere.

Further to that I think the real improvements need to be made to iCloud and Siri at the same time to UI. Apple are just lagging behind google in all directions.

 

[unobtainium]

They’re not gonna debut a Home screen redesign in a point-release. Some of this is logic.

That was never in question. The article said the features may be delayed to 2019 and mentioned iOS 12 as the earliest they could arrive.
I am simply pointing out that 2019 = iOS 13. So if the rumor is taken at face value, the features have been pushed back to at least iOS 13, not iOS 12, which is coming this year (2018).

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

My bad. I clearly need a coffee, as there was more to this article hidden below a "read more" button.

I've updated the MacRumors article with the following information.

The report claims Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi announced the revised plans to employees at a meeting earlier this month.

Fried says a number of features have been delayed until 2019, including a planned refresh of the home screen and in-car user interfaces, improvements to core apps like Mail, and updates to capturing, editing, and sharing photos.

While those features might be shelved until iOS 12, Apple still has a number of improvements planned this year in areas like its Health app, ARKit, and parental controls. In addition, Apple is said to be prioritizing work to make iPhones "more responsive" and "less prone to cause customer support issues."​

Thanks for all the hard work you do, it's much appreciated

 

[GermanSuplex]

Whether you like so-called skeuomorphic or so-called flat design is subjective. None of the issues I have with my iOS devices have anything to do with the look of the UI.
[doublepost=1517317284][/doublepost]
What changed design wise between iOS 10 and 11?

I don’t particularly mind the flat design, I just think some items in the older iOS designs made features more obvious. 3D Touch features are still a guess on a lot of apps.

I think graphics in apps being based on real-world items aided in functionality.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Bring Forstall back. Problem solved.

I’ve said it before—-I think iOS and MacOS were just more...”fun” under Forstall and Jobs.

Apple has become like this colorful but cold and kind of bland company. Sterile.

 

[pubwvj]

Improved reliability and stability is good.
Improved backward compatibility and legacy support would be even better.
Apple needs to stop killing off apps by changing the OS (iOS & MacOS) such that it orphans legacy software. We still need to use the tools we used yesterday, last year, last decade, last century, last millenia (wow, we're in a time we can say all that!)

 

[EdT]

Not a chance with how buggy it is! Nope, just trying to keep up with Apples never ending regular public updates....
[doublepost=1517337608][/doublepost]

Yeah but the iPhone 4 was just a design flaw, even if it looked damn sexy, but the bugs we have now are ridiculous!
As you said they can move on, not saying they shouldn’t, but if they are incapable of doing so without producing a buggy mess maybe they shouldn’t?
[doublepost=1517338035][/doublepost]

So even though Apple design and develop their own hardware and control it and get every single app on its devices and makes iOS ENTIRELY on its own, you don’t think they are actually capable of making a stable OS because if, erm, variables...

Well that must be ‘variables’ in Apple only then, I’d call it skimping on proper development to save costs and maximise profits like Cook has been doing.

Remember just how much money Apple has, and how many employees it has, how many offices globally it has.

In my experience iOS was a hell of a lot better under Forstell before Ives took over and flattened everything! And I blame Cook as I believe he is a profits first man and put Ive in charge of iOS.

Here’s where I come from. I program industrial OEM (Original Equipment Machines). My company designs the entire machine. These are either 1 of a kind or extremely low production rate equipment that are used to automate assembly lines. So, I program robotic assembly lines.

Despite what I said about the machines being 1 offs or low production, what you end up doing, and programming, is very similar. You have grippers which hold or moved an item , servo assemblies to precisely position it, actuators that rotate to insert or connect pieces together. After 30 years it’s all canned at this point, right? Grab your individual modules, link ‘em together, and you’re done. Right?

Wrong. First off there are usually improvements to the smart devices you are programming. Something that worked reliably when you had 100 milliseconds to do it doesn’t work at all at 35 milliseconds. The mechanics really haven’t changed. What did? And now the customer has to have constant data stored for each part or process. Even if not a legal requirement it has become a CYA requirement. So you need to incorporate both data collection and a way to move it to your customers servers. All the other machines on the line are doing the same thing. But your data isn’t being recorded. Is it something you are doing, or not doing, is it physical wiring, or if the system is wireless is it a router? Did the customers IT people set it up correctly? I usually am not allowed to have access to data collection networks, someone who works there must troubleshoot their end.

I could go on but the point is that even when it is a repeat job something always pops up. Some requirement was changed and now something isn’t working.

The problem and solution gets added to the list. And when we build another one, or something similar, some new problem WILL raise its ugly head.

So I know first hand that something that my bosses or the customer thinks ought to be a walk in the park turns out not to be. My BIL writes code for a defense contractor, and he runs into similar situations.

If it was easy everyone would do it.