Earlier this month, a Bloomberg report revealed that Apple was considering postponing the release of iPadOS 16 until October as the company was not happy with the Stage Manager experience. Apple has now confirmed that the release of iPadOS 16 is being delayed, and developers can now install the first iPadOS 16.1 beta.
Of course, Apple didn’t directly say that the iPadOS 16 release will be delayed due to bugs or other quality issues. Instead, the company claims that this is a “big year for iPadOS” and that it will now have “its own schedule.”
Here’s what Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch:
Apple will likely take extra time to tweak Stage Manager, one of the key new features of iPadOS 16 that lets users run multiple apps in floating windows for the first time on an iPad. The feature has been widely criticized for being confusing and unstable, as well as requiring an iPad with the M1 chip.
This is an especially big year for iPadOS. As its own platform with features specifically designed for iPad, we have the flexibility to deliver iPadOS on its own schedule. This Fall, iPadOS will ship after iOS, as version 16.1 in a free software update.
According to recent rumors, Apple also has plans to introduce new iPad models in October, so holding off on releasing iPadOS 16 until then makes more sense. iPad users will receive iPadOS 16 “as version 16.1” later this fall. On the other hand, iOS 16.0 is expected to be released for iPhone users in the coming weeks.
iPadOS 16.1 beta
In order to continue with beta testing, Apple has now released the first iPadOS 16.1 beta to developers – which is still identified as iPadOS 16.0 beta 7 on the Apple Developer website. It’s unclear at this point whether iPadOS 16.1 beta brings anything different from the previous iPadOS 16.0 beta 6.
As developer James Thomson points out on Twitter, a delay between iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 could have a big impact on developers. This is because many developers are building universal apps with iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 APIs, and there’s no way to separate them. The only solution is for developers to delay the release of their apps until both iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 are publicly available.
On a related note, Apple also released iOS 16.0 beta 7 to developers on Tuesday. While iOS 16.0 beta 7 has build number 20A5356a, the build number for iPadOS 16.1 beta 1 is 20B5027f.
