Will Apple's iOS 7.1 launch by next week?

Daring Fireball's Jon Gruber writes that the next iteration of Apple's mobile OS is needed for a new app that will stream content from the South By Southwest festival.

Richard Nieva Former senior reporter

Richard Nieva was a senior reporter for CNET News, focusing on Google and Yahoo. He previously worked for PandoDaily and Fortune Magazine, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, on CNNMoney.com and on CJR.org.

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Richard Nieva

March 4, 2014 5:15 p.m. PT

Those who have been waiting for the newest iteration of iOS 7 may not have to wait much longer.

At least that's what Jon Gruber of Daring Fireball is suggesting. Apple is hosting its iTunes Festival -- featuring the likes of Coldplay, Imagine Dragons and Pitbull -- starting March 11 at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The performances will be streamed to iOS devices via an app, but Gruber cites a source that tells him the app needs to be running on iOS 7.1. Thus, he concludes the update must be coming out sometime before then.

Apple's software updates have been a sore subject for the company recently. Encryption vulnerabilities were discovered last month for iOS and OS X devices, and many in the security community criticized the company for being too slow to issue a security patch.