Following the official announcement of the newest version of iOS, Apple is seeding betas ahead of the public launch later this year.
Apple today seeded the fifth developer beta of iOS 12. The company had a lot to talk about during its keynote at WWDC, including new Animoji features –with a brand new Memoji feature joining the ranks– and much more. As is par for the course, Apple will be seeding the developer beta first, and then a subsequent and corresponding public beta will be seeded at a later date.
The new beta is available to download and install as an over-the-air (OTA) update through the Settings app for iOS devices that have the correct certificates already installed. It can also be downloaded from the dedicated Developers Center website.
As far as what’s new, here are the major bullet points:
- Better Performance: Apple is working to improve the overall performance of iOS 12 on all the devices it can be installed on, including the older handsets. That includes boosted performance for opening the Share Sheet, for instance, or seeing up to 70 percent better performance in certain scenarios on devices like the iPhone 6 Plus. Apple says these performance boosts will be present on all devices that iOS 12 can be installed on, and the company is “doubling down” on performance with this latest iOS release.
- Animoji and Memoji: Apple is introducing four new Animoji characters, including a T-Rex, ghost, and tiger. The biggest new addition is what the company calls Memoji, allowing users to quickly turn themselves into an Animoji with a variety of customization options as well.
- ARKit 2.0: Apple is also introducing an update to ARKit, which will bring new features for the augmented reality framework. It brings with it more dynamic range for tracking items in the camera, as well as being able to play multiplayer games with up to four people. Support for 3D object detection and persistent.
Starting a game built around a physical toy, or a physical classroom serving as a starting and continuation point for lessons. Shared experiences in ARKit 2.0, allowing for real-time multiplayer games. - Photos: Apple is improving the Photos experience in iOS 12, making search better and faster, with the ability to search for places and much more. The new app is also getting a faster way to share content, with the app recommending people to share the photos or videos with based on facial recognition. And, after those images are shared, Photos will work with the receiver to find if they have photos of the same event to share back.
- Siri: Apple’s digital personal assistant is getting some improvements, including Shortcuts. This will give automation workflow to users, allowing for simple statements like “Heading home” to serve up a variety of different commands, including starting a podcast or Apple Music playlist, offering up directions, notifying a contact, and much more.
- Apple Books: Apple is changing iBooks to Apple Books, and tweaking the overall experience as well
- Apple News, Stocks, and Voice Memos: These apps are finally making the jump over to the Mac
- Grouped Notifications: iOS 12 is finally adding support for grouped notifications, so multiple notifications from a single app would be merged into one for better usability. Notifications are also getting other improvements. You can now send notifications from the lock screen to the notification center, with Siri now recommending you to disable notifications from apps that you don’t use.
There is much more to iOS 12, but those are the major points. Here are all the new discoveries made with one of the previous developer betas.
Update: Apple’s release notes for the latest beta of iOS 12 show that the company is aware of some bugs that you should probably be aware of as well:
- You may run into an error while trying to use Apple Pay Cash to send or receive money
- Some Shortcuts requests may not function
- If you restart a device running the latest beta, some Bluetooth accessories may not function as intended, and some may show up as the device address rather than the accessory name
- If you’re using CarPlay, you won’t be able to use Siri to open an app by name. Shortcuts that normally open an app won’t work, either
- If you use built-in intents for Siri Shortcuts, you may not see the custom UI
- If you have multiple ride-hailing apps on your device, Siri may show an app instead of actually providing an ETA or location when prompted. If you ask the same query again, Siri may show the correct info, though