SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Apple on Monday removed the long-anticipated Group FaceTime feature from the first public version of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave betas, which were released earlier in the day.

Group FaceTime of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave were designed mainly to allow a maximum of 32 people to chat in group sessions at the same time, a feature that had been available in iOS 12 and macOS Mojave since the first betas became available in June.

"Group FaceTime has been removed from the initial release of iOS 12 and will ship in a future software update later this fall," Apple said in its latest developer release posted by Apple developer Guilherme Rambo on Twitter.

Apple announced the new feature of iOS 12 during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) held in San Jose, northern California, two months ago, when more than 1,000 engineers and developers attended the high-tech giant's grand gathering.

It's not clear why Apple has decided to push the feature back to a later date.