Paul Morris on April 20, 2018, 11:50 pm

Looks Like iOS 12 Will Be Compatible With 2013 iPhone 5s

We’re approximately six weeks ago from an announcement at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and iOS 12 is already starting to show up in testing logs.

Ahead of that WWDC announcement, MacGeneration has spotted a contributing user’s logs in a WebKit nightly build, referencing a simulated iPhone 5s running iOS 12. In the first instance, it’s great to see that some logs are actually capturing the existence of iOS 12 and being published into the public domain. It immediately gives us visibility that it’s being actively worked on and tested in both real and simulated environments.

It’s also one of those things that manages to invoke a certain level of joy when a device owner sees a version of iOS being used which currently isn’t available to the general public in any shape or form. Additionally, it gives a small glimpse into Apple’s thinking as far as support and compatibility for devices is concerned.

The fact that the WebKit logs show a simulated iPhone 5s running iOS 12 is potentially an indication that Apple’s iPhone 5s, released way back in 2013, will still be amongst the supported devices when iOS 12 officially launches later in the year. If that does turn out to be the case, then Apple will be extending modern firmware support for iPhone 5s for at least a year longer than what iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 were given. iPhone 4s doesn’t support any firmware beyond iOS 9 and iPhone 5 – which is iPhone 5s’ predecessor – hung up its gloves when support for 32-bit officially ended with iOS 10.

This is in start contrast to what happens on Android devices with many of them not getting any software update or support after 2-3 years.

With references to iOS 12 also appearing up in the logs online around various websites, showing devices with screen resolution of 1136-by-640, it’s nigh-on impossible to work out if that device is one of Apple’s iPhone 5s smartphones or the newer iPhone SE. At least with the WebKit nightly logs, we get a specific naming of the device thanks to the fact that the visit was from the iOS Simulator running iOS 12.

Additionally, the existence of a number of new private API references have also been discovered which could form part of the next major iOS and macOS releases.

iOS 12 is expected to be officially announced at this year’s WWDC and will likely be seeded to registered developers immediately after the keynote.

(Source: 9to5Mac, MacGeneration)