Will iOS 7 be ready?

[Gogurt48]

I'm disappointed that we apparently aren't going to get a beta 7. Beta 6 is pretty good (at least on the iPhone), but there are still a lot of bugs in it.

Beta 6 is just a tweak of beta 5, which has been out for three weeks now. I know Apple has been working hard during that time, and that they still have two weeks to go, but I'm a little worried that there might be too many bugs, too little beta testing, and too little time left.

What do you think? Will iOS 7 be ready in time? If it isn't, will they release it anyway and do a point-release a couple weeks later?

 

[VSMacOne]

It's already done. If what WSJ/AllThingsD is saying about September 10 is true, they probably already have production underway with the GM iOS7 installed.

 

[Fuchal]

It will have to be.

 

[Gogurt48]

It's already done. If what WSJ/AllThingsD is saying about September 10 is true, they probably already have production underway with the GM iOS7 installed.

If they already have the GM, and they're not going to release that to us until the Event, then perhaps that explains why we didn't get a beta 7.

 

[Cougarcat]

The last normal beta release was August 7, and that wasn't even the latest version at the time internally. The GM should be many builds ahead from what we have now. It'll be ready, though maybe not for iPads.

 

[bbfc]

I'm disappointed that we apparently aren't going to get a beta 7. Beta 6 is pretty good (at least on the iPhone), but there are still a lot of bugs in it.

Beta 6 is just a tweak of beta 5, which has been out for three weeks now. I know Apple has been working hard during that time, and that they still have two weeks to go, but I'm a little worried that there might be too many bugs, too little beta testing, and too little time left.

What do you think? Will iOS 7 be ready in time? If it isn't, will they release it anyway and do a point-release a couple weeks later?

The builds pushed to developers are older than what Apple is using internally. I can imagine the vast majority of bugs have been fixed and the rest will be done in the first point update.

Beta 5 was solid on my 4S and Beta 6 only fixed an issue with iTunes Match.

It'll be ready for the iPhone. The iPad version may get released later.

 

[Merkie]

I think the iPad needs a new beta.

 

[Defender2010]

I'm disappointed that we apparently aren't going to get a beta 7. Beta 6 is pretty good (at least on the iPhone), but there are still a lot of bugs in it.

Beta 6 is just a tweak of beta 5, which has been out for three weeks now. I know Apple has been working hard during that time, and that they still have two weeks to go, but I'm a little worried that there might be too many bugs, too little beta testing, and too little time left.

What do you think? Will iOS 7 be ready in time? If it isn't, will they release it anyway and do a point-release a couple weeks later?

Are you just rehashing this article? Perhaps you'll find your answers there....

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/08/op-ed-whats-going-on-with-ios-7

 

[Gogurt48]

Are you just rehashing this article? Perhaps you'll find your answers there....

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/08/op-ed-whats-going-on-with-ios-7

I wasn't looking for an answer (since no one here has one). I was looking for opinions and discussion.

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting article. It does echo some of my concerns.

 

[Krevnik]

Beta 6 is just a tweak of beta 5, which has been out for three weeks now. I know Apple has been working hard during that time, and that they still have two weeks to go, but I'm a little worried that there might be too many bugs, too little beta testing, and too little time left.

If there wasn't an SDK, there'd be no developer betas, just internal ones. The main goal of the developer betas is to let developers test their apps, and report regressions in the APIs that break their apps (versus changes that the devs need to make). Any bug reporting from the devs beyond that is gravy.

The reason for the long gap is that beta 6 is "good enough" for devs to finish their work and then do final testing and bug fixing against the GM. It isn't that they aren't fixing bugs, but the process to release those builds at this point is just extra overhead that doesn't buy them much.

 

[dcp10]

If there wasn't an SDK, there'd be no developer betas, just internal ones. The main goal of the developer betas is to let developers test their apps, and report regressions in the APIs that break their apps (versus changes that the devs need to make). Any bug reporting from the devs beyond that is gravy.

The reason for the long gap is that beta 6 is "good enough" for devs to finish their work and then do final testing and bug fixing against the GM. It isn't that they aren't fixing bugs, but the process to release those builds at this point is just extra overhead that doesn't buy them much.

^This

 

[atteligibility]

The reason for the long gap is that beta 6 is "good enough" for devs to finish their work and then do final testing and bug fixing against the GM.

Haha, funny...
Been working 80 hours a week these past two months to optimize apps for iOS7, and boy oh boy this thing is far from being "good enough" for devs to work with.
Not only that, rules for certain things like layout, seem to be changing at every beta, and there is no word as to what what is final and what is a work in progress. In other words, we spend hours troubleshooting issues in our apps, that end up being iOS issues.
Also, a big part of our job is to optimize performance within our apps, make sure everything run smooth and fast, which is virtually impossible when the OS itself runs that slow.

I can tell you that devs REALLY want a few more betas, what is less understandable is why would non developers want new betas so much. You'll get updates regularly anyway, whether they're beta or not should not really matter...

 

[dannyyankou]

Apple would never release something that wasn't ready yet.

Oh wait, maps.

 

[mcdj]

what is less understandable is why would non developers want new betas so much.

Because we live in the era of I-AM-SOOPER-SPESHUL-AND-EVERY-DAY-IS-MY-SOOPER-SPESHUL-DAY-AND-I-DESERVE-THE-LATEST-AND-GREATEST-EVERYTHING-AND-I-WANT-IT-THE-SPLIT-SECOND-IT'S-AVAILABLE, PREFERABLY SOONER!!!!

 

[rtomyj]

I'm disappointed that we apparently aren't going to get a beta 7. Beta 6 is pretty good (at least on the iPhone), but there are still a lot of bugs in it.

Beta 6 is just a tweak of beta 5, which has been out for three weeks now. I know Apple has been working hard during that time, and that they still have two weeks to go, but I'm a little worried that there might be too many bugs, too little beta testing, and too little time left.

What do you think? Will iOS 7 be ready in time? If it isn't, will they release it anyway and do a point-release a couple weeks later?

Yes it will. Think of it this way; what you see now is pretty much what you get. There might be hidden or held off features for older models (not 5S or whatever) but that's it. Now a month of pure bug fixing, animation building, icon making etc is very long and a good amount of time. It takes me about one day to debug 1 page of an application and I started coding 1 year ago and am just 1 man. Apple has trained engineers and man power so they can tackle more than I can. Wool the release be bug free? No. Will it be more smooth and less buggy than current beta? Most definitely.

 

[Gogurt48]

I can tell you that devs REALLY want a few more betas, what is less understandable is why would non developers want new betas so much. You'll get updates regularly anyway, whether they're beta or not should not really matter...

It's exciting to see new features (e.g., the translucent folders. They were just gray in beta 1). Also, it's nice when things that were broken get fixed.

Yes, I know the betas weren't intended for me (I'm learning to code for iOS but don't yet have any apps to update). I know it was a risk putting beta software on my daily driver, and I'm not complaining. iOS 7 performs about as expected. But because I am using it on my daily driver, I very much look forward to new beta releases so I can enjoy a smoother iOS experience.

 

[pottyvick]

Beta 6 works great already, the only thing i see them fixing is the signal "circles" displaying the correct signal strength

 

[FreeState]

Beta 6 works great already, the only thing i see them fixing is the signal "circles" displaying the correct signal strength

It just works so so for me. Its way better than the previous betas for sure, however, the camera app tends to freeze for 4-5 minutes at a time and iTunes will freeze the whole system as well (kind of annoying on a run when all your tracking apps and music all of a sudden stop - I know its a beta, but its no were near bug free on iPhone 4S.)

 

[Krevnik]

Haha, funny...
Been working 80 hours a week these past two months to optimize apps for iOS7, and boy oh boy this thing is far from being "good enough" for devs to work with.

...

Also, a big part of our job is to optimize performance within our apps, make sure everything run smooth and fast, which is virtually impossible when the OS itself runs that slow.

Out of curiosity, which devices are you using for this? I'm seeing a different result than you are, but I've been developing on an iPhone 5 and iPad 4... so I'm not exactly behind the curve. But we haven't been seeing these particular perf issues inside the apps themselves. And any perf issues in Springboard are out of our scope.

Not only that, rules for certain things like layout, seem to be changing at every beta, and there is no word as to what what is final and what is a work in progress. In other words, we spend hours troubleshooting issues in our apps, that end up being iOS issues.

Yup, not gonna argue that the betas have been changing things and causing regressions as they go, which does suck. That is kinda the point of betas though, is that stuff will be in flux. I would say that Apple could do a better job preventing regressions between beta releases though. The table view regression in beta 3 (or was it 4?) was embarrassing.

However, they usually stop sending out the betas when that stuff is mostly settled, and they are hammering down the bug count itself. If they have the repro, they don't exactly need you to confirm the bug being fixed for them, even if you want to confirm the fix so you can launch as close to 7 GM as possible. But unfortunately for you, that's not Apple's goal. They aren't trying to make you ready for the GM, they are trying to make the GM ready for you to finish development on.

At this point, I suspect their focus is entirely quashing reported bugs, and focusing on the acceptance process for iOS 7 (partly via the new iPhone). Larger changes in the OS can jeopardize that process, and so the bar to get a change into iOS at this point is getting pretty high. Especially with 2 weeks to go before the supposed Sept event. I'd be somewhat surprised if they weren't looking at RCs right now.

 

[atteligibility]

Out of curiosity, which devices are you using for this? I'm seeing a different result than you are, but I've been developing on an iPhone 5 and iPad 4... so I'm not exactly behind the curve. But we haven't been seeing these particular perf issues inside the apps themselves. And any perf issues in Springboard are out of our scope.



Yup, not gonna argue that the betas have been changing things and causing regressions as they go, which does suck. That is kinda the point of betas though, is that stuff will be in flux. I would say that Apple could do a better job preventing regressions between beta releases though. The table view regression in beta 3 (or was it 4?) was embarrassing.

However, they usually stop sending out the betas when that stuff is mostly settled, and they are hammering down the bug count itself. If they have the repro, they don't exactly need you to confirm the bug being fixed for them, even if you want to confirm the fix so you can launch as close to 7 GM as possible. But unfortunately for you, that's not Apple's goal. They aren't trying to make you ready for the GM, they are trying to make the GM ready for you to finish development on.

At this point, I suspect their focus is entirely quashing reported bugs, and focusing on the acceptance process for iOS 7 (partly via the new iPhone). Larger changes in the OS can jeopardize that process, and so the bar to get a change into iOS at this point is getting pretty high. Especially with 2 weeks to go before the supposed Sept event. I'd be somewhat surprised if they weren't looking at RCs right now.

I test my stuff on iPhone 4,4S,5 on the latest two iPod generations, and iPad2,iPad3,iPad4 and iPad Mini.

iPhone is definitely smoother and closer to release, all iPad releases so far have been a complete disaster, iPad3 probably being the worse.

I am working on many different apps, some of them were iOS7 ready after 2 hours of work on the first beta. But sadly some of them just won't make it to iOS7 unless Apple corrects some nasty nasty bugs.

You may have had a different experience based on which frameworks and methods you're using, but some of the stuff is just way too broken right now..

 

[batting1000]

Just because we haven't gotten a new beta doesn't mean Apple isn't working incredibly hard behind the scenes. I suspect the GM will be rock solid and that it's been thoroughly tested internally (and externally) by engineers on their own devices.

 

[C DM]

I wasn't looking for an answer (since no one here has one). I was looking for opinions and discussion.

Thanks for the link. That's an interesting article. It does echo some of my concerns.

Since "in time" can still really be any time in the fall, there's still a fair amount of time left, technically speaking. Sure, the rumors and other guesses and all that seem to put the launch at a date that is much sooner in the near future, based on the timeframe that was actually provided though there's still time if it's needed (as determined by Apple basically).

Just because we haven't gotten a new beta doesn't mean Apple isn't working incredibly hard behind the scenes. I suspect the GM will be rock solid and that it's been thoroughly tested internally (and externally) by engineers on their own devices.

And there's that too.

 

[SMIDG3T]

iPhone version: Yes, let's see. If we take Beta 6 out of the equation (as that only fixed a critical bug to do with iCloud) it's been 22 days since Beta 5. Think of all the staff Apple will have constantly working on the iPhone version of iOS 7. That's a lot of man hours.

iPad version: No.

 

[bbfc]

It just works so so for me. Its way better than the previous betas for sure, however, the camera app tends to freeze for 4-5 minutes at a time and iTunes will freeze the whole system as well (kind of annoying on a run when all your tracking apps and music all of a sudden stop - I know its a beta, but its no were near bug free on iPhone 4S.)

Thats why Apple suggests you install it on a developer device, not your main phone.

It's a beta and things will go wrong.

It's quite bug-free on my 4S. No camera lock ups and the Music player is solid for me.

 

[FreeState]

Thats why Apple suggests you install it on a developer device, not your main phone.

It's a beta and things will go wrong.

It's quite bug-free on my 4S. No camera lock ups and the Music player is solid for me.

This is my development device, shocker I know, but there are a multitude of running apps on the iPhone that all need to be tested on iOS7.