Apple halts iOS 18 development while working on gen-AI for iPhones: Report

Apple has reportedly halted development work for upcoming software updates, including iOS18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 and watchOS 11. According to Apple analyst Mark Gurman, head of software engineering Craig Federighi has decided to freeze the development work on the company’s next major software updates last month due to quality-related issues.

Gurman says that the American tech giant is planning to compete with the likes of Google and OpenAI by bringing generative-AI-based features to iPhone and other devices. He adds that the iPhone 16 will not have any major advances in terms of hardware, thus requiring the next major iOS version to be more effective.