Apple issues fourth iOS 14.2, iPadOS 14.2 public betas

Apple has released the fourth public betas for iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2 a day after releasing developer versions of the same beta.

Arriving about 24 hours after the developer betas went live, the public beta can be downloaded from Apple's Beta Software Program site. The beta content is likely to be the same as what was provided in the developer version.

The fourth beta of iOS 14.2 has new photo and drawn wallpapers in the wallpaper selection menu, and support for the new Intercom feature. The third beta was for bug fixes, and the second beta introduced new emoji for the Unicode 13 release. In total, there are 58 new characters, faces, objects, and animals coming with iOS 14.2.

The first beta of iOS 14.2 saw Shazam added to Control Center as well as a redesign of the Now Playing interface and people distance to the Measure accessibility app.

AppleInsider, and Apple itself, strongly suggest users avoid installing betas on to "mission-critical" or primary devices, due to the potential for data loss or other issues. It is instead recommended to install betas on secondary or non-essential devices, and to ensure there are sufficient backups of important data beforehand.

Find any changes in the new betas? Reach out to us on Twitter at @AppleInsider or @Andrew_OSU, or send Andrew an email at andrew@AppleInsider.com.

6 Comments

saarek 16 Years · 1586 comments

About 4 years ago

Has anyone else had issues with sound volume when talking to people since iOS 14?

I find the receiver volume of my iPhone XS Max is far lower at max volume, like it’s set to 25% of original volume.

Speaker, AirPod and CarPlay all work as before, really strange.

macapfel 15 Years · 575 comments

Interesting. But what about the big one yet to come? Big Sur? Is this still on, and when can we expect this?

Rayz2016 8 Years · 6957 comments

macapfel said:

Interesting. But what about the big one yet to come? Big Sur? Is this still on, and when can we expect this?

Yup, where the hell is it.

CheeseFreeze 7 Years · 1340 comments

Rayz2016 said:

macapfel said:

Interesting. But what about the big one yet to come? Big Sur? Is this still on, and when can we expect this?

Yup, where the hell is it.

It’s at beta10 and based on what I saw I think still needs a few betas before it’s ready, presumably in conjunction with the announcement of new hardware. November/december timeframe would be my guess but only Apple knows.

MplsP 8 Years · 4047 comments

CheeseFreeze said:

Rayz2016 said:

macapfel said:

Interesting. But what about the big one yet to come? Big Sur? Is this still on, and when can we expect this?

Yup, where the hell is it.

It’s at beta10 and based on what I saw I think still needs a few betas before it’s ready, presumably in conjunction with the announcement of new hardware. November/december timeframe would be my guess but only Apple knows.

yes, I'm sure the goal for Big Sur is to release it with the Apple Silicon Macs.