On the same day that iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 were shipped to the public, Apple confirmed that its next major software release — iOS 13.1 — is coming even sooner than expected. At its keynote last week, Apple announced that iOS 13 would launch on September 19th, to be quickly followed by iOS 13.1 on September 30th.
Apparently, that eleven-day wait was too long, as Apple revealed today that the release of iOS 13.1 has been pushed up to Tuesday, September 24th. From anecdotal evidence among our staff and from reading about the experiences of dozens of iOS 13 beta users over the past several months, it’s clear why Apple started pushing out iOS 13.1 betas in the middle of the iOS 13 beta program. Basically, iOS 13 is a bit of a mess.
In our time with the iOS 13 beta, we’ve run into our fair share of bugs, some of which have been serious enough to cause at least one of our writers to revert to an older release. That said, the latest beta (which is presumably nearly identical to the public release rolling out today), hasn’t been all that problematic in our experience. Nevertheless, if you want to avoid any potential problems iOS 13 might cause, just wait a few days for iOS 13.1.
Furthermore, iOS 13.1 includes a few additional features that didn’t make it into the final iOS 13 release. Automated shortcuts for Siri, a Share ETA feature for the Maps app, and a variety of subtle visual changes are all exclusive to iOS 13.1. But more importantly, iOS 13.1 is also packed with vital bug fixes.
The fact that Apple is pushing up a release this far should tell you everything you need to know about iOS 13, but the company was apparently still comfortable enough to release the update anyway. The good news is that even if you do experience some hiccups, iOS 13.1 will be out in just five days for all compatible iOS devices.
