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Apple's Shift Toward More Staggered Releases Could Bring More Innovation and Less Predictability

Apple appears to be slowly moving away from regular, timed hardware and software releases that come on an annual basis, instead favoring more of a staggered product release cycle, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman highlighted in his most recent Power On newsletter.

Gurman suggests that Apple Intelligence is evidence that Apple is "ever-so-slightly" moving away from a big fall launch for its hardware and software products. iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia debuted without any Apple Intelligence features, despite the fact that Apple Intelligence was a key focal point of ‌iOS 18‌ at the Worldwide Developers Conference, and heavily advertised for the new iPhone 16 models.

Instead, the first Apple Intelligence features will come out in October in an iOS 18.1 update, and Apple plans to add new Apple Intelligence capabilities in iOS 18.2, iOS 18.3, and iOS 18.4. Everything that Apple highlighted in June 2024 won't be available until well into 2025.

Apple has delayed some software features in the past, introducing them in later updates, but with Apple Intelligence, Apple announced everything well in advance and made it clear that the software updates would roll out over time.

pull iPadOS 18 for the new M4 iPad Pro models after it was released, plus it had to remove beta versions of watchOS 11.1 and the HomePod Software 18.1 because the software was causing significant issues.

iPhone, but there are signs that it is holding updates on some other products. There was no new version of the Apple Watch SE this year (and it seems to be on a 3-year update cycle as of now), nor did Apple introduce a new Apple Watch Ultra, instead adding a new color for the Ultra 2.

new MacBook Air models, new iPad Air models, and a new iPhone SE early in 2025, with a Mac Studio to follow in mid-2025 and a Mac Pro to come later.

This article, "Apple's Shift Toward More Staggered Releases Could Bring More Innovation and Less Predictability" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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