When Apple unveils iOS 12 five months from now, you shouldn’t expect too many major new features. Instead, Apple has shifted focus to improving the overall stability and user experience of the mobile operating system, postponing bigger changes to next year.
That doesn’t mean iOS 12 will be boring, but the update likely won’t be anywhere near as exciting as its predecessor or next year’s big release, iOS 13.
The news comes from Axios, which learned that Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi announced the revised plan to employees at a meeting earlier this month.
Apple reportedly postponed various features including “a refresh of the home screen and in-car user interfaces, improvements to core apps like mail and updates to the picture-taking, photo editing, and sharing experiences.”
iOS 12 will have a number of new features focused on augmented reality, digital health, and parental controls. Apple is also “prioritizing work to make iPhones more responsive and less prone to cause customer support issues,” whatever that means.
Axios points out that some engineers inside the team are questioning Apple’s decision, and whether or not it’ll actually lead to better quality. Apple’s software has received plenty of criticism over the past year. On top of that, Apple has had to deal with various security issues over the past few months, as well as the unexpected revelation that it was secretly slowing down older iPhones to prevent unwanted shutdowns.
iOS 12 will be released this fall alongside new iPhone hardware. The report doesn’t provide any details about Apple’s 2018 iPhones, however.
