Apple issues second beta of iOS 8.1, new Xcode & Apple TV builds to developers

AppleInsider

The second beta of iOS 8.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch was supplied to developers on Tuesday, as Apple prepares for an anticipated public launch, presumably with Apple Pay, later this month.

The pre-release software is now available to download from the iOS Dev Center or via Software Update on a beta system. The new build is identified as 12B407.

It comes just over a week after Apple issued the first beta release of iOS 8.1. That version was identified as build 12B401.

Also supplied on Tuesday was Xcode 6.1 golden master seed 2, identified as build 6A1046a. A new Apple TV beta software was also made available for testing.

The first beta of iOS 8.1 was found to contain some assets for the forthcoming Apple Pay mobile wallet system that will arrive on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple has said that the Apple Pay system will launch in the U.S. this month, which could mean an October debut for iOS 8.1.

Hamza Sood via Twitter

In addition, beta testers have said the first build of iOS 8.1 fixed an issue that would prevent iPhones from properly connecting to in-car audio systems. Those problems were introduced with the launch of iOS 8.0 earlier this month.

The current latest public release is iOS 8.0.2, which itself was pushed out after the launch of iOS 8.0.1 broke cellular connectivity and Touch ID access on new iPhone 6 models.

Adoption of iOS 8.0 and up has been relatively slow, by Apple's standards, with 47 percent of devices tracked through the App Store running the latest point-zero release. That puts it tied with last year's iOS 7, and slower than last year's adoption rate, suggesting that users have been reluctant to update since iOS 8 became available in mid-September.

lagoon9121

Will this fix my iPhone 6 connection to the pathetic Sprint Spark network?

rogifan

I hope 8.1 fixes copy/paste issues and the bug where Safari keyboard freezes and crashes the app.

hillstones

Other reports also indicate the return of the Camera Roll in the Photos app with iOS 8.1.

Using an iPhone 6 Plus with 8.0.2, the Camera Roll 'album' is not present in the Photos app, but if you connect the iPhone and open Image Capture to transfer photos to the Mac, the images displayed are all the images that were in the Camera Roll album from the backup, in addition to all new photos that were taken with the iPhone. So the Photos app knows which photos belong in the Camera Roll, even though the photos cannot be accessed or found easily in Photos in 8.0.2. My recently added album has very few photos, but Image Capture finds 254 photos that were taken by the iPhone's camera. All the rest are distributed somewhere in all the other albums by date. Totally stupid. So let's hope the Camera Roll does return in 8.1.

wood1208

Apple is like lean, mean, working machine. More power to Apple to stay on top of Software updates so quickly, and is beyond my imagination. Unlike Android phones where if you are lucky, you get update every some years and also lucky if your phone manufacturers willing to put resources to work on and release to your cell carriers and than if they feel fits in their strategy than put extra crap-ware and than release to you. Do you think, your android phone will ever get update with bugs, security fixes, etc... So decide where you want to spend your hard earn money to keep spending every year on new android phone just to get software update or best, easier to go with Apple where they will support 3 generations(4s,5,5s) older iphones with updates.

nolamacguy

Quote:

Adoption of iOS 8.0 and up has been relatively slow, by Apple's standards, with 47 percent of devices tracked through the App Store running the latest point-zero release. That puts it tied with last year's iOS 7, and suggests that users have been reluctant to update

 

er, what? it's tied w/ iOS 7 but it's also slow?

 

how can we conclude users are "reluctant" to update, vs *unable* to update -- due to space constraints? i myself had to clear up a bunch of stuff in order to get it onto my 16GB iPads. many won't go thru the hassle.

nolamacguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogifan 



I hope 8.1 fixes copy/paste issues and the bug where Safari keyboard freezes and crashes the app.

i find this site to be more programmatic for me than others. often i can't even select any text, it snaps away immediately. i think its the javascript their editor uses to intercept alt-mouse-clicks. which is annoying, because who doesn't have a built-in spellchecker these days?

xian zhu xuande

wood1208 wrote: »

Apple is like lean, mean, working machine. More power to Apple to stay on top of Software updates so quickly, and is beyond my imagination. Unlike Android phones where if you are lucky, you get update every some years and also lucky if your phone manufacturers willing to put resources to work on and release to your cell carriers and than if they feel fits in their strategy than put extra crap-ware and than release to you. Do you think, your android phone will ever get update with bugs, security fixes, etc... So decide where you want to spend your hard earn money to keep spending every year on new android phone just to get software update or best, easier to go with Apple where they will support 3 generations(4s,5,5s) older iphones with updates.

If anything they need to ease up a bit. There's no excuse for the 8.0.1 mistake. And it does feel like iOS 7 and iOS 8 have been buggier releases than some before. I do like the general direction of adding features, though. Maybe the problem is matching the hardware release dates with major software launches.

solipsismx

I hope this resolves my BT issues with 8.1 on my iPhone 6 series. It connects perfectly fine, but there is an odd aberration in the audio stream that makes it less than ideal to use instead of speaker phone when in my car.

rogifan

wood1208 wrote: »

Apple is like lean, mean, working machine. More power to Apple to stay on top of Software updates so quickly, and is beyond my imagination. Unlike Android phones where if you are lucky, you get update every some years and also lucky if your phone manufacturers willing to put resources to work on and release to your cell carriers and than if they feel fits in their strategy than put extra crap-ware and than release to you. Do you think, your android phone will ever get update with bugs, security fixes, etc... So decide where you want to spend your hard earn money to keep spending every year on new android phone just to get software update or best, easier to go with Apple where they will support 3 generations(4s,5,5s) older iphones with updates.

I'd like to see Apple de-couple iOS releases from iPhone releases. What we'll probably find is 8.1 really should have been 8.0 but 8.0 has to launch when the phones did. Except did it really? Is there anything in 8.0 that was a must have for the phone launch? Apple Pay isn't available yet. Extensions and 3rd party keyboards aren't specific to the new phones. The only thing(s) I can think of would be camera specific software changes that only apply to the 6/6 Plus (if there are any) and the UI changes specific to the 6 Plus. But would opening weekend sales really have been stunted had Apple said iOS 8 would be available in October?

mehran

Suffered from similar issue. Disabled "Predictive" from General/keyboard and everything works... 

rogifan

solipsismx wrote: »

I hope this resolves my BT issues with 8.1 on my iPhone 6 series. It connects perfectly fine, but there is an odd aberration in the audio stream that makes it less than ideal to use instead of speaker phone when in my car.

I have an issue where sometimes the audio is missing. I'll be in Spotify or Downcast and have no audio controls, volume up/down buttons do nothing. The only way to get it back is power off my phone and power it back on.

solipsismx

rogifan wrote: »

I have an issue where sometimes the audio is missing. I'll be in Spotify or Downcast and have no audio controls, volume up/down buttons do nothing. The only way to get it back is power off my phone and power it back on.

With the first beta of 8.1, 8.0.2, or other?

davemcm76

xian zhu xuande wrote: »

If anything they need to ease up a bit. There's no excuse for the 8.0.1 mistake. And it does feel like iOS 7 and iOS 8 have been buggier releases than some before. I do like the general direction of adding features, though. Maybe the problem is matching the hardware release dates with major software launches.

8.1 is essentially the companion iOS update to go with the OS X Yosemite release which should be out in the next week or 2 - I'm guessing probably immediately after the rumoured announcement on the 16th as the Yosemite GM developer build is already out there, so it will reintroduce all the handoff features that were in the iOS 8 betas but not the GM / release version. It is also looking likely to contain the necessary bits and pieces for Apple Pay to go live in the US.

Once Yosemite and iOS 8.1 are out things should slow down and I'd expect the next iOS update to be around January / February time from past experience.

john.b

Stuff I'd like to see fixed in 8.1:

• Various screen rotation issues, including u?op-?p?sdn videos


• Safari crashes, especially when playing videos


• Inability to select text in Safari or resize a webpage


• Bluetooth weirdness where calls don't ring and texts don't notify


• Horrid iPad performance


• Return Camera Roll, dammit!

 

I'd love to see iPay go live, but not if the rest of the OS is going to be substandard.

rogifan

solipsismx wrote: »

With the first beta of 8.1, 8.0.2, or other?

8.0.2.

tallest skil

Originally Posted by John.B 

…the rest of the OS is going to be substandard.

lolno.

solipsismx

8.1b2 resolved my main issue with the rolling sound that made BT calls not work properly in 8.1b1 (never checked it with 8.0 or 8.0.2). It's still not as good as the speaker phone or up to the ear, but the quality with T-Moble on BT is still more clear than I ever got with AT&T over any call type. So far very happy with my iPhone 6 series, iOS 8, and T-Mobile.

larrymagoo

My iPhone 6 has horrible Bluetooth connection to my car's audio system. Something that I heard 8.02 delivered to us. Bluetooth overall performance sucks when trying to connect to any other device...I hope that bug gets fixed pronto so I can get my cell calls while driving. As complicated as Apple Pay seems to be considering the current bluetooth issues, I hope they make sure that it actually works as promised.

mike1

Hopefully, they'll address group messages through iMessage.

p.straf

iPhone 4s with 8.1b2 feels much, much better as with 8.0.2!!!