We do not discover the gunpowder if we say that iOS 11 went out to the street being little polished. Not many users argue that Apple’s latest mobile operating system was launched with a greater number of errors and defects than usual . Part of the solutions have come , yes, but his retail reputation has tarnished . That’s why they decided, says Bloomberg, to change their plan for iOS 12.
Software chief Craig Federighi exposed the new strategy to his army of engineers last month, according to a person familiar with the debate. Your team will have more time to work on new features focusing on the optimization and refinement of the software without being tied to an annual improvement list simply so that the company can promote the jump of each version, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The renewed focus on quality is designed to ensure that the company can deliver on the promises made every summer at the developer conference and that the new functions work properly.
The big annual renovations will suffer from now
Since the beginning of the iPhone, Apple has maintained an annual renewal rate that we must recognize . It is not easy to present year after year a new version of iOS with great advances, much less a dazzling new terminal, but they have achieved it for a long time. That’s how it is.
However, as our colleagues from Applesfera tell us , this approach worked perfectly when they limited themselves to selling a ten million iPhone of a few models. Now, with many more possibilities of your phone on the table, in addition to the iPad and its variants, the situation is complicated and open fronts are many . Everything multiplies.
This news has two readings: one positive, although transcendental, and another less positive, although perhaps more insignificant. The positive is that this is a great announcement for current or future owners of an iPhone. If they have suffered the errors and the software failures of Apple know that from now on, at least that is the intention, the work teams will focus even more on the performance and the possibility of defects should be lower. Hence the transcendent.
The least positive, and we have already warned that perhaps more insignificant, is that Apple’s annual presentations are not going to be what they were. And we do not literally refer to the classic and so-continued keynotes of the Cupertino people, but to everything they present in them. If in recent years innovations were not as striking as those of yesteryear, or at least did not cause the same impact, from now on things will get worse. Given that the excess of ambition has caused the situation experienced in iOS 11, the refinement will be key and the new functions to be developed or tuned will remain in the background . They will not be a priority.
From annual renewals to biennial
While the annual update will include this fall, according to Mark Gurman, applications with a common development between iPhone, iPad and Mac, a health tool for the control of children and improvements in the popular Animojis , will leave behind other developments . For example, the redesign of the iPhone, iPad and CarPlay home screens or a renewed photo application that can suggest which images to see.
These features were delayed after Apple Inc. concluded that it needed its own major update on how the company develops and introduces new products. Instead of keeping engineers in a relentless annual program […], Apple will begin to focus on the next two years in upgrades of its operating system for iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the change.
That does not mean that your software stops updating annually. What it means is that internally the engineers will have more discretion to send characteristics that are not so polished the following year, without the imperative to finish them essential for a specific date.
This new approach, in addition to supposing a change of paradigm for the faithful of Apple, poses a serious corporate challenge . The challenge of maintaining an optimal balance between the speed at which they develop and present innovations and the quality of them. To keep the harmony between announcements and amazing improvements, sometimes fundamental when facing the competition, and reliability of what is presented. Apple seems that it will not be what it once was in terms of astonishment, but in terms of integrity and perfection. Time will tell if Federighi manages to make changes not -or yes- to be noticed.
