Apple Announces iOS 14, watchOS 7, and More Available September 16

Today Apple announced that the latest versions of most of its major OS platforms will be shipping tomorrow, September 16. This includes:

iOS 14

iPadOS 14

watchOS 7

tvOS 14

macOS Big Sur was not mentioned, and it’s expected to release later this year alongside Apple Silicon Macs.

I can’t recall there ever having been such a short turnaround time from the announcement of OS release dates to those OS versions shipping. Normally following a September event, Apple releases GM versions of its OS updates and the public versions a week or two later. This year, there’s no such delay.

Until now developers haven’t yet been able to submit their app updates to App Review, so when iOS 14 introduces widgets for the Home screen, for example, there won’t be third-party widgets available to try just yet. It’s a very unusual release strategy for Apple, but in a year like this, it seems anything can happen.