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iOS 15 Public Beta 3
Anthony Karcz
iOS 14.7 is finally on its way out with the release of the
iOS 14.7 Release Candidate
so hopefully that means that those developers will be on bug patrol in iOS 15. It needs it!
How to Get the iOS 15 Public Beta 3
If you saw iOS 14 through to the end of the line, you might be wondering how to make the switch. iOS 15 Public Beta 3 is now available for anyone who registers their iOS device for the
Apple Beta Program
.
Once you've enrolled your device, you'll see the new profile in the Settings app of your device. There, you'll have to make your first big decision as a public beta tester. While iOS 14 introduced the ability to install a stable public build or the current beta build, they have to be from the same base. Meaning that, in order to participate in the iOS 15 beta, you'll need to delete the iOS 14 beta profile from your phone.
Keep in mind this is
beta software
. Especially when it's only the second release, things
will
go wrong. Features won't work. Apps won't work. Things might just break without reason. If you install this on your main device, be ready with a reliable backup in case things fall apart during testing.
What's New?
Despite this being an "iterative" development year instead of a "sweeping changes" kind of year, there's still plenty that beta testers will have to play with. You can check out my full list
here
.
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Specifically for Public Beta 3, SharePlay is now available.
What's Broken?
Remember when I mentioned that some things will be broken in this early beta? Here they are! These are the handful of bugs that I personally found:
The battery widget is constantly suggested for every widget stack, even if you tell iOS not to suggest it.
Third-party email app Spark displays a new mail badge even when your inbox is empty.
The "swipe from bottom" zone is wider than expected in horizontal apps, leading to ending up in the app manager when trying to interact with screen elements (I'm looking at you Hearthstone).
And here's all the official stuff Apple mentioned in the
release notes
!
The beta isn't currently available for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro
In CarPlay, you might see the vehicle compass overlap the resume button in map panning mode during active navigation.
CarPlay might fail if you're screen sharing when you connect to your vehicle
Files might quit unexpectedly if you choose Open in New Window for a file
Text indicating the Find My network is active when your iOS device needs to be charged will only display if the device language is set to English.
Focus is...a little too focused. You can only switch to Do Not Disturb using Siri.
Matter is a mess - Apple TV can't reach them when on WiFi (only ethernet), you can't connect to a third-party hub, accessories may give a No Response message after pairing, pairing might take a long time and fail anyway, you can only pair five accessories, and only the owner of the home account can pair them.
Widgets continue to be beta bug fodder! The widget gallery might display the wrong widget category after selecting a category from the side bar. After canceling a search in the widget gallery, the cancel button remains visible which might blank out the widget gallery
iCloud Private Relay might give you an "incompatible network" message if it fails upon initially connecting
Keyboards for some languages may display unlocalized text
Apple heard you like crash logs, so process crashes produce two crash logs
Rivers disappearing, rounded corners on buildings vanishing, buildings overlapping roads - is it the apocalypse? No, it's just Maps app bugs
Record App Activity reverts back to the default after a system update or backup restore
Safari may crash when closing tabs, might not be scrollable on iPad, have a clipped clear button in the search bar, and might not minimize and expand the tab bar
SharePlay is getting better but might not work well with over five participants. If you start a season on your Apple TV you might not get the confirmation pop-up on your iPhone. Oh, and participants will be able to see your notifications.
On-device (i.e. offline) Siri speech recognition is available for only these languages at this time:Chinese (Mandarin - China mainland), English (Australia), English (Canada), English (United Kingdom), and English (US)
If you have a first-gen Apple Watch, iOS 15 may create a boot loop cycle
If you're in Hungary, change your language selection to anything else - Hungarian currently crashes the Weather app
And this is just the stuff that Apple knows about. It's up to you to report any bugs you find via the Feedback app.
What's Fixed?
Last week's fix list
was pretty epic, here are the issues that've been resolved for Public Beta 3.
Finder no longer becomes unresponsive when installing iOS 15
Live text in photos is now available as expected
Taking panorama shots in low power mode no longer makes things quirky
Duplicating files on certain USB drives no longer fails
Notify When Left Behind is now supported for Intel-based Mac computers or Apple Watch
Text may is now legible in all PDF documents (I got bitten by this one personally)
Focus Autoreply for Messages is working now
You can now share Health data with and receive Health data with more than three people
You can now pair Matter accessories that use Thread and no longer become unresponsive after pairing
Thread devices no longer have to be toggled to connect
Thread devices no longer use Bluetooth instead of Thread
The Home Screen no longer quits unexpectedly when dragging a widget from the widget gallery and large pinned favorite widgets in iPadOS 14 will migrate correctly to iPadOS 15 beta
Private Relay now provides an accurate geographical location and it no longer falls back to a public connection if it can't maintain the private relay.
Mail notifications are no longer removed after an update
Scrolling the reports view in Maps no longer produces unexpected results
Previously known WiFi networks are no longer lost during setup
SharePlay is now available after squashing a boatload of bugs (though a few still remain)
You can now update iOS if you have under 500MB of space on your device
You can now resume an incomplete workout and duplicates will no longer display on the Summary tab
What's Next
iOS 14.7 will be released sometime in the next two weeks to support the new MagSafe battery, then it'll be nothing but iOS 15 for beta testers from here until launch!
Apple developers are already chewing through the bug list and have made major improvements over Public Beta 2. I expect we'll see a weekly release cycle from now until launch, hopefully in mid-to-late August.
If you're ready to get your hands dirty, hop on the iOS 15 beta and check things out. Just be prepared, it's far from the safe harbor that is iOS 14.
