According to Fast Company, “The company has been working feverishly to fix software problems in its hotly anticipated 10th-anniversary iPhone that could ultimately cause production and delivery delays, the source says. If the software problems aren’t resolved quickly, the new flagship iPhone could even launch with major features disabled.”
The features in question are related to wireless charging and facial recognition. It seems that the issues aren’t so much with the hardware, but rather with the software. This means that technically the phone will work, but certain features will have to be enabled later. This isn’t completely unprecedented as the iPhone 7 Plus did not ship with Portrait Mode enabled, and only got the feature via an update later on.
This isn’t the first time we’re hearing that there could be issues with the wireless charging system. Previously we heard that the wireless charging accessories might not be shipped with the iPhone. In any case take it with a grain of salt, but hopefully we’ll have the official details soon.