iOS 18 is set to be the most “ambitious and compelling” yet

Earlier last week, Bloomberg reported that Apple has paused development of new features for iOS 18 to focus on bug fixes. Despite the week-long pause, the company still has big ambitions for next year’s iPhone software update.

In the latest edition of its Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that internally, Apple has labelled iOS 18 as “ambitious and irresistible”. iOS 18 is expected to ship with “big new features and a new design,” as well as significant performance and security improvements.

Specific details about the new features are not specified, but Gurman notes that iOS 18 will arrive “after several years of modestly sized updates” for iPhone and iPad users. After all, the last major iPhone update was iOS 14 in 2020, which added support for home screen widgets.

Gurman says:

Apple also faces a bigger challenge for 2024 software. After several years of modestly sized iOS updates, the next version of the iPhone and iPad software could be relatively revolutionary.

Internally, Apple’s top executives have described its future operating systems as “ambitious and compelling,” with new features and designs, as well as security and performance improvements.

Bloomberg previously reported that a number of new artificial intelligence features are in development for iOS 18.

How will the week-long pause in iOS 18 development affect next year’s release? Gurman believes that “it probably won’t result in a noticeable slowdown in the final release.” At worst, he says, it means Apple will have “a little less time at the end of the development cycle to fix any last-minute glitches.”

The caveat, of course, is that iOS 18 is still seven months away from being unveiled at WWDC 2024. A lot can change in that time, and even more could change between now and next autumn, when iOS 18 will presumably be released to the general public.