By Dan Moren
August 13, 2018 12:09 PM PT
Group FaceTime delayed until later this fall
Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
As first noticed by developer Guilherme Rambo, Apple has removed Group FaceTime from the versions of the iOS 12 and macOS Mojave betas released today, with release notes saying that the feature will instead “ship in a future software update later this fall.”
For those paying close attention, this is pretty similar to what happened last year to AirPlay 2, a feature that only officially arrived in May of this year—shortly before WWDC.
There’s no inherent problem with taking a little longer to make sure a feature is fully baked: a late feature that works as intended will trump an on-time feature that’s broken.
That said, this has become enough of a regular occurrence with Apple that the company’s burned through some of its trust with users. A promise of “later this fall” doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence that Apple will hit this (admittedly self-imposed) deadline.
It also raises some eyebrows about why the company can’t seem to deliver some of these features as originally promised.1
- And hey, speaking of things going MIA, where exactly is the AirPower charging pad introduced at last September’s event? ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]
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