Third public betas of iOS 10.3, macOS 10.12.4 arrive from Apple

Posted:
in General Discussion
A day after developers were issued fresh pre-release beta builds of all four of Apple's major platforms, new public betas of iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 are also available to download.




Device owners who have opted in to Apple's public beta program can now receive the updates over the air, via the Settings app on iOS and the Mac App Store in macOS. Both builds represent the third public beta of each release.

iOS 10.3 includes a new "Find My AirPods" feature that can help users track down Apple's new completely wireless headphones in the event that they are lost.

Other additions include a new reviews API, which limits how often an app can ask users to submit ratings on the App Store, as well as iCloud-connected device calling, and a floating one-handed keyboard for iPad users.




As for macOS 10.12.4, initial betas have brought Night Shift mode to the Mac, minimizing user exposure to blue light from device screens during nighttime working hours. This technique is thought to minimize impact on a user's circadian rhythm.

The forthcoming update is also expected to provide support for Shanghaiese dictation, as well as system APIs for reading, writing and navigating PDFs.

While macOS and iOS are included in Apple's public beta program, the company's other two major platforms --?watchOS and tvOS --?remain restricted to developers for beta testing.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    FatmanFatman Posts: 513member
    The PDF functionality is long overdue. I had a PDF sent to me that I could not open or convert in an usuable way on my Mac (Word or Pages) for basic editing. The same doc I was able to open and edit on a Win10 machine right in Word (an older version of Word too). Hopefully this new API along with app updates will bring parity to the Mac. Both machines only had Reader installed.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    Fatman said:
    The PDF functionality is long overdue. I had a PDF sent to me that I could not open or convert in an usuable way on my Mac (Word or Pages) for basic editing. The same doc I was able to open and edit on a Win10 machine right in Word (an older version of Word too). Hopefully this new API along with app updates will bring parity to the Mac. Both machines only had Reader installed.
    This new API is more about making reading, writing and navigating pdfs more extensible for third party developers within the system. OS X has had the ability to read, and add txt fields or signitures etc, for many years with the Preview app. Windows 10 actually has nothing to do with it. Its MS Office (Windows only version) that converts the PDF to Word native format using PDF Reflow. You can then edit, and when done save as a pdf and it will convert it back. MS hasn't added this to Office for Mac. Maybe these new APIs will help that cause.
    edited February 2017 bloggerblog
  • Reply 3 of 3
    FatmanFatman Posts: 513member
    teknishn said:
    Fatman said:
    The PDF functionality is long overdue. I had a PDF sent to me that I could not open or convert in an usuable way on my Mac (Word or Pages) for basic editing. The same doc I was able to open and edit on a Win10 machine right in Word (an older version of Word too). Hopefully this new API along with app updates will bring parity to the Mac. Both machines only had Reader installed.
    This new API is more about making reading, writing and navigating pdfs more extensible for third party developers within the system. OS X has had the ability to read, and add txt fields or signitures etc, for many years with the Preview app. Hopefully with these additional APIs Microsoft will add support for editing PDFs in Word for OS X.
    I stand corrected - I just tried manually opening (open with) using the Preview app and was able to edit the document I referenced in prior post - a common process like this should be more intuitive - 'Read with Acrobat, Edit with Preview'
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