Apple wants iOS 18 to be its most ‘ambitious and compelling’ update in years, report says

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Apple paused the development of new features for iOS 18 to focus on fixing bugs. Despite this one-week pause, the company still has big ambitions for next year’s iPhone software update…

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple has internally referred to iOS 18 as being “ambitious and compelling.” The goal is that iOS 18 will ship with “major new features and designs” alongside significant improvements to performance and security.

Specific details on new features are unclear, but Gurman points out that iOS 18 will come “after a few years of modestly sized updates” for iPhone and iPad users. The easiest argument to be made is that the last major update to the iPhone was iOS 14 in 2020, which added support for Home Screen widgets.

Gurman explains:

Apple also faces a more daunting task with its 2024 software. After a few years of modestly sized updates to iOS, the next version of the iPhone and iPad software could be relatively groundbreaking.

Internally, Apple’s senior management has described its upcoming operating systems as “ambitious and compelling,” with major new features and designs, in addition to security and performance improvements.

Previously, Bloomberg reported that Apple has a wide range of new artificial intelligence features in development for iOS 18.

How will that one-week iOS 18 feature development pause affect next year’s release? Gurman says it “probably won’t noticeably postpone the ultimate release of the software.” The worst case scenario, he says, is that it means Apple will have “a little less time at the end of the development cycle to eliminate any last-minute glitches.”

The caveat to all of this, of course, is that we’re still seven months away from iOS 18 being introduced at WWDC 2024. A lot can change between now and then, and even more can change between now and next fall, when iOS 18 will presumably be released to the general public.

What’s on your wishlist for iOS 18 next year? Are you hoping for a swath of new features and design changes, or would you rather Apple focus more on bug fixes and quality control? Let us know down in the comments.

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