Apple to avoid buggy iOS issues in future updates

Apple is renovating the way it tests its iOS mobile operating system. Apple's software chief Craig Federighi and lieutenants including Stacey Lysik announced the changes at a recent internal "kickoff" meeting with the company's software developers. The new approach calls for Apple's development teams to ensure that test versions, known as "daily builds," of future software updates disable unfinished or buggy features by default. Testers will then have the option to selectively enable those features, via a new internal process and settings menu dubbed Flags, allowing them to isolate the impact of each addition on the system.

These daily builds would, by default, turn off all the buggy features. This would allow Apple internal team of testers to selectively turn a bug-riddled feature on and isolate issues with its code before it is released to external developers and beta testers.

As per Bloomberg report, this new strategy is already being applied to the next iteration of Apple's mobile operating system, which is iOS 14, which is internally being called 'Azul'. The Cupertino, the California based tech giant, is also considering delaying some features until 2021 in the mobile OS version that is codenamed 'Azul +1' - possibly iOS 15 -- to make sure that there are no performance issues.

Apple expects that changing the internal testing process of its operating systems to be more stable and bug-free software reaches the users. Finally, the aim is to avoid repeating fiascos such as the one in case of iOS 13 in future.

For those who are not aware, iOS 13 has been one of Apple's most bug-free software ever. When the company released iOS 13 in September, it was riddled with a long list of issues starting from battery management issues to bugs in a host of company's apps. The slew of the problems in iOS 13 forced the company to release iOS 13.1 at least a week before its launch date. Reports indicate that internally, iOS 13.1 was considered as the "actual public release".

Apple has released eight updates on the whole to iOS 13 within two months of its launch. By contrast, iOS 12 got just two patches with the first two months of its launch. Avoid this; Apple is reportedly upgrading its software testing process.

Apple is not only upgrading the process for iOS but also its other software products, iPadOS, MacOS, WatchOS and TVOS.