Apple’s annual software upgrade\u00a0this fall will offer users plenty of new features: enabling a single set of apps to work across iPhones, iPads and Macs, a Digital Health tool to show parents how much time their children have been staring at their screen and improvements to Animojis, those cartoon characters controlled by the iPhone X’s facial recognition sensor.<\/p>\n
But just as important this year will be what Apple doesn’t introduce: redesigned home screens for the iPhone, iPad and CarPlay, and a revamped Photos app that can suggest which\u00a0images to view.<\/p>\n
These features were delayed after Apple Inc. concluded it needed its own major upgrade in the way the company develops\u00a0and introduces new products. Instead of keeping engineers on a relentless annual schedule and cramming features into a single update, Apple will start focusing\u00a0on the next two years of updates\u00a0for its iPhone and iPad operating system, according to people familiar with the change.\u00a0The company will continue to update its software annually,\u00a0but internally engineers will have more discretion to push back features that aren’t as polished to the following year.<\/p>\n
Software chief Craig Federighi laid out the new strategy to his army of engineers last month, according to a person familiar with the discussion. His team will have\u00a0more time to work\u00a0on new features and\u00a0focus on under-the-hood refinements\u00a0without being tied to a list of new features annually simply so the company can tout a massive year-over-year leap, people familiar with the situation say. The renewed focus on quality is designed to make sure the company can fulfill promises made each summer at the annual developers conference and that new features work reliably and as advertised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis change is Apple beginning to realize that schedules are not being hit, stuff is being released with bugs \u2013 which previously would not have happened,\u201d when Apple was a smaller company with fewer engineers, customers\u00a0and devices to manage, says one person familiar with the company. Apple declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The shift\u00a0is an admission of what many customers have already come to notice: Some Apple\u00a0software has become prone to bugs and underdeveloped features. In recent months, users have complained about text messages appearing out of order, the iPhone X registering incoming phone calls late and frequent app crashes.<\/p>\n
Apple has also recently released features later than it expected, as the rush to meet the annual deadline overtaxed engineers and created last-minute delays.\u00a0For example, last year\u2019s iOS release didn\u2019t initially include previously touted features that would let consumers send money via iMessage\u00a0or synchronize full text message histories\u00a0among Apple devices.<\/p>\n
The decision to formalize the process and give engineers more time to perfect software is a major cultural shift. For years, the company has funneled its energies into quick-turnaround, splashy upgrades that are designed to wow the faithful and make rivals seem slow-footed.<\/p>\n
The strategy has paid off handsomely\u00a0because the feature-packed\u00a0upgrades keep customers tied to Apple\u2019s ecosystem and prompt them to use more of the company\u2019s lucrative services.\u00a0More than 90 percent of Apple customers use\u00a0either of the last two major iOS updates, compared with 30 percent of Android users who have downloaded the two latest versions of Google\u2019s mobile OS, according to data from both companies.<\/p>\n
But the feature-packed upgrades place\u00a0huge demands on Apple\u2019s beleaguered engineers. At Google, teams update apps on their own\u00a0schedule and aren\u2019t tied to the annual Android release. At Apple, all new features are tied to a big release in the fall, when Apple rolls out its splashiest new software, and a more modest update in the spring.\u00a0Individual apps aren’t updated on their own, and everything is driven by the release schedule.<\/p>\n
Under the previous system, a person familiar with Apple says, \u201cinevitably, some things will be late because you underestimated how long it would take. Some things have to be cut, some things have to be rushed. It’s the result of having thousands of people working on the same schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first test of the new development strategy will come\u00a0in the fall, when Apple debuts\u00a0the next iPhone and iPad software upgrade. Internally code-named \u201cPeace,\u201d it will likely be called\u00a0iOS 12.<\/p>\n
The change that will cause the biggest stir: making\u00a0it possible for a single third-party app\u00a0to work on iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.\u00a0The upgrade will be folded into the upcoming macOS\u00a010.14 (known internally as \u201cLiberty\u201d) and could involve bringing to the Mac some of\u00a0 Apple\u2019s own iPhone apps, including Home, which controls smart appliances.<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s popular\u00a0Animojis\u00a0will get new characters and a more easily navigated menu.\u00a0The animated emojis will also come to\u00a0the iPad; the company is working on a new model that will have the required\u00a0Face ID camera. Apple plans to integrate Animojis into FaceTime, letting people put virtual faces over themselves in video calls.\u00a0(Technology to bring\u00a0multi-person conferencing to FaceTime video calls is being explored but might not be ready for this year.)<\/p>\n
Also in the works for this year: a\u00a0redesigned version of Apple\u2019s stock-tracking app\u00a0and updated version of Do Not Disturb that will give\u00a0users more options\u00a0to automatically reject phone calls or silence notifications. Apple is also working to more deeply integrate Siri into the iPhone\u2019s search view, redesign\u00a0the interface used to import photos into an iPad on the go and make it possible for several people at once to play augmented reality games.<\/p>\n
Consumers will have to wait until 2019 for significant iPad-focused software upgrades. Among them: A feature that will make it possible to\u00a0run several windows in one app and click between them just like tabs in a web browser (the Mac got this feature a couple of years ago) and a related enhancement that lets two screens from the same app run side-by-side. Other updates that have been pushed back include new features for the Apple Pencil stylus and a toggle in the email app that will mute\u00a0notifications from specific threads.<\/p>\n
In the past, \u201cApple\u2019s smaller scale helped it build better-quality software than the rest of the market,\u201d says Steven Troughton-Smith, a veteran app developer. \u201cBut with its newfound size it has seemingly been unable to find the right balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a new balance between speed and quality will be tricky. On the one hand, spreading feature updates over a longer period could hurt Apple\u2019s competitiveness in the fiercely contested smartphone market. On the other hand, sticking to what\u00a0Troughton-Smith calls a \u201cruthlessly ambitious\u201d upgrade cycle risks rushing out features before they\u2019re ready and undermining Apple\u2019s vaunted reputation for quality.<\/p>\n
Apple’s annual software upgrade\u00a0will offer users plenty of new features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":236822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[605,691],"class_list":["post-248467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-apple","tag-ios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248469,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248467\/revisions\/248469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}