Upcoming Mobile OS Releases

As the summer heats up, we draw ever-closer to the annual mobile OS refreshes – both iOS and Android tend to release new OS versions in the early fall.  While timing is always a little tricky, Android 15’s roadmap puts it as likely going live in September, while Apple is likely to launch iOS 18 right around the middle of September, as they typically do.  Here at Beta Breakers QA Labs, we’re in the process of planning which of our mobile devices to first update to the new OSs, and the cadence of our internal rollout – maintaining a library of hundreds of devices leads to complicated upgrade cycles each time new major versions are released!

iOS 18 requirements are already known, so no surprises there – the new OS will work on the iPhone X series and later (excepting the original iPhone X base model, so the XR/XS/XS Max will be supported), as well as the second and third generations of the iPhone SE.  These are actually the same requirements as iOS 17 has, so Apple isn’t dropping any phones out of support with this upcoming release, which is nice.  iOS 18 will also come standard on new iPhone 16 devices when those are released.

Android device support for day 1 is less known, since Google only publishes which Pixel devices will run Android 15 – Pixel 6 and later devices are supported, as well as Pixel Tablet and Pixel Fold devices.  Other Android device manufacturers will test and release Android 15 updates to their own ecosystems, but there’s always a bit of a delay.  OnePlus is noteworthy for their generally early support of new versions of Android, and Samsung has been getting faster with their major updates as well.  New flagship devices from all the major manufacturers will also start coming with Android 15 as standard.

So, fun times ahead for our mobile device compatibility testing labs and inventory – while we don’t usually brick devices during major upgrade cycles, we also never say never.  But regardless of what happens there, you can rest assured that Beta Breakers QA Labs will quickly update to support the most recent mobile OS versions across a wide range of different hardware devices as soon as they are available.  And if something does get bricked badly, better our phones than yours!