On Tuesday, Apple released new developer betas of OS X 10.11.2 and iOS 9.2 (both the second betas to be released), as well as a first beta of tvOS, which is presumably numbered v9.1. The new iOS beta comes two weeks after the initial public release of iOS 9.1, and one week after the first beta. The OS X beta, build 15C31f does not mark any changes but continues to ask developers to focus on several key areas. The tvOS beta will require developers to have a new Apple TV as well as USB-C to USB-A adapter in order to install it from a Mac -- the Apple TV itself has no downloading capability for beta releases.
The OS X 10.11.2 El Capitan beta is said to focus on testing graphics, Mail, Wi-Fi, Calendar, Spotlight, Notes, Photos, and USB connections, suggesting remaining issues in these areas. It's available through the developer portal on Apple's web sites, or through the Mac App Store for registered developer accounts.
The iOS 9.2 beta is identified as build 13C5060d, and is available either over-the-air or through the developer page. According to the release notes, the second beta fixes a couple of issues on the Apple Watch, specifically an issue where un-pairing and re-pairing the device caused the Stocks glance to disappear. This has been fixed along with synching music to the wearable device, and a problem that affected the quality of music played from an iOS device to a car stereo using USB.
The Safari View Controller introduced in the last beta, which allows Mobile Safari to work more like the desktop Safari app with support for Action Extensions and the option to reload a site minus any content blocker (along with the restoration of "request desktop site"), can now be dismissed with an edge swipe. Videos with 'folw' track associations will no longer fail to play on 32-bit devices, and a bug in iCloud Keychain has been fixed that was preventing some users from setting up the keychain syncing.
The tvOS beta has few notes on what has changed or been tweaked, but is mostly a bug-fix release for potential issues found in the public (v9.0) release of tvOS, which accompanies the new fourth-generation Apple TV. These include networking fixes, scrolling tweaks, and other small changes. Users have complained about a number of missing features in the initial release, such as Bluetooth keyboard support, which the company has acknowledged and said will be addressed in future updates.
As always,
MacNN cautions readers not to install betas on production or daily-use hardware, as the software often cannot be "rolled back" to a previous version without extreme measures. A full working backup of the previous system is also recommended.
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