Aatif on October 17, 2014, 2:21 am

iOS 8.1 With Apple Pay Gets A Release Date

Apple’s today’s special event has been expected to carry a number of announcements, including those of the new iPad Air 2, the iPad mini 3, and all the changes and innovations to the Mac lineup. Then there have been announcements like updates to the iWork suite, availability of the iCloud Drive and the OS X Yosemite final version, among various others. Well, significant one among those concerned the public release of iOS 8.1 – the first major update to Apple’s iOS 8. The best part of the deal? iOS 8.1 with Apple Pay is launching this Monday, October 20th.

iOS 8.1 will signify Apple’s perhaps quickest response in history to feedback from a major iOS release. Just a week after the launch, iOS 8 saw 8.0.1 coming out, followed quickly by iOS 8.0.2 to fix the major issues that had been introduced with the previous version. 8.0.2 addressed a lot of qualms, and is generally fairly stable for daily use. However, Apple is pushing iOS 8.1 out the door just four weeks after the launch.

iOS 8.1 is expected to carry a number of features that were primary left out in iOS 8.0, despite having been leaked and planned for quite some time. For instance, we didn’t see HealthKit fully implemented until iOS 8.0.2, neither was Apple Pay fully allowed. Continuity has been somewhat of a hit and miss, too. All of these are expected to be fixed with iOS 8.1, and if the demo during today’s special Apple event is indicative of anything, I’m really looking forward to iOS 8.1

Even though Apple is using a relatively different schedule with the first major update to iOS 8, it makes today sense; if you miss out on some features in the original release, you don’t really wait a long time before pushing them out, especially when they’re ready and you have a perfect excuse (hint: event) to showcase that to the world. Well played, Apple!