The iOS 5 Beta 2: Everything You Need To Know
by Ammaar Reshi
June 26, 2011
The new iOS 5 beta 2 was released quite unexpectedly this Friday. As always Apple left it to the Web to uncover the change-log despite the NDA. Lots of our readers were kind enough to tip us off to a comprehensive list of new features the build added. Without further ado, the features are listed below:
The build seems more stable and we hope it is lighter on the battery. Overall the update is not as exciting as we had hoped with Newsstand still inactive and no Wi-Fi sync for Windows users. However, there may be more in this release just waiting to be uncovered. Needless to say there is still a lot more testing to do, and upcoming builds will definitely have new things in store. While we keep you posted on the latest in iOS 5 news make sure you check out our comprehensive iOS 5 roundup, right here, it includes over 170 new features.
[Images credit: MacStories]
Notification Center
Notifications on the home-screen are now similar to the original pop-up alerts. Personally I preferred the notifications in iOS 5 beta 1, I hope Apple has a good reason for changing them.
iMessage
Now iMessage users on iOS 5 beta 2 will not be able to send messages to users on iOS 5 beta 1. We're not quite sure why Apple did this, as nothing else seems to have changed with iMessage as a whole.
Music app - iPad
If you have albums without artwork, a new blank album image is put in its place.
Settings
The iCloud icon has changed in the Settings app. Does it look better? Let us know what you think.
Wi-Fi Syncing
Probably the most exciting feature of the build is that iOS 5 beta 2 finally enables Wi-Fi syncing for Mac users (no Windows support yet), the feature requires iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and OS X 10.6.8 or Lion. The feature seems to be enabled automatically if your iDevice is connected to a power source and on the same network as your computer. We detailed how to use it yesterday. Furthermore you can enable the feature upon connecting your newly updated device to iTunes for its first sync.
The build seems more stable and we hope it is lighter on the battery. Overall the update is not as exciting as we had hoped with Newsstand still inactive and no Wi-Fi sync for Windows users. However, there may be more in this release just waiting to be uncovered. Needless to say there is still a lot more testing to do, and upcoming builds will definitely have new things in store. While we keep you posted on the latest in iOS 5 news make sure you check out our comprehensive iOS 5 roundup, right here, it includes over 170 new features.
[Images credit: MacStories]
