Thursday 18 December 2014

iOS 8.2 & 8.3 in testing phase: Why Is Apple Accelerating Its Development Process

There is a slight difference in the usual development schedule that Apple generally follows with its major iOS release and their follow ups.

It has become a trend for Apple to release the major iOS version each fall and deliver its further iterations in the following year. However, it seems to be a different case for the Apple iOS 8.

Although, Apple has unveiled the iOS 8 in this fall, but Google analytics have shown that users have used the iOS 8.1, iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3 devices to access the Internet in the month of September 2014 only. Today, the iOS 8.1 version is already out there, and other two major versions can be released in the coming few weeks. There is a confirm news that iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3 have been developed and are running in their testing phase.

The simultaneous development of iOS 8.1, iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3 causes numerous possibilities. Let's have a look at them.

1. As per the current iPhone mobile applications development trend. the major softwares are released in the fall each year alongside its latest hardware. However with this trend, Apple has faced drawbacks more than the benefits. For instance,

With iOS 6, which was unveiled alongside the iPhone 5, buggy Apple Maps application has ruined the user expectations.
The design of iOS 7 was polished six months after its release with the iPhone 5S.
The iPhone 6 was released alongside iOS 8 that needed a lot of bug fixes and had the HealthKit that was not functional.

Probably to avoid such issues in the future, Apple is releasing the further iterations of iOS 8 so early. This will help deliver better software to the apple hardware (including the iPhone and iPad) that will be revealed in 2015.

2. Another possibility could be that Apple simply wanted to continue with the trend and will be revealing another major version, iOS 9 in the fall next year. And, it just wanted to release the iterations of iOS 8 before that in the year 2015.

3. There are a few features introduced by iOS or iPhone application developers that were leaked earlier this year like enhanced Apple Maps, which was expected to be available with the iOS 8. But, due to some internal conflicts these, Apple has not introduced this feature alongside the iOS 8. Moreover, an Apple iOS 8 update is needed to support the NFC service, in order to activate the Apple Pay service. Furthermore since, the Apple Watch has been scheduled for the early 2015, an iOS 8 update will be needed to support that as well.

Hence, it is clear that there is not only one possibility behind the change in the usual development schedule of Apple softwares. While people are wondering the possible reason for this change, there are numerous speculation on its new offerings as well. Whatever the reason would be, the performance of the iOS 8 is only going to improve with its each iteration. And, one thing is for sure that Apple fans would love to reap its amazing offers before the time.