Expand / Widgets on the iPadOS 15 home screen.
Samuel Axon
Apple will delay the release of the iPadOS 16 software update for iPads until well into October, about a month after the September release of iOS 16 for the iPhone. The news comes from a Bloomberg report citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Apple typically releases iPadOS, which is closely related to iOS, very close to or shortly after the release of iOS, which arrives in September alongside new flagship iPhone models. It has come a little later in the past, but that would be an unusually large gap in releases.
According to the report’s sources, the delay can be attributed at least in part to the upcoming overhaul of the iPad’s multitasking features, including the new Stage Manager feature that’s also coming to Macs in macOS. These features were announced at Apple’s developer conference in June.
This year’s iPadOS beta period has been relatively rocky, with delayed release times and some public criticism from developers. One of the criticisms is that Stage Manager is not available on all but the newest iPad models, but bugs and ease of use have also been the subject of debate.
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In addition to giving Apple more time to fix problems or make bigger changes, the change in release date will allow the company to focus more efforts in the immediate future on iPhone software, whose beta period progress has also been made late. .
Bloomberg also says that an October release date for iPadOS 16 would see the software update roll out at the same time as Apple introduces new iPad hardware that will power it, specifically an iPad Pro with an M2 chip and a cheaper entry level. iPad that replaces the proprietary Lightning port with the industry-standard USB, something that has already happened in the rest of the iPad line.
Also, I could see Stage Manager arriving at roughly similar times on Mac and iPad systems, rather than iPad first, since macOS updates tend to arrive in October instead of September.
The delay could also cause headaches for third-party app developers and their users, especially those working on universal apps. For example, the iPadOS 16 delay could cause some feature delays for iPhone apps that use iOS 16 features, depending on how developers implemented them in their efforts to support both platforms .
The report notes that, as always, Apple’s plans could change as this fall’s product and software launches approach.