Should you update your iPhone to iOS 18 or wait? Reasons to stick with iOS 17 until iOS 18.1

Although the iPhone 16 iOS 18 does not go on sale until this Friday, the new version of its operating system is available for installation on compatible models from today, the 16th. Like every new version, iOS 18 brings a series of new features, including security improvements, which will push many users to update on day one. However, there are a number of reasons that advise Don’t rush and wait for the next update, which will be 18.1 and will be released about a month later. Let’s see what they are.

iOS bugs

When a software is released, it is after having been Tested and proven for months. First internally and then through public betas that, in this case, have been available since July. However, that does not ensure that the software is free of errorssomething that is common in early versions. The reason, or one of them, is that tester teams, however large they may be, and also public betas, even if they have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users, They can’t reply the different interactions that will occur with the software when it is used by millions and millions of people once it is released. This is when many bugs or errors appear that until then had gone unnoticed..

An example of this type of situation was last year, after the launch of iOS 17when many users reported that the new iPhone 15 Pro were overheating for unknown reasonsIt was speculated that it was a hardware problem, Apple investigated it and found that the person responsible for this malfunction was the app Instagram. A subsequent operating system software update fixed this. But with early versions of software, and one as complex as an operating system, Bugs are always to be expected.

Battery life

One of the “traditions” of iOS is that its first version is a higher battery consumption than it will have laterwhen it is more refined. This is because Apple’s priority with the first version is Optimize performance and bugs before energy efficiencysomething that is polished in later versions. So if you upgrade and find that your battery life is getting shorter, that’s normal, but it may not be what you want and what’s best for you.

In addition, iOS updates also lead to the device having to perform a large amount of internal indexing that consumes a lot of power for hours and days after installation. The application PhotosFor example, it updates its database of recognized people, scans images for new recognizable objects or scenes for search purposes, and looks for duplicates.

iPhone performance

Partly due to the aforementioned re-indexing of data on the iPhone, the first version of iOS 18 is likely to does not offer the performance that the user expects from the device. This is also because Processor-intensive applications and games should be adjusted to work with the new iOS, so the stuttering -temporary pauses while playing- and bugs or glitches are normal.

He Game Mode is a new feature for iOS – it first appeared in macOS Sonoma– which redirects resources to improve frame rate and latency Bluetoothso more demanding games may run better than on iOS 17. However, Game Mode It is also still in beta and may have its own bugs..

Missing features that won’t arrive until iOS 18.1 and later

This aspect only affects iPhone users who are not in the European Union, where Apple’s AI will not be launched this year. Apple Intelligencewhich is the main new feature of iOS 18, will arrive partially with the next version and some of the announced functions will not be deployed until the end of the year or even 2025. If that is the main incentive to upgrade, It’s not time yet.