The next iPhone software update will fix the home dock bug, it seems.
Recently, there’s been a very curious, slightly preposterous bug in iOS 15 that, while it wouldn’t stop your iPhone from working, would have a very particular effect on it. It was first seen in early May.
The latest report on iOS 15.6, which is in beta now but likely to reach general release in the next couple of weeks, seems to put this issue right.
The glitch itself was that when you downloaded Apple Music from the App Store, it would install itself in spot four on the home screen dock, if there a third-party app or one of a few of Apple’s own apps, was there already. This looked particularly bad if the app in that place was Spotify, for instance, where the behavior just looked rather rude. As though Apple was saying that Apple Music was what should be front-of-mind and in the dock rather than any other app.
Apple confirmed it was looking into this issue and went to some lengths to make clear this was a bug, not a deliberate feature. This was after there was a lot of discussion of why Apple was “kicking apps out of the dock”.
So, the removal of this bug will bring to an end the confusing experience some iPhone users have had. To be fair, it’s not that widespread because downloading Apple Music from the App Store is a rare thing, given that it’s installed with every iPhone by default. It’s only if you deleted the app and then decided you needed it, that the process would ever occur.
The beta also has a few other updates: it mentions Matter accessories in the Home app, for a start. Matter is a smart home connectivity standard backed by Apple, Google, Amazon and others. It should mean that more devices will work seamlessly with HomeKit, for a start.
Shortcuts is mentioned in the beta, too, with some minor changes.
The release notes only mention one known issue, where Xcode 13.4 is unable to prepare iOS 15.6 beta devices for development.
While we’re not at the point of general release for 15.6 yet, it is likely only a matter of weeks, perhaps days.
