Apple releases second betas of iOS 11, macOS 10.13, watchOS 4, tvOS 11 to developers

AppleInsider

Sixteen days after making the first releases available, Apple on Wednesday released second versions of its upcoming operating system refresh set to arrive this fall, with developers now able to access iOS 11, macOS 10.13 High Sierra, watchOS 4, tvOS 11 and and Xcode 9.

The second iOS 11 beta, carrying build number 15A5304i, arrives with a host of improvements and bug fixes addressed during the more than week-long interval since the first test version dropped on June 5.

As expected, Apple's next-generation mobile operating system appears to carry the most changes, with upgrades to Siri, Apple Pay, Photos and a general user interface revamp. Of note, Apple has fully activated "Do Not Disturb While Driving," a feature previewed at Worldwide Developers Conference that could lower the number of automobile crashes due to in-car device use.

In addition, Apple fixed 3D Touch functionality as it applies to data detectors (phone numbers, dates, addresses and other assets), while addressing a number of issues with third-party apps.

With the new beta, Android Migration now works as intended, Bluetooth communication is more reliable and apps over 100MB can be downloaded over cellular. Apple also fixed a bevy of first-party app bugs and a Control Center quirk that in some cases prohibited Bluetooth radio control.

The macOS High Sierra update, dubbed build 17A291j, contains a number of refinements and other improvements like Apple File System integration, migration from H.264 to H.265, and Metal 2. The update resolves an issue that prevented enabling FileVault on APFS volumes, and Apple incorporated improvements to Messages, OpenCL, FileVault and other apps and services.

Developers evaluating watchOS 4 build 15R5307f gain access to the set of animated "Toy Story" watch faces Apple demoed onstage at WWDC. The update also fixes issues related to haptic feedback, music playback, location-based HomeKit triggers and Siri usability.

Finally, tvOS 11 beta 2 build 15J5310e addresses a host of home screen problems like text clipping and app icons. Issues that cropped with individual apps, like Music, have been resolved, while developers can more easily connect to an Apple TV for QuickTime screen recording.

TestFlight implementation has been streamlined across all platforms.

Registered devices can get the new beta releases through the Software Update feature, while stand-alone images are available through Apple's Developers portal.

palegolas

I'm incredibly curious of the h.265 HEVC performance. Especially the encoder. I guess the encoder is not part of this update, but something for the future versions of Compressor and Final Cut Pro? Any insight would be great.

mike wuerthele

palegolas said:

I'm incredibly curious of the h.265 HEVC performance. Especially the encoder. I guess the encoder is not part of this update, but something for the future versions of Compressor and Final Cut Pro? Any insight would be great.

I don't believe there will be an encoder. There doesn't appear to be any plans for a hardware-accelerated encoder in High Sierra. Only a decoder.

soli

Mike Wuerthele said:

palegolas said:

I'm incredibly curious of the h.265 HEVC performance. Especially the encoder. I guess the encoder is not part of this update, but something for the future versions of Compressor and Final Cut Pro? Any insight would be great.

I don't believe there will be an encoder. There doesn't appear to be any plans for a hardware-accelerated encoder in High Sierra. Only a decoder.

But the Intel chips do support it, and even in iOS they've offered HEVC en/decoding for FaceTime when both devices are iPhone 6 series or better -and-when both are using a cellular network. I'm hoping it comes as part of iTunes 13 so that you can convert to HEVC video the way that you can convert audio in iTunes (as well as images in Preview).

But maybe that's not part of the licensing deal they made with MPEG, but hopefully it at least opens up the HW encoding for Handbrake and apps like iVI which uses Handbrake's open source core already.

osmartormenajr

It just occurred to me that Apple kind of made a big deal about "Do not disturb while driving" thing during the keynote presentation. Wasn't it just months ago that someone tried to sue Apple because some idiot caused an accident using his iPhone while driving?

While I'm all for the initiative, jerks will be jerks, and just press the "passenger" button.

macpro

Mike Wuerthele said:

palegolas said:

I'm incredibly curious of the h.265 HEVC performance. Especially the encoder. I guess the encoder is not part of this update, but something for the future versions of Compressor and Final Cut Pro? Any insight would be great.

I don't believe there will be an encoder. There doesn't appear to be any plans for a hardware-accelerated encoder in High Sierra. Only a decoder.

EDIT sorry this should have been a reply to Soli

The wee QuickTime app in High Sierra can encode in H265 but no hardware help on anything I have.  I thought thew new generation Mac did or would? Maybe I misread that.   I can open any HD or above and transcode too.  It just takes forever on a Mac Pro 6 core.  Once done only VLC can play back, not even the QT player can in my tests.  Installing beta 2 now.

edited June 2017

soli

MacPro said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

palegolas said:

I'm incredibly curious of the h.265 HEVC performance. Especially the encoder. I guess the encoder is not part of this update, but something for the future versions of Compressor and Final Cut Pro? Any insight would be great.

I don't believe there will be an encoder. There doesn't appear to be any plans for a hardware-accelerated encoder in High Sierra. Only a decoder.

EDIT sorry this should have been a reply to Soli

The wee QuickTime app in High Sierra can encode in H265 but no hardware help on anything I have.  I thought thew new generation Mac did or would? Maybe I misread that.   I can open any HD or above and transcode too.  It just takes forever on a Mac Pro 6 core.  Once done only VLC can play back, not even the QT player can in my tests.  Installing beta 2 now.

From what I've seen en/encode is supported by the HW. But so was FM radio on the BT/WiFi/FM chips Apple used with iPhones and we never saw the FM tuner people kept wanting.

We also haven't seen 4K video camera capture in HEVC in iOS 11, but the HEVC encoder for 4K (not just the low quality FaceTime) needing the A11 chip. I am expecting to see Apple doing a big 4K/HEVC event this Fall, so it might be a feature they want to keep under wraps.

melgross

I find it interesting that the article points out some of the bugs in these early betas, when a few people here, in the earlier article, said that they downloaded the first developer beta, and had no issues whatsoever. My thinking is that they have the issues, but they don't know it. Every beta I've downloaded for iOS has had some issues.

i'm on 10.3.3 beta for my iPad Pro 12.9", and have several, abet minor, issues. Several apps that were working just fine with 10.3.2 now crash either immediately, or after a second or two. I've dutifully relayed this to Apple through the Feedback app, as we're supposed to. I hope that others running the betas aren't running them to brag that they are, and don't bother with the feedback.

running early betas can lead to disaster. My advice is to just say no, unless you have a secondary device to do it on. The later public betas tend to be very stable, with few issues, but as I've found, even they can have problems.

edited June 2017

soli

melgross said:

I find it interesting that the article points out some of the bugs in these early betas, when a few people here, in the earlier article, said that they downloaded the first developer beta, and had no issues whatsoever. My thinking is that they have the issues, but they don't know it. Every beta I've downloaded for iOS has had some issues.

i'm on 10.3.3 beta for my iPad Pro 12.9", and have several, abet minor, issues. Several apps that were working just fine with 10.3.2 now crash either immediately, or after a second or two. I've dutifully relayed this to Apple through the Feedback app, as we're supposed to. I hope that others running the betas aren't running them to brag that they are, and don't bother with the feedback.

running early betas can lead to disaster. My advice is to just say no, unless you have a secondary device to do it on. The later public betas tend to be very stable, with few issues, but as I've found, even they can have problems.

At first, my installation of macOS 10.13b1 seemed very bug free compared to previous betas. Then things started getter hinkey. Safari, in particular, would show video issues which typically look like like how screen gets with a fault GPU, but only in the browser data render window itself, not the actual browser app itself. Then I had some temp freezes and some restarts from complete system crashes. It turned out to be worse in some ways and better in other ways for a first beta. APFS was no problem on a MBP with an Apple SSD (with Samsung controller), but my Mac Mini with a HDD wasn't able to convert to APFS. It would get stuck during the boot process so I had to restore from scratch.

 I've had little to no real issues to speak of with iOS 11b1 and watchOS 4b1.

edit: Oh, App Store app wouldn't update when I hit update on my iPhone. That was the biggest issue I experienced there. I tried via iTunes or deleting and redownloading again.

edited June 2017

macpro

Soli said:

melgross said:

I find it interesting that the article points out some of the bugs in these early betas, when a few people here, in the earlier article, said that they downloaded the first developer beta, and had no issues whatsoever. My thinking is that they have the issues, but they don't know it. Every beta I've downloaded for iOS has had some issues.

i'm on 10.3.3 beta for my iPad Pro 12.9", and have several, abet minor, issues. Several apps that were working just fine with 10.3.2 now crash either immediately, or after a second or two. I've dutifully relayed this to Apple through the Feedback app, as we're supposed to. I hope that others running the betas aren't running them to brag that they are, and don't bother with the feedback.

running early betas can lead to disaster. My advice is to just say no, unless you have a secondary device to do it on. The later public betas tend to be very stable, with few issues, but as I've found, even they can have problems.

At first, my installation of macOS 10.13b1 seemed very bug free compared to previous betas. Then things started getter hinkey. Safari, in particular, would show video issues which typically look like like how screen gets with a fault GPU, but only in the browser data render window itself, not the actual browser app itself. Then I had some temp freezes and some restarts from complete system crashes. It turned out to be worse in some ways and better in other ways for a first beta. APFS was no problem on a MBP with an Apple SSD (with Samsung controller), but my Mac Mini with a HDD wasn't able to convert to APFS. It would get stuck during the boot process so I had to restore from scratch.

 I've had little to no real issues to speak of with iOS 11b1 and watchOS 4b1.

edit: Oh, App Store app wouldn't update when I hit update on my iPhone. That was the biggest issue I experienced there. I tried via iTunes or deleting and redownloading again.

Only weird thing I had and was able to repeat  was on a 2010 MBP i7 15" with SSD internally.  It all installed and ran fine except Maps, that just had a garbaged image in its window.  Reinstall from recovery partition fixes this every time.  No other issues other than must not shut lid or it won't wake up.  On new Mac Pro  it seems flawless so far.

jarredkm

Unless I overlooked it in the first beta, they also enabled “Scan QR Codes” in the camera settings. If the camera detects a QR code when it’s open, a notification pops up at the top asking if you want to go to the website, etc.

dewme

melgross said:

I find it interesting that the article points out some of the bugs in these early betas, when a few people here, in the earlier article, said that they downloaded the first developer beta, and had no issues whatsoever. My thinking is that they have the issues, but they don't know it. Every beta I've downloaded for iOS has had some issues.

i'm on 10.3.3 beta for my iPad Pro 12.9", and have several, abet minor, issues. Several apps that were working just fine with 10.3.2 now crash either immediately, or after a second or two. I've dutifully relayed this to Apple through the Feedback app, as we're supposed to. I hope that others running the betas aren't running them to brag that they are, and don't bother with the feedback.

running early betas can lead to disaster. My advice is to just say no, unless you have a secondary device to do it on. The later public betas tend to be very stable, with few issues, but as I've found, even they can have problems.

My guess would be that most individual and casual beta users/testers do not come close to exercising all of the new and modified code paths. I'm not sure whether Apple is instrumenting the betas to collect and phone-home code coverage information. I've always felt that beta testing is okay for subjecting the software to ad hoc and customer (and partner) specific usage scenarios that may have eluded the internal testers/developers - but it's much less scientifically provable than more formal methods augmented with code coverage instrumentation. Public beta's are especially good, in my opinion, for getting feedback on the user interaction and user experience related aspects of the beta software. 

The only thing I would add to the "use at your own risk" issues is that when you do go ahead and install a beta on a device that you're willing to risk you are providing a useful service and benefit to the software developer - but only if you submit bug reports. If you are solely using a beta to get a sneak peek at upcoming features and/or for feeding your curiosity, any crashes or data losses you experience just end up in your own bit bucket and possibly you get a few more credits towards your hard knocks degree. On the other hand, if you are submitting data to Apple by submitting bug reports and/or by leaving the diagnostic instrumentation turned ON (in privacy settings), then at least there may be a silver lining if your personal loss results in other not-so-daring users avoiding the same fate you suffered. Bad for you but good for others.