Tim Hardwick
Apple's new Focused Mail features in iOS 18.2 are missing from both iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2, raising questions about the company's strategy for rolling out its email management system.
The new feature automatically sorts emails into four different categories — Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions — to help iPhone users better organize their inboxes. Devices that support Apple Intelligence also display priority messages as part of the new system.
iPhone users who have updated to iOS 18.2 have these features. However, iPad and Mac users who updated their devices with software Apple released at the same time as iOS 18.2 will likely notice their absence. iPhone users can easily switch between a categorized and traditional list view, but iPad and Mac users are limited to the standard chronological inbox layout.
The omission is especially odd since Apple used an example of the feature running on macOS when it announced the first set of Apple Intelligence features in late October, available with the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.
Noting the discrepancy, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests that engineering resources, rather than technical limitations, may be behind the selective rollout. Indeed, implementing the feature on iPad in particular shouldn’t require much additional development effort.
It's definitely an odd omission that the new Focused Mail is available in iOS 18.2 but not on iPad/Mac. There doesn't seem to be any reason to make it iPhone-exclusive other than engineering resources – and I'm guessing, at least on iPad, cross-compatibility isn't that great… — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) December 12, 2024
Apple typically strives to maintain feature parity across its ecosystem, especially for core apps like Mail, so this remains a curious state of affairs, and Apple hasn't provided any updated timeline for when the new Mail features might roll out to other platforms.
Tag: Apple Mail [ 106 comments ]
