Apple hasn’t made any official announcements about the next major release of its iOS operating system for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models. But the company is widely expected to put out a major update this summer, and now the developers at FutureTap have spotted evidence that Apple is already testing something called iOS 5.0.

FutureTap develops iOS apps, and they noticed some crash reports from devices running iOS 5.0, including iPhone 4 and original iPad models. That seems to be a good indication that:

  • Apple is testing its next-gen operating system.
  • Some testers have run into problems running current iOS apps.
  • The company is testing the OS on existing hardware.

So it seems likely that you won’t need to upgrade to a dual core device with an A5 processor to use iOS 5.0. On the other hand, that’s not a sure thing. Just because Apple is testing iOS 5.0 on existing devices doesn’t mean the company will necessarily allow existing users to upgrade. If the performance isn’t up to snuff on those devices, Apple may only release the operating system for newer devices. It’s been known to happen in the past.

via 9 to 5 Mac

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...