Apple wants to fix the mess that was iOS 13 in time for its next major release
If at first you don't succeed, then you try again and again and then maybe you rethink your entire strategy so you don't screw up so much the next time around.
After an ongoing series of bugs and updates with iOS 13, Bloomberg reports that Apple is changing its internal testing processes for iOS in order for this not to happen again with iOS 14.
The report claims that Apple software chief Craig Federighi and other senior employees have recently had a meeting explaining how the new approach will work. In a nutshell, the company plans to disable every feature that may be problematic in test versions of the software, giving testers the option to enable and test them one-by-one via a new settings menu called Flags.
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Apple's iOS 13, originally launched in September, was one of the buggiest iOS releases ever, with the company addressing some of the issues with iOS 13.1 just a week after launch. The company then followed up with a slew of updates to iron out the remaining bugs.
Two months in and nine updates later and we're up to iOS 13.3, and there are still issues that need fixing, like the fact that my iPhone 11 Pro Max's camera freezes every other time I start it from lock screen.
This new approach should alleviate the issue of these daily builds being next to unusable and crammed with (buggy) new features, which, in turn, should make the testing process easier to do.
And while Apple likely won't launch its iOS 14 until next year, it's already implemented the new way of doing things in early versions of that software.
The company also plans to apply this new strategy to testing all its platforms, macOS, tvOS, watchOS and iPadOS included.
The report also sheds some light on Apple's curious decision to launch iOS 13.1 just a week after iOS 13.0. Bloomberg's sources say that some people who worked on the project described iOS 13 as a "mess," and that Apple decided to go with iOS 13.1 after realizing that iOS 13 simply isn't up to its standards.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
