Apple Fixes the Calendar Bug that Was Produced As a Result of iOS 11

It’s taken a long time, but Apple has finally fixed the iOS 11 calculator bug.  The issue was that if you typed in 1+2+3 quickly, you would get an incorrect answer.  This happened due to the button animations running their course whenever you tap on anything in the Calculator app.  In order to remedy the situation, Apple removed the animations from the Calculator app with the release of iOS 11.2.  But iOS 11.3 Beta has given us even more changes.  Which includes bringing back the animations while also ensuring that users get the correct answer every single time.  This occurs no matter what is pressed and how quickly.  If you have iOS 11.3 Beta installed on your iPhone right now, you can check this out for yourself.

Because this has been going on for quite some time now, you might not remember what was going on – so here’s a recap for you:

iOS 11.0 had a brand new Calculator app with buttons that faded in and out when highlighted. iOS 11.2 removed the fade animation altogether to patchwork fix the bug. iOS 11.3 brings the animations back and users can still tap the buttons in quick succession.

Originally, Apple had removed the animations completely.  Which gave it a quick fix, but they have added those back in.  Which is good as it allows them to fix it properly.  When the Calculator was designed, they obviously wanted the animated states to be there because they were included in the iOS 11.0 and iOS 11.1 releases. When iOS 11.2 solved the issue with a quick fix, they had removed that feature.  Which was a little disappointing to see that the design had been compromised.  Mostly because there was no guarantee that they would go back and wire it up to restore the original animation behavior.

But this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen quick fixes.  In fact, we’ve seen several of these since iOS 7.  (Which seems so long ago now.) What happened with some of those cases, however, was the issue didn’t get resolved appropriately.  Meaning, the quick fix was the fix – and this shouldn’t be the case ever.  Thankfully, that’s not the case with this instance.  In fact, Apple implemented a quick fix, to make the feature usable.  But they are looking at the operability of the feature to ensure that they can deliver what they said they would in the first place.

Is this a big deal? No. But a lot of small details like this add up to the overall iOS experience and the Apple brand is synonymous with attention to detail in hardware. Care in software has been more scattershot in recent years, so I’m encouraged by changes like this one. iOS 11.3 is available as a developer beta right now.  But will be released to all customers sometime this spring.  Other features that we will see in iOS 11.3 include new Animoji, iMessage Business Chat, Health Records integration and some other “flagship” features.

Apple plans to broaden their focus their efforts for iOS 12, including performance, reliability, and some bug fixes.  Ideally, these kinds of bugs shouldn’t occur to this extent at all.  But perhaps this will give Apple some time to address these in advance of iOS 12.