The tech blogosphere continues to buzz with chatter that Apple will hold a media event on September 10th to unveil two new iPhones – the high-end iPhone 5S and the low-end plastic iPhone 5C.
But that fateful occasion may also deliver something else to the iOS ecosystem – iOS 7.
An email distributed to Nuance developers late Monday suggests that iOS 7 GA “general availability” will also be released on September 10th, 2013.
“It’s important to point out that if true, this release plan would deviate significantly from Apple’s past approach,” says Russell Brandom of The Verge. “The company normally gives developers plenty of time to have their apps submitted for a new version of iOS.”
Further, it has never released a major iOS update on the same day as an iPhone hardware announcement. With this email, Nuance could be referring to the Golden Master (GM) build of iOS 7. That’s the finalized, feature-complete version of the OS that Apple has traditionally provided to developers ahead of a consumer rollout.
So how did Nuance procure this purportedly top secret information? Nuance plays a big role in Apple’s built-in Siri services. As a result, this email was distributed to Nuance’s NDEV developers, likely to prompt further testing prior to the formal iOS 7 launch.
For the moment, iOS 7 is in its sixth beta.
