We’re still more than half a year away from the expected release of iOS 11, but as with all things Apple, the rumor mill churns out stories about it every day. iOS 11 is expected to arrive in September after the big reveal in early June at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference. iOS 10 was a huge update, so Apple will have a difficult time outdoing itself.
Nonetheless, the iPhone maker will have to press the limits because this is the 10-year anniversary of the smartphone.
iOS 11 rumors
We’re so far away from the unveiling of iOS 11 that it’s nearly impossible to say for certain what Apple’s next mobile operating system will bring with it, but there are a few features that seem to be widely expected.
One is a sort of dark mode designed to make it easier to look at the iPhone or iPad while in the dark. After all, it can be downright painful to look at something extremely bright when in total darkness, so a dimmed screen would be easier on the eyes. Some iPhone users say that even sliding the brightness option all the way to minimum doesn’t help, so a dark mode would be helpful. Then again, this mode could arrive as early as 10.3, which is expected in March. We’ve been hearing something about a theater mode with that release (although should you really be looking at your iPhone in a dark theater while watching a film anyway?)
Some also claim that iOS 11 will bring support for virtual reality, which Android already supports. If it does, then it seems likely that only the iPhone 8 lineup will support VR because it will probably need additional hardware. However, there’s a chance that Apple will skip right over virtual reality in favor of augmented reality, which CEO Tim Cook has expressed more interest in than VR.
Many are also expecting some big improvements to Siri because the tech world is turning into a battleground for digital assistants. Samsung is expected to show off its new digital assistant Bixby as early as February, and Google keeps making its own Google Now better and better. Clearly Siri will need further improvements just to keep up.
iOS 10.2.1 beta 4 released
Apple continually updates iOS and has now pushed out iOS 10.2.1 beta 4. This version is mostly a bug fix designed to improve performance and fix problems. It came less than a week after the third beta and a few weeks after the second beta. Clearly Apple is moving fast here, and it’s a good thing.
iOS 10.2 is currently the official public version, and it’s the only one the iPhone maker is still signing. This means that those who want to roll back to the previous version in hopes of a jailbreak arriving can no longer do so. Unfortunately, it also means that iPhone users who have been plagued by the 30% battery bug are stuck until Apple fixes it. Hopefully iOS 10.2.1 will do it, seeing as iOS 10.2 worsened the problem which appeared with the previous version, making it more prevalent.
