Maybe it's just something about number 13, but it sounds like a strange year for iOS versions. First, Apple decided to separate the iPad version of the operating system versions for iPhone and iPod touch, calling it "iPadOS" - a reasonable choice given the divergence of the tablet compared to the smartphone in terms of advanced user interface features - There was then the mysterious release of iOS 13.1 beta testers last month, a few weeks before the scheduled date for iOS 13.0.

For the first time in its history, Apple also declined to mention significantly its iOS update in yesterday's speech. While Apple highlighted all the new features at WWDC in June, but every other year, it provided another recap of what will happen at its fall iPhone event to help boost people's appetite before publication. Of course, Apple still has a long way to go, because this year it was not only new hardware products, but also its new Apple Arcade and Apple TV + services, which may have been an omission of time, but we also suspect Apple wanted to avoid trying to explain the strange cycle of iOS version 13.

After the event, the press release and the Apple website made it clear that iOS 13 would arrive at the usual time - September 19, just before the new iPhones landed between people's hands - but also that iOS 13.1 is already planned for a version less than two. weeks later, September 30th. In addition, although iPhones (and iPod touch) get their updates for iOS 13 next week, iPadOS is delayed at a later date, suggesting that we will probably not see iPadOS 13, but rather a direct jump to 13.1. This is not a coincidence, it is also the date on which the new iPad 10.2 inches should arrive.

During the keynote speech, Apple mentioned some features, such as Deep Fusion on the iPhone 11 Pro that would only come "later this year", but did not specify actual release date, we Originally leaving us to wonder if this was just an iOS 13.1 thing, or something that would be withheld until later.

Well, it turns out that this feature - and many others promised for iOS 13 - may not see the day before at least iOS 13.2.

Road sheets

To be fair, it's far from the first time that Apple has announced features for a major version of iOS, but in fact has delayed them to a one-off version. This first took place in a very subtle way in 2015, with Apple Pay and iCloud Photo Library coming on iOS 8.1, then again in 2016 with the new iPhone Portrait mode, which has was announced on stage with the iPhone 7 Plus, but did not arrive before iOS 10.1 a few weeks later - and only in "beta" at that time.

However, these delays were relatively minor and involved one or two features and generally resulted in a delay of a few weeks. This became more significant in iOS 11, when the promised feature in Messages in the Cloud did not appear until iOS 11.4, released eight months later. As Daring Fireball's John Gruber pointed out when the first 13.1 beta version of iOS appeared, the most important iOS ads are clearly becoming a "road map" for the whole family, not necessarily what will appear in the fall.

Basically, I think we need to get used to the fact that the WWDC announcements are a roadmap for the next year of OS release, not a list of what will be sent in the initial zero-point release. in autumn.

John Gruber, Darling Fireball

This year, however, it seems that Apple offers many features not only beyond iOS 13.0, but even beyond iOS 13.1. In fact, Frederico Viticci of MacStories has published a list, noting many features announced by WWDC that will not be included in the final versions iOS 13.0 or 13.1.

Some of these features were found in iOS 13.0 beta versions before being removed, some of which did not even reach the stage of the first beta. These include audio sharing, announcement of messages via AirPods and Screen Time communication limits, all of which have been missing since at least July.

ICloud Drive folder sharing is a feature Apple had to reverse last month after developers and beta testers discovered they had actually lost data in iCloud. This feature was clearly not ready for prime time and also sparked a debate over whether Apple should treat iCloud as a "beta" platform.

Others, such as secure video and HomeKit routers, will require new products to support these features anyway. It is therefore unlikely that their absence will be felt in the short term. However, it seems that Apple has removed all of its HomeKit enhancements - other than just changes to the user interface in the Home - application, because HomeKit's integration support and AirPlay 2 in scenes and automations will not come later.

It also seems that Apple has postponed most of the new features of the high-end HomePod until later this fall. According to the latest Apple HomePod, the new radio station feature will be available on September 30, probably as part of the iOS 13.1 release, but everything else is coming - multi-user voice recognition, support for transfer and ambient noise feature - won will arrive later this year.

While some are certainly disappointed to expect some of these features, there are already enough in iOS 13 (and iOS 13.1) to produce quite large versions, and it's hard to argue that stable The iOS 13 version is little more important than offering it with features that may not be ready for prime time yet.