Skip to main content

Apple Rolls Out New Betas Across Its Platforms

Image
By

Happy Monday from Apple! The company has just rolled out new software betas for each of platforms, including the desktop (El Capitan 10.11.4), mobile (iOS 9.3), Apple TV (tvOS 9.2), and Apple Watch (watchOS 2.2). Beta releases for Apple Configurator 2.2 and Xcode 7.3 also became available at the same time.
Some of the standout features included in the upgrades is the new ability to support the pairing of multiple Apple Watches to a single iPhone, a new Maps experience in watchOS, a “Night Shift” mode in iOS for better nighttime reading, an upgraded Notes app with Touch ID support, a better Health app, new features for Education users, and more.
iOS 9.3
One of the more interesting features to be spotted in iOS 9.3 is “Night Shift” – a feature that will slowly shift the iOS device’s color palette at nighttime to eliminate the issues with blue light and its ability to interrupt our natural sleep patterns. Amazon’s Fire tablets and Google Play Books also recently did the same thing, though Apple users may be more familiar with the feature thanks to an app called F.lux for Mac devices, and its jailbreak version for iOS devices. 
Explains Apple on its Preview Site for the new software, “Night Shift uses your iOS device’s clock and geolocation to determine when it’s sunset in your location. Then it automatically shifts the colors in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum, making it easier on your eyes. In the morning, it returns the display to its regular settings.”
That is, when it gets later in the day, the device will automatically make its adjustments. This, apparently, has become a new standard feature for mobile devices, as more users today read on their phones and tablets before bed, but then face sleep disturbances. With Amazon and Apple now both offering this sort of setting on their platforms, they’re likely establishing a new baseline for competitors, as well.
notes_large_2x
The Notes app also has been upgraded to include support for Touch ID – meaning you can secure access to the app, where a number of people casually record things like medical details and passwords. Now you’ll be able to make it so you have to enter in a passcode or use your fingerprint to launch Notes, depending on your preference. You can also sort your notes by date created, date modified, or alphabetically, says Apple.
Apple’s News app has been more personalized in iOS 9.3 with more suggestions for things like trending topics and Editor’s Picks. Plus, it now plays video in your feed, is a little speedier, and supports landscape mode on iPhone.
news_large_2x
Meanwhile, the Health app is now making it easier for you to find third-party health apps, as categories like Weight, Workouts, and Sleep have a new slider menu that help point you to related App Store apps. It also now displays your move, exercise and stand data, plus goals, from your Apple Watch.
health_large_2x
CarPlay in 9.3 received a couple of new features, including “New” and “For You” recommendations from Apple Music, and a “Nearby” feature from Maps will now help you find gas, parking, restaurants and more.
More importantly, Education got a big push with iOS 9.3, as the upgraded software introduces more features that make iOS in the classroom setting a better experience, including the addition of a single portal for school admins called “Apple School Manager”, support for a new kind of ID for education called “Managed Apple IDs,” a new Classroom app for teachers, and support for a Shared iPad for students.
The focus here is on offering schools, admins and teachers more tools for using Apple devices in the classroom, ranging from the School Manager dashboard where admins can shop apps and prep devices for MDM (mobile device management) to tools that let students log into an iPad in the classroom to make it their own.
Hopefully, this multi-account support is something that could make its over to the consumer side in the future, as families often share a device – like an iPad shared with kids – but don’t have a way to create separate profiles or personal experiences.
 
 

watchOS 2.2
Meanwhile, on watchOS, there’s the above-mentioned support for pairing multiple watches with a single iOS device, which requires iOS to be also running iOS 9.3
Plus, the Maps app and glance now offers quick directions to a location, the ability perform searches, and the ability to view nearby points of interest. A new Nearby feature also makes it easy for users to browse through categories such as Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, and Health, and find the closest places in each category. Tapping a category will give you additional options, like Nightlife, Music & Drama, Parks & Recreation, and Movies options in the Fun category.
WatchOS 2.2 also delivers an upgraded Core Text framework, which allows for complex text layout and rendering graphics contexts, and includes an upgrade to the HealthKit framework, which now includes a summary of the user’s activity for the day (e.g. stand hours, time spent exercising, active energy burned.)
tvOS 9.2
With Apple TV’s software upgrade, the platform is also getting a ton of new features, including support for pairing Bluetooth keyboards, the ability to move apps into folders on the homescreen, a new App Switcher interface, and its own Podcasts app.
The Podcasts app will look familiar to those who use the iPhone version, as it also offers tabs for Unplayed, My Podcasts, Featured, Top Charts and Search.

 
 
Above: new tvOS features; image credit: 9to5Mac
Rolling out folder support for Apple TV indicates that Apple is already thinking about the user experience, and making it easier to get to favorite apps without a lot of scrolling. The feature works similarly to that on iOS devices – you press the Play/Pause button to move the apps to folders or delete them.
Siri also now speaks Spanish (U.S.) and French Canadian.
OS X 10.11.4 (El Capitan)
The OS X beta is more of an incremental release, compared with that of iOS or even watchOS. According to release text, it will focus on stability, compatibility, and security improvements.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The CC Aurora is actually pretty fun, as far as projectors go

By
I don’t review projectors. Projectors are boring. Even the good ones. They remind me of vacation slideshows and the film strips we had to watch in health class — neither of which I’m in a particular hurry to revisit in my adult life. That said, I’ve always harbored some germ of a notion that some day I might buy one, to compensate for being one of those weirdos without a TV set. There’s something undeniably appealing about a big screen TV you can break out during movie night and then stash back into the closest of your one-bedroom New York City apartment. XGIMI’s CC Aurora is the closest I’ve seen to fitting the bill — or, for that matter, being a projector that I could actually muster any reasonable amount of excitement about. From the looks of it, it’s kind of the perfect package for the apartment dweller: it’s compact, self-contained with a built-in speaker system and plays nicely with mobile devices. Clearly I’m not alone here, either. The product scored $170,000 on Indi...
Post a Comment
Read more

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

By
At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...
1 comment
Read more

Uber, Google and other tech employees form Coalition of Black Excellence

By
When black employee resource groups from a variety of tech companies come together, black magic happens. More specifically, black excellence happens. The Coalition of Black Excellence Week, spearheaded by Uber Litigation Counsel Angela Johnson in collaboration with black ERGs from over 40 tech companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, Lyft and Microsoft, kicks off this Monday in the San Francisco Yay (Bay) Area. The idea for CBE Week came in part from Johnson’s experiences living in Washington D.C., and being able to attend events put on by the Congressional Black Caucus, she told me at Uber’s headquarters this week. “When I moved out to the Bay Area, I really wished there were similar types of experiences for tech,” Johnson said. “And I thought if we could bring together different black ERGs, or diversity and inclusion committees, or people who were interested in some of the issues the black community is passionate about, a lot of positive change and impact could come from that....
Post a Comment
Read more

Intel announces the first 14 nanometre processor

By
At the Computex conference in Taipei, chipmaker Intel has revealed a fanless mobile PC reference design using the first of its next-generation 14nm "Broadwell" processors. The 2 in 1 pictured here is a 12.5" screen that is just 7.2 mm thick with keyboard detached and weighs 670 grams.  The Surface Pro 3  – for comparison – is 9.1 mm thick and weighs 800 grams. It includes a media dock that provides additional cooling for a burst of performance. The next-generation chip is purpose-built for 2 in 1s and will hit the market later in  2014 . Called the Intel Core M, it will be the most energy-efficient Intel Core processor in the company's history with power usage cut by up to 45 percent, resulting in 60 percent less heat. The majority of designs based on this new chip are expected to be fanless, with up to  32 hours of battery life,  offering both a lightning-fast tablet and razor-thin laptop. Intel is also delivering innovation and performance for the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hundreds Of Apps Banned From App Store For Accessing Users’ Personal Information

By
Hundreds of iOS applications have been pulled out of the App Store, following a report from analytics service  SourceDNA , which uncovered a group of applications that were extracting users’ personally identifiable information, including email addresses associated with their Apple IDs, devices and peripheral serial numbers, as well as a list of apps installed on their phone. The applications in question had been using an SDK from a Chinese advertising company called  Youmi  which was accessing this information by way of private APIs, the report found. Nearly all of the developers were located in China so, for now, this appears to be an isolated incident. However, the larger concern here has to do with how long this activity had been taking place – and what that means in terms of Apple’s App Store review process, given that it hadn’t caught this suspect activity until being alerted to it by a third party. According to SourceDNA, Yo...
Post a Comment
Read more