iOS 9 Concept: iOS 9 Focuses Less On New Features, More On Stability And Bug Fixes [Report]

After years of launching new versions of iOS since the iPhone’s arrival in 2007 Apple is set to buck its own trend with the release of iOS 9, according to reports.
Following years of rapid progression and the addition of features at an alarming rate, Apple is now believed to be hard at work bringing increased stability to a platform that has become less than polished in recent years. With prominent users in the tech press as well as the average man on the street complaining of reduced reliability in the world of iOS and the apps that live in it, Apple’s developers are set to bring a host of stability and bug fixes to iOS 9.

Apple isn’t new to launching big software releases without huge new features and instead focusing on fixes. The release of Snow Leopard for the Mac saw OS X have its own push towards battening down the hatches rather than adding go-faster stripes and with iOS 9 it appears that Apple is once again set to put the onus on bringing that ‘it just works’ feeling back to the iPhone and iPad.
According to a source speaking to 9to5Mac, Apple’s 2015 will be spent working on under-the-hood improvements that may not be apparent at to most people but will fix the bugs that have crept in over the years. A focus on making iOS’s footprint smaller is also on the cards, with plenty of users still carrying around iPhones and iPads with 16GB of memory. The launch of iOS 8 was mired by stories of iOS devices requiring multiple gigabyte over-the-air upgrades – something that simply isn’t possible if you have a lower capacity device.

The move towards focusing on stability rather than fancy new features may not please everyone, but in a world where iOS lockups and app crashes have become all too common, we’re all for anything that makes our smartphones and tablets work better.
And if that means for a relatively subdued WWDC this year, than so be it.

iOS 9 For iPhone 6 Gets Benchmarked [Image]

Benchmark data offers all kinds of tasty information on upcoming products, presenting us with suggestive clues regarding new hardware and software. It’s often the case that such benchmarks are faked, so this must always be considered when trying to derive factual information from them, but for those looking ahead to the future of iOS, one benchmark database appears to show an iPhone 6 running a very early build of iOS 9.

Given that iOS 8 is scarcely four months old, it’s unlikely that Apple pledged a great deal of its resources towards a release that won’t likely materialize until at least the fall. But the Rightwarebenchmarks do, at least, indicate that the Cupertino is testing the waters, and with iOS 9 having also been peeped through Web activity logs, don’t be surprised if the rumors soon begin to shed light on the numerous features therein.

At the moment, Apple appears to be revamping its release cycle, though, so it may be difficult to predict what is releasing when. For example, between iOS 5 and iOS 7, Apple tended to stick with a single “.1″ update early in the year following initial end user roll-out, but with iOS 8, it seems that we’ll be getting iOS 8.2 fairly soon and iOS 8.3 further down the line.

With each bump, Apple will be adding major features, too. iOS 8.1 brought Apple Pay, with iOS 8.2 being the major bump to align with Apple Watch, and so while iOS 9 must be in the back of the Mac maker’s mind, there’s no question that it’s a world away from the finished, refined product we are used to.

Still, while these sightings may well signal a spate of blogosphere conjecture, we’ll only really know what Apple is planning when the Worldwide Developers’ Conference commences in a few months’ time. Ordinarily scheduled for June, it’s the gathering where Apple offers a detailed overview of what it’s working on from a software point of view, although with the obvious distraction of Apple Watch and the rumored 12-inch MacBook Air, this year’s WWDC could turn out to be even more drawn-out than usual.

We will, as ever, be keeping an eye out for iOS 9-related rumors and reports between now and WWDC, so stay tuned!

Thanks, Dylan for sending this in!

Read Also:OS 9 Already Under Testing, Appears In Web Activity Logs [Screenshot]

iOS 9 Already Under Testing, Appears In Web Activity Logs [Screenshot]

The announcement and subsequent release of iOS 9 from Apple is inevitable this year, and it looks like the OS is not only being baked as we speak, but the recipe is being tested, and hints about its existence are popping up online. For further details on this development, head on after the jump.

With fans likely to see iOS 9 at WWDC 2015, the OS is – at the time of writing – in its testing phase, with a few devices popping up in Web logs running Apple’s unannounced mobile firmware.

The first ever site to come across visits from devices running iOS 9 is LetemSvetemApplem, and while the number of hits from the Cupertino’s upcoming mobile firmware is barely negligible, but the fact can’t be ignored that iOS 9 exists, and it’s out in the wild.

Going by this data, this leaves us to believe that only two months after rolling out iOS 8 to consumers in September, the Cupertino company was busy testing iOS 9 on a small number of devices, deploying it on more employee handsets (or maybe tablets) in the last month or so.

iOS 9 is expected to be released with the anticipated iPhone 6s and 6s Plus devices somewhere in September, but fans have already had a go at the various features that Apple should be looking to pack into the new OS including some truly simple but effective ones. One such take on iOS 9 fromRalph Theodory – a tech enthusiast – showcases an array of improvements and additional features Apple could learn from.

So for now, iPhone and iPad users have around six months till they get a peek at iOS 9, followed by a further three more months till the actual release, which will be accompanied by new iPhones.

We’ll be back with more news and details pertaining to iOS 9 whenever we come across it, till then, we’ll keep an eye on out for more traces of Apple’s next big release of iOS.

(Source: LetemSvetemApplem [Google Translate])