Apple’s newly launched Imaginative and prescient Professional mixed-reality headset is in a curious place, with low gross sales within the current however (the corporate hopes) an enormous future forward of it as Cupertino’s pre-eminent computing platform. On this context, it’s comprehensible that Apple may select to make use of the leverage of already dominant platforms just like the iPhone to nudge prospects in the direction of Imaginative and prescient Professional and get them on board with the visionOS expertise.
In response to a brand new report, in reality, Apple plans to do precisely that later this yr, when it would redesign the iOS and iPadOS working methods that run on iPhone and iPad to appear and feel extra like visionOS.
Israeli information web site The Verifier says (transformed from the unique Hebrew by Chrome’s built-in translator) it “realized just a few weeks in the past that Apple is engaged on bringing components from the visionOS working system of the Imaginative and prescient Professional glasses into the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 updates.” It provides that “the visionOS working system is the mannequin that Apple [is using] to replace the person interface on the iPhone.”
The positioning doesn’t provide any indication of its supply for this principle. It additionally isn’t clear whether or not this transfer is meant to accustom customers to the visible mannerisms and conventions of the Imaginative and prescient Professional with a extra environment friendly interface or make sweeping visible modifications with round icons and streamlined app designs. Both approach, it will be dangerous, doubtlessly alienating customers of the system which is by far Apple’s greatest income for the advantage of one which is the very definition of area of interest. (Longtime readers will recall the livid pushback when Apple made vital modifications to the iPhone interface as a part of the iOS 7 replace. Customers, as a normal rule, dislike change.)
It’s not stunning that Apple would wish to homogenize its working methods, however it ought to be identified, nevertheless, that there are query marks over the reliability of the report. The Verifier is a prolific reporter of Apple rumors however has a hit-and-miss relationship with the reality: AppleTrack at present assigns it an accuracy rating of simply 53.9 %, with quite a few unambiguous errors scattered by means of its monitor document. Mix this spotty document with the dearth of a named supply on this case, and the dearth of corroboration from different sources, and the dangerous nature of such a transfer, and we’re skeptical in regards to the probabilities of this occurring.
Nonetheless, WWDC is in June, and we are going to be taught extra about iOS 18 then. The brand new working system will roll out to iPhone homeowners world wide within the fall after a number of months of beta testing, so we nonetheless have an extended approach to go.
