Apple is expected to unveil its next generation of mobile operating system, iOS 18, in the second half of this year at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024. The iOS 18 is currently under quality control testing and the company is releasing early versions of the software to factories and partners.
The iOS 18 version currently available to factories and partners has a user interface that doesn't come with any irrelevant applications and features. According to a report by MacRumors via a private X (formerly Twitter) account, which shares accurate information on Apple’s plan, the company has started sharing a version of iOS 18 called ‘Vendor UI’ with ‘factories and relevant vendors’. This version also contains some iOS 18 features that were likely to be unveiled by Apple at its WWDC 2024.
According to the report, Apple develops five different versions of iOS each year. Two of these versions, namely LLDiags (a low-level diagnostics version) and NonUI (a version for hardware engineers and calibration machines) do not include the iOS user interface. Meanwhile, the VendorUI (used in factories for testing) and InternalUI (used by Apple's engineers) contain pre-production versions of iOS. The "Release" version is the final version of iOS that is rolled out to users with all iOS visual elements, apps, and features.
Previous reports suggest that Apple is working on overhauling the mobile OS interface with the upcoming iOS 18 update, including some visual elements from visionOS, Apple's operating system for the Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Apple is also expected to focus on bringing a lot of new AI features and functionality to eligible iPhone models with the iOS 18 update.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously stated that the company hopes the AI-infused iOS 18 update will convince more customers to upgrade to the iPhone 16 series of smartphones. More information on the iOS 18 UI will be available in the future, ahead of WWDC 2024.
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