Apple issues first iOS 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 7.1, tvOS 14.2 betas to developers

Apple on Thursday issued the first round of beta releases for iOS 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 7.1 and tvOS 14.2 to developers for evaluation.

The releases come one day after the next-generation iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7 and tvOS 14 operating systems were pushed out to users around the world, offering access to a slew of new features, performance enhancements, bug fixes and more.

It is not clear what changes the new beta variants contain. In past years, Apple has rapidly deployed iterative point updates to squash bugs and other problems discovered following major public releases. There is also a possibility that new features will roll out as part of the update group.

News of the pending updates were first outed in an Xcode 12.2 beta earlier today, though the developer tool offered no clues as to what issues the new versions address.

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It can be surmised that Apple will push out intermediate iOS 14.1, iPadOS 14.1 and tvOS 14.1 updates prior to the 14.2 iterations that are now up for testing. The company sometimes skips beta testing when it makes changes to internal builds that do not require outside input from developers.

This article will be updated when more information is available.

Update: Beta adds Shazam music recognition to Control Center.

Update 2: Also included is a new accessibility option called "People Detection" that, when activated, allows users to open Magnifier to determine the distance to a nearby person. Music controls in Control Center get a redesign, complete with music recommendations that appear when nothing is being played. The Watch app icon has also been refreshed.

6 Comments

godofbiscuits 249 comments · 10 Years

About 4 years ago

I bet the missing x.1 releases are all a sync-up for Apple Silicon Macs. They're all there just to make sure that there's a baseline version of iOS and iPadOS whose runtime/ABI has been stress-tested with the 11.1 version of macOS Big Sur, which will be the AS/Intel fat binary version of macOS.

beowulfschmidt 2349 comments · 12 Years

"OMG! Apple's StuFf IS sO BrOKen THEY nEed to pATCH it Twice in the tWO dAyS after rELEAse!"

/s

razorpit 1793 comments · 17 Years

godofbiscuits said:

I bet the missing x.1 releases are all a sync-up for Apple Silicon Macs. They're all there just to make sure that there's a baseline version of iOS and iPadOS whose runtime/ABI has been stress-tested with the 11.1 version of macOS Big Sur, which will be the AS/Intel fat binary version of macOS.

Interesting theory. Are you thinking ASi Macs are right around the corner?

S12 25 comments · 4 Years

I’m surprised that no one has pointed out the removal of the new watch faces like Memoji, Stripes, and that artwork from Watch OS 7.1.

neilm 1000 comments · 16 Years

Hope Apple will fix the newly broken Books app in iPadOS 14.0.

If you select a font size below about 14-pt (they're not actually labeled) when reading a book in the normal portrait orientation, the display switches automatically to two-column, newspaper style. I can't begin to imagine why anyone would choose to read a book in column mode anyway, but 14-pt, even in a small typeface such as Times New Roman, is already well into large-type-books-for-the-visually-impaired territory.