Despite the fact that companies set their own release schedules, it might feel inevitable that it ultimately becomes something of an uncontrollable beast, let loose upon the world and left to the demands of a fervent customer base.

Apple has been releasing new iPhones on a yearly basis for quite some time now, and the same can be said for major software releases. We get to see the new version of iOS (and the other platforms the company offers now) much earlier in the year, but we all have to wait for the public launch until Apple has new hardware to go along with it, which, typically, arrives in September.

(The iPhone X was a bit after that, and it will be interesting to see where the oft-rumored iPhone X Plus and 6.1-inch iPhone land on the calendar this year.)

What I’m going to write from this point on is a defense of Apple, in one of the areas where I think the company can be defended. However, I want to make it perfectly clear here that Apple has effectively put itself in this box that it currently finds itself in. Apple decided to launch new phones and new software every year. And, at least recently, the software experience has appeared to take a hit. These are all truths that most folks can admit to. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

Now, with that being said, I think every company deserves a “rebuild season”. That’s a sports reference, and one that gets used in hockey a lot. It it used to describe a team that has basically reshuffled its roster, usually in a way that a bunch of younger athletes take up spots, and anything that happens beyond that can be chalked up to that fact. So, if a team doesn’t make it to the NHL postseason, analysts, coaches, and even the players can point to the fact that they’re new, and this was an off-season to get the team acclimated to one another.

I’m using this analogy because I think Apple is going to use this year as a rebuild season — and maybe last year was the real start of it. Not just in software, either, but we’ll get to that in a bit. I want to focus on the report from earlier today that pointed to Apple delaying planned features for iOS 12. Instead of launching those things this year, Apple is going to wait until 2019. Instead, we’re going to see a year of refinements, where Apple wants to tackle software bugs and launch noteworthy enhancements.

Basically, Apple wants to make sure that iOS is the most stable mobile operating system on the planet again.

I think that’s a good thing! While I haven’t run into a lot of the issues that people have over the years, especially recently, I can say without a doubt that the overall iOS experience has been considerably worse recently than it has been in the past. I can’t even tell you how many times that I’ve tried to access the widgets panel and there just hasn’t been anything there. Or accessing the Notifications Shade and it just being a blank screen — which ultimately led to my lock screen not working at all, in terms of on-screen content.

Not having music controls on the lock screen when I should is really annoying.

Even I can see that the software experience for iOS has gone downhill, even in minor ways, and Apple not only needs to address that in a bigger way than just random software patches throughout the year (it needs to do this, too, obviously), but it also owes it to the customer base to address these issues in a bigger way than it has in the past. Basically, Apple needs this offseason to rebuild the software, make it the best it can be, and go from there.

This extends to hardware, too. Apple launched three new iPhones last year: Two holdovers from years prior and one new model that’s meant to welcome a brand new ideology and design aesthetic for the company. So last year was probably Apple’s hardware rebuild season. This year we are probably going to see the retirement of the older iPhone design (with some older models still sticking around for competitive price points), and see the “notch design” take over completely.

We don’t always need radically different hardware. Apple has proven this with similar designs between the iPhone 6 and iPhone 8. And we definitely don’t need radically new software every year, either. Apple laid some nice groundwork last year, introducing the TrueDepth camera, Face ID, Animoji, change to Control Center (still not a fan, Apple), and so on. That rebuild season is allowed to extend to software refinements, because I think we can all agree that we’d like a stable, fully-functional mobile OS before any other new features are added to the mix.

After all, a whole host of new features being thrown in might just lead to even more software issues down the line.

Now we just have to hope that while Apple may be fixing current issues with iOS 11 that linger into iOS 12, while also making sure iOS 12 works on the same level that Apple and its customers expect it to work, it is also making sure that those new features are stable for iOS 13 and all those planned new features. Fingers crossed and all that.

I imagine Apple will have new features to discuss for iOS 12. Still, I’m perfectly okay with Apple taking a year to refine the software I use every day. Apple has a solid track record leading up to this point. And while these last six months may have been pretty rough, I think it can get back on track. The company’s rebuild season may have actually started last year, and it’s not a bad thing if it continues to use that time to refine what it’s already released ahead of even more exciting new features in 2019. I think the company has earned it.