Apple on Monday made the fourth betas of upcoming iOS 11.3, tvOS 11.3, and macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 updates available to developers. Registered developers can install the new betas from Apple’s developer center, or by using each platform’s OTA updating mechanism.
Here’s what’s new in iOS 11.3:
- ARKit 1.5: With this update, developers will be able to make far more immersive experiences in apps that support augmented reality experiences. That includes recognizing physical surfaces, letting users put items on vertical objects (like a wall), and ARKit will be able to track more objects, including circular tables, more accurately. It will also support 2D objects.
- New Animoji: The four new Animoji are available for iPhone X owners, at least until Apple rolls out that particular feature to more devices. The four new entries are a lion, a bear, a dragon, and a skull.
- iMessage for Business: iMessage for Business will let users quickly chat with a specific organization, like a hardware store or bank, without providing any personal information unless specifically sent by the user. It will also let users pay for items via the secure mobile payment option, Apple Pay.
- Health data: iOS will privately secure even more health data with this launch. However, that data can also be shared with a variety of different medical services and providers.
- Battery health: Initially announced for an early 2018 launch, the battery health indicator will be available with iOS 11.3 in the spring. With it, owners of iPhone 6 devices or newer will be able to get battery health information, which will let them know if the battery needs to be replaced or not. It will also provide the ability to activate or deactivate Apple’s built-in throttling feature. You can see more of the new Battery Health feature through here.
- Apple Music: The streaming service will soon be the home for music videos. Users can stream all the music videos they want without being interrupted by ads. They can also watch the hottest new videos, the classics or ones from their favourite artists back-to-back in new music video playlists.
- HomeKit: Software authentication provides a great new way for developers to add HomeKit support to existing accessories while protecting privacy and security.
- Advanced Mobile Location (AML): Automatically send a user’s current location when making a call to emergency services in countries where AML is supported.
- Messages in iCloud: After being removed in a late beta of iOS 11 last year, Apple has officially brought back “Messages in iCloudâ€. This will let users store messages, photos, and videos in iCloud to help clear up space on their device.
tvOS 11.3
tvOS 11.3 is a little more tame, focused mainly on bug fixes and security improvements. It does however include Match Content enhancements, automatic frame rate switching on Apple TV 4, and support for AirPlay 2 (although Apple pulled support for AirPlay 2 in beta3).
