Apple’s iOS has seen some new developments lately, and while it’s clear that the company is determined to fix all outstanding issues with the system and ensure that it remains a viable choice on the smartphone market, some fans of the company have been questioning their development approach. On one hand, it’s true that Apple are releasing new updates regularly and are trying to resolve issues are they are coming up – but on the other, the company’s developers and designers sometimes seem to put a strong emphasis on some rather questionable aspects of the operating system.
For example, it took some time for issues from iOS 8.0.3 to be fixed in subsequent updates, but at the same time we saw several cosmetic improvements to the system which could have easily been put off until the bugs were fixed. On the other hand, specialists have commented that software development doesn’t really work that way, and the developers responsible for fixing bugs aren’t necessarily the same ones that implemented those cosmetic changes.
The battery life has been improved for most of Apple’s devices, especially with the release of iOS 8.1 – this was a common complaint with the more recent versions of the operating system, as it started being particularly demanding on the hardware, unlike before, when it was praised for being a very lightweight OS.
Wi-Fi issues seem resolved now as well, although some users have still been reporting small problems in that area. On the other hand, Apple seem to have resolved all outstanding Bluetooth issues for the time being. Which could be seen as a bit strange, as Wi-Fi is arguably a more important feature than Bluetooth for most users, but then again, the company’s developers probably know best how to organize their work.
What’s in store for the future? Apple have been promising various features for the upcoming updates for iOS, but at the same time, they’re probably already working hard on iOS 9 behind the scenes. It’s not yet clear if the company is planning to release a new device to the market during 2015, and if they do, we don’t know if it would actually come with a major update to the operating system.
But if Apple really are planning the iPhone 7 for 2015 (which has been questioned to a large extent lately), it makes perfect sense that we’ll also see a new major release for iOS around that time. And if that happens, it’s not clear how much more support iOS 8 is going to get. Some of the bug fixes could be carried over directly to iOS 9, which would definitely be bad for users of older devices.