iOS 14 Adds to the iOS 13 Story of Bugs and Problems

• iOS 14 is very buggy, and the first bug-fix release has not managed to address most of the problems.
• This follows a pattern that started with iOS 12, intensified with iOS 13, and culminated with the most recent release.
• Apple could address this problem in a number of ways, but unfortunately, they are going the other way entirely.

The release of iOS 14 has brought many privacy and security features to cheer about, but inevitably, as with all major operating system releases, new bugs have been introduced too. There’s no getting around that no matter what, but it appears that Apple is now having more problems to deal with than it used to have in previous releases.

It’s just too much that is happening and needs fixing, and it’s going to take a long time before users can enjoy a smooth experience, just like it happened with iOS 13, and like it started to become apparent from iOS 12.

For now, there are multiple reports of charging problems, stability issues, battery draining fast, wearable pairing trouble, the Watch not beaming sensor data, apps experiencing glitches and random hangs, data restoration processes hitting on blockages that shouldn’t be there, Wi-Fi connectivity trouble, and so much more.

Apple has worked hard on fixing a lot of that with bug-fix releases for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but not everything has been plugged, and it looks like it’s going to take time. Until then, users are advised to reset all their Apple devices and backup to iCloud first.

These “major” iOS releases look more like incremental steps to perfection rather than complete overhauls, so why is this happening in the first place? The answer to this could be that Apple is clearly trying to juggle a lot more than what they can. Supporting such a wide range of devices for so many years creates an amazing burden, and the spectrum of possible issues widens so much that it gets practically impossible to keep in check.

Read More: Facebook Worried About the Privacy Settings in the Upcoming iOS 14

Releasing iOS 14 on a one-day notice to the developers didn’t help with the situation on third-party app stability either, so things feel a lot worse now and like they could have been easily avoided.

And then Apple is raising the walls around its testing ecosystem, closing that space down even more, and the consequences of this practice are now becoming clear. The fewer the people involved in the testing and bug-squashing stages of the beta version, the more buggy the final release will be.

Related: At Least 1,200 iOS Apps Constitute a Privacy Risk for Users

So, with all that said, there’s one thing that Apple can do to address the situation even with respect to its business approach. That would be to abandon the yearly releases that play more of an image-promoting role and create a sense of superiority.

Apple could set stable long-term support releases with security updates and send these to older devices while making anything in-between optional and even more “experimental.” This approach would still maintain Apple’s title as the king of mobile software support, while not endangering millions of devices with the introduction of entire sets of bugs.