Shure, a company that makes mics for iPhones with Lightning connectivity alongside their range of professional audio gear, claims on Twitter that iOS 11.3 is due out for everyone next week. This is in response to a customer complaint about failed recordings; the company says iOS 11.3 includes a fix for these accessories.

The tweet was first spotted by Piunikaweb.

Whilst generally third-party companies are not privy to Apple’s release schedule, if Shure has been receiving lots of complaints about their mics not working with iPhone 8 and iPhone X, Apple may have reassured them with a timeline for the fix being released.

This still feels somewhat unlikely though. For one, in general, news via customer support on Twitter has a track record of making statements that often don’t pan out. Apple may have told Shure that a resolution to their accessory reliability issues is coming in 11.3 but it’s harder to believe they told them when that would be, beyond what Apple has already announced publicly.

iOS 11.3 beta is currently on seed 3, released last week. iOS 11.3 includes new Animoji, Health Records, iMessage Business Chat, Battery Health and many more enhancements.

Whilst the builds are pretty stable, it does not feel ready enough for a release, which makes us less sure of Shure’s claims. Apple merely promised that iOS 11.3 would be released in the ‘spring’.

This is an issue that Apple introduced with the release of the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Fortunately, iOS 11.3, due out next week, resolves it. You can download the public beta now.

— Shure (@shure) February 23, 2018

The ‘spring’ timeframe technically means anytime between the 20 March and 21 June. The current iOS 11.3 beta also still includes the Feedback app, something which is normally removed in the build before the public release.

This suggests that Shure is being a little too optimistic … I wouldn’t expect an iOS 11.3 customer release until mid-March at the earliest.