Apple has paused work on development of new features for upcoming versions of its iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems that are expected to be released next year, according to a Bloomberg report. The firm has reportedly asked employees to tackle bugs that have shown up in early versions of the code — the pause is expected to end at the end of the week — instead of adding new features that could make their way to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 in 2024.
The report cites unnamed sources familiar with the company's decision and states that Apple's software engineering team discovered several bugs that were not spotted during internal testing, leading to the decision to pause development of new features in order to tackle and resolve the existing bugs in the code over a one-week period.
Apple's next operating system versions are expected to arrive in the form of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, and watchOS 11 — the updates for iPhone and iPad are codenamed Crystal, while the Mac and Apple Watch operating systems are internally referred to as Glow and Moonstone, as per the report.
The pause on development of these operating systems has come after these three operating system updates reached their first major milestone, also known as M1. Ahead of development leading to the second milestone, Apple's software developers will have to root out existing issues with the code and fix them.
As per the report, the company's upcoming software releases aren't the only ones that are affected by the pause put in place by Apple. The iPhone maker has also reportedly halted development on visionOS as well as the already-released iOS 17.4 — a minor update to the smartphone operating system that is expected to arrive within the first quarter of 2024.
While Bloomberg reports that Apple plans to lift the pause on development this week, the efforts to remove bugs from the code aren't likely to affect the expected rollout of the updates — Apple typically unveils its next operating systems at its annual Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) event and rolls them out in September.
