Hello Americans! Please don't forget for most of us Europeans there will be A LOT of new things in 18.4 .. beta1 already?
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iOS 18 Speculation Thread
- Thread starter Kylo83
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And why would they pull the beta from Tuesday release if there is nothing new in it? "Nothing" new means no problem releasing it
I do believe the only new features Apple have mentioned in April are new languages for Apple Intelligence. They've never given a month estimate for features like Siri and Context awareness aside from next year I think?
According to Apple, there will be new features. Mark Gurman has already been wrong at least twice on this update, so I would take what he’s saying now with a very heavy shovel-load of salt…
I mean they may have decided nah, iOS 18.4 is going out later with just the new language support and some minor changes and we will roll the big changes into 18.5.
I think ive seen threads before about how apple uses release trains for creating their iOS builds, so probably wouldnt be too challenging to shuffle the features planned. Internally they're almost certainly meeting weekly to go over whats working and what isnt and deciding when to aim to get it out for...
18.4 is now referenced on the Xcode 16.2 developer page.
developer.apple.com
Xcode 16.2 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation
Update your apps to use new features, and test your apps against API changes.
Now THIS is more like it. I recall they accidentally linked to watchOS 11....3? beta Release Notes early and then it came out the next day or so18.4 is now referenced on the Xcode 16.2 developer page.
Xcode 16.2 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation
Update your apps to use new features, and test your apps against API changes.
View attachment 2484203
They said additional Apple Intelligence features are coming in early April on the Apple Intelligence page:
Attachments
OK well I mean it does say it but I almost guarantee the person who writes the text for that webpage is not in sync with what the iOS dev teams are doing. They likely get this info way in advance, it gets added and then who knows what the process is for that text changing.
I think next gen carplay still said coming Late 2024 in Jan 2025
Could even mean iPhone 15 Pro users adding the Visual Intelligence toggle to CC and their action button is the only additional feature
Why would we assume that? Because Gurman said it? Gurman’s been wrong the last two times at least, so I wouldn’t just go based on his claims… There are rare outliers like the CarPlay thing (which actually likely has more to do with automakers not cooperating as quickly as expected more than Apple themselves), but usually if Apple says on their website something’s coming by x time, it’s coming by x time… I trust Apple’s website much more than I do Gurman…
Put me in the group of people who doesn’t understand the excitement behind beta releases. If you’re expecting new features, sure. But 95% of the time, there’s nothing new that changes how you use the device every day.
People are frustrated because we've been saying "today might be the day" in here for 3 weeks now with no result..... I think people are kind of over it lol.
Since we now know that 18.4 is coming early April per Apple’s website, and considering the reference to the 18.4 beta in Xcode and the x4 beta on Thursday trend in the past 4-5 beta cycles, I think an 18.4 Beta 1 today is very likely. I think it’s far more likely than a release next week. If we got the first beta today, we’d get about 4-5 betas before public release in early April, so I don’t think it would make sense to push it back to next week. I think today is pretty safe, and I know we’ve been here before. We’re just guessing at this, but I think there are actually a good number of signs pointing to a beta today. 👍🏻
I bet it’s just going to be sketch style in image playground and priority notifications.
Even today I have much lower confidence on a ETA then weeks ago. Just want it be available so we know what Apple has been coping with. You can see this greatly effect the amount of posting in the forum even.
It’s possible, but we don’t know. It could include much bigger Apple Intelligence features as well. What we do pretty much know for sure is that 18.4 should actually include some new features, unlike 18.3.
If it’s true Apple was having engineering issues with 18.4, which I’m inclined to believe because they have no other reason to have such a long gap in beta testing, they might just work on it through the weekend and release it on Monday instead of trying to rush it out. But who knows, we’ve all been wrong everyday the past couple weeks.
Perhaps they would, but I don’t think we can really afford that at this point. As is, if they release a beta today, they would only have time for like 4 to 5 at best betas, including the RC version. I don’t think we can afford to delay any further at this point. If they do end up pushing things back to next week, we would just be wasting valuable beta testing time. I think at this rate even a Friday release would be more likely than that. But who knows, at this point, there are several positive indications for a possible drop today. Let’s see if we get it today.
I mean the other funny thing is our entire iOS 18 point release timeline has been based on what was reported last year by Mark. Down to "big" changes in the .4 release, so we cant take that post for fact and then dismiss other things he reports on
If he's wrong on everything it could be that iOS 18.5 was always meant to be the Siri/Context update. We just have 0 way of telling... it is going to be strange having so many big features come in iOS 18.5 in May and then less than 4 weeks later have WWDC and iOS 19 beta 1 come out... unless they have a late WWDC like they did during the pandemic?
If he's wrong on everything it could be that iOS 18.5 was always meant to be the Siri/Context update. We just have 0 way of telling... it is going to be strange having so many big features come in iOS 18.5 in May and then less than 4 weeks later have WWDC and iOS 19 beta 1 come out... unless they have a late WWDC like they did during the pandemic?
That's not how it works though. The beta they would have pushed on Tuesday was likely compiled days or weeks ago and went through internal testing. If the issue occurred on Tuesday, it's unlikely they would have a new version ready today. This depends on the accuracy of Gurman's report though.
As someone in the software world, i really dont think "valuable beta testing time" is really a thing. The time it would take to identify a bug, isolate and recreate it, fix it, test the fix and push to the build would be so long that its almost sure to not happen in the next few weeks.
All Apple is looking for with developer betas is if APIs work as expected, and maybe minor things users like us report on. Public betas might have more of the latter, but these betas are meant for testing apps on real hardware with real services, latency, etc.
They probably have the API firmed up for. the new apple intelligence features, so they probably wont make any changes in the beta cycle to any of that.
Yeah, I think there are good reasons to think at least some of the Siri features will come in 18.4 beyond just what Gurman claimed, which he has now shifted on and is claiming they’ve been “delayed”. The thing is, I don’t buy that they’ve been “delayed” at all. Either they’re likely dropping in 18.4 (I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of them do), or they were meant to be dropped in 18.5 all along and Gurman was inaccurate. He’s contradicted himself a lot on this, and he’s been wrong twice now on this in less than a few weeks.
I don’t trust the accuracy of Gurman’s “report”. He’s gotten it wrong twice now in short order…
Yes the conversational Siri delayed to 19.4 is only speculation.
Sadly sitting here and thinking it’s not coming today either 🙁