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iOS 12 Public Beta 2 - Fireworks Cleanup Edition

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Boom!

Anthony Karcz

Welcome back everyone. Did you enjoy the 4th? Manage to hold on to all your fingers and toes? Good, because you're going to need those digits to download the latest iOS 12 Public Beta! After Tuesday's release of iOS 12 developer beta 3, Apple has activated over-the-air updates of iOS Public Beta 2 for all program participants (it didn't drop yesterday for obvious reasons)

How To Get iOS 12

Now that you've already enrolled in the beta (and if you haven't, check out my iOS 12 Public Beta 1 article for instructions) you can go to the Settings app and select General > Software Update. Select Download & Install and let the update do its thing. Just make sure you've got a full battery on your iDevice or are plugged in before you start.

Only select this if you're really, really gutsy

Apple/Anthony Karcz

Incidentally, you could also select the Automatic Updates option to let your device do all this on its own, but I'd recommend against it. It's a fantastic new feature for those that are installing stable iOS builds, but for those of us that are installing software that could potentially break our devices...not so much.

What's Fixed

Speaking of broken things, let's take a look at that bug list from last week and see what's been resolved:

  • Airpods now pause playback when one is removed, as expected.
  • Screen Time is still buggy, but slightly less so, with parental permissions behaving themselves. There are still a lot of unexpected behaviors around monitored devices, so don't be surprised if they don't work as expected.
  • Siri shortcuts are now saveable! Yay!
  • Carplay can connect again to enabled devices.
  • Spam calls and SMS messages no longer display a blacked out message.
  • Third party app issues with Twitter, Skype, and Taobao have been resolved.
  • The Weather widget is back, baby!
  • Enabling a SIM PIN on your device will no longer cause it to lose cellular service.
  • Siri again recognizes when it's being activated in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean with "Hey Siri."

What's Broken

But by no means does a list of fixes mean that things aren't still busted. There are several issues from Public Beta 1 that are still present in Public Beta 2, as well as several new problems.

  • Voice Memos won't sync to iTunes.
  • Fortnite might quit unexpectedly (no, you don't get to blame your deaths on this).
  • Netflix may suddenly stop downloading videos.
  • Group FaceTime calls cannot be initiated between Public Beta 1 and Public Beta 2 devices.
  • Route maps for workouts might not be available.
  • Wallet might crash unexpectedly.
  • In the Calendar app, events might appear on an unexpected date when in Day view.
  • Several issues are present involving Facetime, your phone number not displaying properly is the most minor of these.
  • Screen Time data may not sync across your iOS devices.
  • Wi-fi calls that switch over to the T Mobile network may drop unexpectedly.

As usual, this isn't a comprehensive list, just the most interesting that I found while perusing the Release Notes. There are many more, usage specific, bugs lurking throughout iOS 12. This is a beta, after all. Be ready for your workflows to be interrupted at best, your device completely unresponsive at worst.

What's New

So with that warning firmly in mind, this is the part where I mention that iOS 12 has been a surprisingly stable beta so far. The new stacked notifications feel like they should have always been this way. The Screen Time feature I have a love/hate relationship with (but it's still super useful). And iOS 12 Public Beta 2 has introduced some fun new features like animated Activity app Messages stickers (handy when I'm taunting my younger brother, asking if he's gotten his training runs in yet). There's also a swipe to clear all Notifications gesture that I'm using constantly.

Of course, now I have confirmation that my desk is tiny.

Anthony Karcz

My favorite big ticket feature so far, however, is the new Measure app. It's a subtle bit of AR that feels like it should have always been part of the iPhone. Since I installed the beta I've been using it constantly to figure out room sizes, furniture sizes, the length of flooring planks (there's a lot of remodeling in my near future), all kinds of things. Once your iPhone is oriented to the room, you drop a virtual point at one end, move your phone to trace a line to the next point, and click it. Once the line turns solid white, you can track your device back along the line and the length will be displayed in the center. It's kinda magical (in a dorky sort of way)

What's Next

It's business as usual so far with iOS 12. I expect we'll see another Public Beta release next week, continuing every week throughout July. Then in August things will start getting a bit more frantic as Apple developers stop rolling out features and start focusing on bug fixes. At that time we'll see more frequent releases, including weekend updates.

As far as the timing of Public Beta 3? I'd expect that to drop sometime next week.

In the meantime, if you need additional tips on how to prep your device or what to do if things go haywire while participating in the Public Beta program, check out my Tips and Tricks.

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