Group FaceTime Won’t Be Available Until Future Version Of iOS 12.x

Apple today released iOS 12 beta 7 to developers continuing what now appears to be a weekly release schedule as time slips away ahead of an official release that is expected to arrive towards the end of September. There is plenty to get the teeth into with this particular iOS update, which was a pleasant surprise when it was announced during WWDC 2018 after rumors had Apple preferring to launch with a focus on stability and performance rather than new features.

Despite that, there was still a raft of new features announced, one of which was support for FaceTime video calls with up to 32 people involved. Apple even demonstrated this particular feature during the big opening keynote, suggesting it would most certainly make its way into iOS 12 proper this fall. However, that’s not how things appear to be panning out.

Developers have started to note that the iOS 12 beta 7 release notes make mention of the fact that the new FaceTime feature will not be part of the final iOS 12 release and has actually been removed from this beta release. That’s bad news for anyone who was looking forward to being able to make FaceTime calls with an extended number of people but is also a worrying sign of yet more feature slippage from the folks working on Apple’s software.

We’re still reeling from he debacle that saw AirPlay 2 slip and slip before finally arriving as part of a later iOS 11 update and now, after sharing the feature in front of thousands at WWDC, FaceTime support for 32 people is now set to suffer the same fate.

Apple says that the feature will arrive in a subsequent update to iOS 12, but with no indication when that will be, it’s possible it could be months before we see the feature again. Apple does not appear to be the well oiled machine it once was – hopefully, this gets sorted out sooner rather than later.

(Source: Guilherme Rambo [Twitter])

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