Apple shifts early schedule for iOS 28 development

Apple has changed the first development-stage schedule for iOS 28, iPadOS 28 and macOS 28, giving engineers six weeks for coding and feature exploration and two weeks for integration, according to reporting by Mark Gurman. The usual split is four weeks for each part of the eight-week stage. Apple has not confirmed the change.

The adjustment shifts time within the first stage rather than extending it. Gurman reported that Apple’s annual operating-system development typically proceeds through three major stages, each lasting eight weeks. During the convergence portion, newly developed features are integrated into the software.

Employees welcomed the revised allocation, Gurman reported, because it gives them more time to generate and explore ideas before decisions about features are locked in. The account does not identify specific features planned for the updates, and the schedule change does not establish whether later development stages will use the same arrangement.

Apple’s next development milestone was scheduled to begin Monday, November 9, when the company was expected to start finalizing which features would be included, according to Gurman. The milestone follows the first...