Apple is still working on the next update for its major platforms, and today the company seeded the latest beta towards that goal.
On Wednesday, Apple seeded the latest beta of iOS 14.4 and iPadOS 14.4 to developers. This brings the beta count to two, so we’re probably still a few weeks out before the company releases the software updates to the public. As is par for the course, the latest beta is meant specifically for testing purposes so developers can prepare their apps for the incoming update. It should not be installed on your daily driver.
Apple will likely seed the corresponding public beta to the public beta testers this week as well. We’ll update this post when that happens.
Registered developers with the proper profile installed on their supported devices can download the latest beta as an over-the-air update. Simply open Settings –> General –> Software Update and follow the onscreen instructions. The new software can also be downloaded from Apple’s official developer site.
Apple didn’t go out of its way to add any major forward facing features to the first beta, and that may remain the same for the second beta. However, if there are any new discoveries made we will update this post accordingly. We did note back in December that iOS 14.4 does welcome Apple’s new prompts for when apps want to track a user’s activity.
In addition to that, there are new haptic feedback elements when transferring media from a HomePod mini to an iPhone 11 or iPhone 12 equipped with the U1 chip. That haptic feedback will start to pulse when it nears a HomePod mini, and get faster as the iPhone nears the smart speaker.
In addition to that, there is a new “Time to Walk” feature in the Apple Watch. There’s a new “Add Newest Workouts to Watch”, That’s associated with the Apple Watch’s latest beta, watchOS 7.3, and suggests a new guided audio walking workouts are in the works.
Related, Apple also seeded the second betas of tvOS 14.4, macOS Big Sur 11.2, and watchOS 7.3 to developers as well.
The latest developer beta is available to download and install now.