Apple's iOS 16.2 release expected in December, iOS 16.3 possibly in February

Apple's next major updates for its operating systems will reportedly land in the middle of December, while updates including iOS 16 will apparently ship in February or March.

Apple released a swathe of operating system updates on October 24, bringing out iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16.1, macOS Ventura, and others. However, users may have a long time to wait for the next big update release from the iPhone maker.

Currently, Apple is in the early stages of beta-testing iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, watchOS 9.2, tvOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1. As usual, Apple will most likely undertake multiple rounds of testing before release to the public.

According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter, the iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 updates "should be released around mid-December." Gurman doesn't state if this was information provided to him by Apple, but it could just be an educated guess based on the usual number of betas and how often they're released.

For example, macOS 12.2 was released to the public on January 26, 2022, while 12.3 shipped on March 14. Meanwhile iOS 15 and iPadOS 15.2 landed on December 13, 2021, 15.3 variants appeared on January 26, and 1.5.4 landed on March 14.

In reference to Mac releases being pushed into 2023, Gurman claims he was told the release of the M2 versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro were "tied" to the release of macOS Ventura 13.3 and iOS 16.3. These updates are supposedly expected to arrive "between early February and the beginning of March."

Given that Apple prefers to release similar version-level releases at the same time, it is probable that respective macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS releases would be distributed alongside them.