The fourth beta of iOS 10 was seeded to Apple’s registered developers yesterday and the matching iOS 10 Public Beta 3 dropped this morning. For those of you who have been wondering what’s new in iOS 10 beta 4, here’s a video hands-on of nearly two dozen changes, enhancements and fixes that we’ve managed to discover in iOS 10 beta 4 thus far.
Video hands-on: iOS 10 beta 4
Having explored all of the changes, tweaks and refinements in the fourth beta of iOS 10, our video editor Andrew O’Hara has put together this quick video—it runs four minutes and eight seconds long—to get you up to speed.
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Save this article for reference if you plan on taking the latest public beta of iOS 10 for a quick spin on your iPhone or iPad. By the way, the current iOS 10 Public Beta 3 and the most recent developer-only beta 4 pack in the same features.
A detailed overview of iOS 10 beta 4 changes follows below.
More gender options for emojis
As Cody told you, the fourth beta gives you new gender options for existing characters: there’s now a female athlete and family options for single dads and single moms, to mention but a few. Like before, if an emoji has one or more modifiers available, long-tapping it reveals the popup menu with the modifiers, like genders, skin colors etc.
“Apple is working closely with the Unicode Consortium to ensure that popular emoji characters reflect the diversity of people everywhere,“ said the company.
As if that weren’t enough, the fourth beta packs in redesigns for some of the most popular emoji on iOS, while introducing new ones such as a rainbow flag, a water pistol and more. Like before, emojis appear three times bigger in Messages when sent alone.
All in all, more than one hundred new and redesigned emoji characters will be available to iPhone and iPad users this fall with iOS 10.
New keyboard sounds
The iPhone’s recognizable keyboard clicking sound has been replaced with a more subdued tone in the first beta. The second beta reverted to the old keyboard sound before the new one made a comeback in beta 3.
In beta 4, we’re now treated to a more refined soundscape when using some special keys on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. You now hear a distinctively different sound when pressing the Space or Return/Enter key while the Delete key plays a sound of its own.
Haptic feedback when locking the device is gone in beta 4 though you’ll still hear the new confirmation tone, introduced in the previous beta, upon locking the device manually by pressing the Sleep/Wake button.
Notification Center tweaks
The widgets section inside the Notification Center now displays the full date and time versus just the current day and time like in prior iOS 10 betas. Plus, notifications within the Notification Center now use bold typeface to make them more legible.
It’s also great that Quick Reply now takes advantage of the full screen resolution so the reply sheet now takes up nearly the whole screen. This is true for other notification banners on iOS 10 as well.
Previously, the Quick Reply sheet didn’t scale to fill up the whole screen.
Moreover, notification banners on non-3D Touch devices how feature a small handle at the bottom to convey that you can pull down on the handle in order to interact with the notification. You’ve been able pull down on notification banners since iOS 8 so this is basically a visual tweak.
On 3D Touch devices, notification banners lack this handle because you can simply press the banner to access options like Quick Reply and more.
In case you’ve been wondering, disabling 3D Touch in Settings → General → Accessibility → 3D Touch causes the handle to appear on notification banners.
Changes in the Music app
Within the Music app on iOS 10 beta 4, tapping a song name on the Now Playing screen takes you to the album. Tapping a song name on the Lock screen does nothing while tapping the song label inside a dedicated Now Playing card within Control Center simply takes you to the Music app.
Lastly, the Music app now remembers where you were when you force-quit the app and star ratings for top songs seem to be back in iOS 10 beta 4.
New Control Center splash screen
The fourth beta now displays a splash screen when you first invoke Control Center.
Its purpose is to inform users who’ve upgraded from an older version of iOS that Control Center on iOS 10 now involves cards-based approach: you get a card with your iPhone controls, a Now Playing card for your music and another one that presents you with options for HomeKit devices.
“iPhone controls, Now Playing and Home each have their own cards,” reads the description. To switch between the cards, just swipe. That’s the first time Control Center has had a splash screen of its own.
Siri improvements
iOS 10 beta 4 brings back the ability for Siri to make emergency calls on your behalf. After invoking Siri, say “Emergency Call” and she’ll start a five-second countdown before placing a phone call to an appropriate emergency service for your country, based on your geographical location and iPhone settings.
And when using Siri in US English, street numbers of phrases are now read correctly.
Miscellaneous
In addition to the above changes, beta 4 comes includes these fixes and tweaks:
- Audio apps in CarPlay no longer show a blank screen
- Switching from a FaceTime Audio to FaceTime Video call now routes audio through the speaker
- Handing off the cellular cal from Mac or iPad to iPhone now works
- Thumbnails of screenshots taken on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro no longer have inverted colors
- Passes in Wallet no longer display graphical artifacts
- Widgets will work in iOS Simulator on subsequent installs
- On iPad, you can no longer perform 3D Touch presses using Apple Pencil
- Old iOS 8 wallpapers are now back
- Pressing Backspace key while editing comments on websites in Safari no longer scrolls the text field out of view
- Animations throughout the iOS interface are a lot faster, including when opening folders, apps and so forth, making everything feel subjectively faster even though it isn’t—only the UI animations have been accelerated
3D Touch gestures via Apple Pencil on iPad no longer work in beta 4.
Additional information about other iOS 10 features can be found in our iOS 10 Preview and iOS 10 Tidbits series.
iDB previews iOS 10
We’ve explored other aspects of iOS 10 in rich detail:
- iOS 10 beta 3 changes
- iOS 10 beta 2 changes
- Messages with animated effects, stickers, apps & more
- All-new Lock screen with Raise to Wake, widgets, interactive alerts & more
- Siri meets apps & powers smarter QuickType keyboard suggestions
- Bedtime and Wake alarm help keeping you well rested
For other hands-ons, see our previews of macOS Sierra, watchOS 3 and tvOS 10.
iOS 10 availability
iOS 10 Developer Preview is available to members of the Apple Developer Program.
iOS 10 Public Beta is available to non-developers who are signed on the Apple Beta Software Program. The operating system will release as a free update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this fall.
System requirements for iOS 10 are same as those for iOS 9, with the exception of iPhone 4s, original iPad mini and iPad 2 which are are no longer supported.
Made a discovery? Tip us!
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