Everything new in iOS 14.2 beta 1 -- updates to Control Center, Watch icon & more

AppleInsider · September 18, 2020 5:51PM

Apple seeded iOS 14.2 beta 1 -- the first iOS 14 point release -- to registered developers on Thursday. Here's everything that's new.

Credit: Andrew O'Hara, AppleInsider

It isn't clear why Apple has jumped to the iOS 14.2 build. The company may release iOS 14.1 separately as a bug-fixing update, or it could simply skip that point release entirely.

Most of the beta's changes appear to be focused on the iOS Control Center. For example, there's a new music recognition Shazam icon that users can add to Control Center.

The Magnifier in Control Center also has a new "people detection" option that lets users measure the distance between themselves and another person.

Additionally, there are some aesthetic and design changes to the Control Center's media player, including larger artwork and a refined interface.

Lastly, the Apple Watch app icon has been given a minor revision with slightly different colors and a new band watch icon similar to the Solo Loop.

This is the first beta version of the upcoming iOS 14.2 update, and Apple will likely release a public testing variant soon. Apple officially released iOS 14 to the general public on Wednesday.

As always, this is a non-exhaustive list of the changes we've spotted so far. See any others not on our list? Let us know on Twitter @Andrew_OSU and we'll add them.

peterhart · September 18, 2020 6:34PM

The line of “blank app” spots in Control Center is bothersome, to me anyway. By watching your video here and seeing you have nothing in what seems to now be a spot for Home and Home’s accessories, I wish the blank section wasn’t there if one doesn’t have anything to fill these spots. I removed a few things from my Control Center so I wouldn’t have to scroll down...first world problem, I know. <sigh>

SpamSandwich · September 18, 2020 6:50PM

Incidentally, I found out why Audio Unit Extensions are screwed up for iOS GarageBand:

https://twitter.com/j_liljedahl/status/1306946578641543168?s=21

ericesque · September 18, 2020 8:07PM

The solo loop was introduced for the express purpose of cleaning up that icon. I’m not even mad.

potsie · September 18, 2020 9:34PM

Did the Memoji watch face get whacked in this beta? I installed it with the release of version 7 on my Series 4 but it's not showing up as an available face after updating my phone to the 14.2 beta and my watch to the 7.1 beta.

stephanjobs · September 18, 2020 10:30PM

Hopefully they fix the horrendous bug that unpacks all of your app folders when you add one of the larger widgets to the home screen and move them to another page.

What a nightmare… Every single app in all the folders got unpacked and I had 12 pages open that I had to re-organize.

As cute as it is and as easy as if they think it is… They really need to get rid of this “wiggle” thing and just add a simple drag and drop to make folders and remove folders.

Also how about a page rearrange? Why can’t I just drag the whole page and place it in front of another page?

Maybe I’m missing something but its all so tedious

fastasleep · September 18, 2020 10:55PM

stephanjobs said:

Hopefully they fix the horrendous bug that unpacks all of your app folders when you add one of the larger widgets to the home screen and move them to another page.

What a nightmare… Every single app in all the folders got unpacked and I had 12 pages open that I had to re-organize.

As cute as it is and as easy as if they think it is… They really need to get rid of this “wiggle” thing and just add a simple drag and drop to make folders and remove folders.

Also how about a page rearrange? Why can’t I just drag the whole page and place it in front of another page?

Maybe I’m missing something but its all so tedious

There’s a new update to Configurator 2 today that actually fixes it so that rearranging Home Screen app layouts actually works again! It’s been broken for quite a while now. If you haven’t used it, it does offer a drag and drop interface to rearrange all your apps similar to but better than the old iTunes interface.

However, it’s still broken for my iPad Pro as the screen layouts are all fucked up in Configurator and don’t show all the spaces/icons. Works fine on my iPhone 11 Pro though, FINALLY.

SpamSandwich · September 19, 2020 2:18AM

stephanjobs said:

Hopefully they fix the horrendous bug that unpacks all of your app folders when you add one of the larger widgets to the home screen and move them to another page.

What a nightmare… Every single app in all the folders got unpacked and I had 12 pages open that I had to re-organize.

As cute as it is and as easy as if they think it is… They really need to get rid of this “wiggle” thing and just add a simple drag and drop to make folders and remove folders.

Also how about a page rearrange? Why can’t I just drag the whole page and place it in front of another page?

Maybe I’m missing something but its all so tedious

Absolutely need page rearrange.

S12 · September 19, 2020 2:14PM

It seems this update may also remove the blood oxygen sensor support. I'm testing with a Series 6 watch and Watch OS 7 and it no longer sees the blood O2 option and Blood Oxygen is removed from the Health app.

dysamoria · September 19, 2020 3:27PM

I can’t even give the benefit of the doubt to Apple anymore. This is Microsoft level inconsistency and bug deployment & ignoring (generation after generation). I was willing to accept they’d learned something, in context to that news item where they announced new internal coding rules to stop pushing out incomplete and broken code. Clearly lesson not learned.

I am officially only using Apple products because they’re “kinda less enraging” than any competitor. What a low bar for value they’ve left us all.

I wonder if I’ll skip iOS 14 too. Still on iOS 12 (skipped iOS 11, 8, & 7).

[shakes head]

paxman · September 20, 2020 4:46AM

App Library desperately needs the ability to change folder names and to manually rearrange apps. I like the fact that it is automatic but we need one folder at the top that we can manage. Or at least one that shows frequently used apps and with the ability for us to dictate how many apps will be included in said folder.

alexmac · September 20, 2020 9:00AM

Does anybody know where CAR PARKED feature is? i think is gone, despite you can search and find a result in settings search bar.

0ID0 · September 20, 2020 3:43PM

paxman said:

App Library desperately needs the ability to change folder names and to manually rearrange apps. I like the fact that it is automatic but we need one folder at the top that we can manage. Or at least one that shows frequently used apps and with the ability for us to dictate how many apps will be included in said folder.

Agree, but I would add a switch to completely disable the App Library!

quadra 610 · September 20, 2020 4:05PM

Sending attachments in Messages is hosed. At least as far as Voice Memos is concerned (and other third party apps with same function.)

Even a voice message attachment sent to a non-iOS device that is just 800 kB refuses to send because “attachment is too large.”

Ridiculous.

StrangeDays · September 20, 2020 5:21PM

dysamoria said:

I can’t even give the benefit of the doubt to Apple anymore. This is Microsoft level inconsistency and bug deployment & ignoring (generation after generation). I was willing to accept they’d learned something, in context to that news item where they announced new internal coding rules to stop pushing out incomplete and broken code. Clearly lesson not learned.

I am officially only using Apple products because they’re “kinda less enraging” than any competitor. What a low bar for value they’ve left us all.

I wonder if I’ll skip iOS 14 too. Still on iOS 12 (skipped iOS 11, 8, & 7).

[shakes head]

Welcome to the world of software development. If you're expecting a world without bugs, it means a world without humans. iOS is a massively, massively popular platform with billions of devices and millions of lines of code. Bugs happen and will always happen.

That being said, I'm an enterprise Windows software developer and IMO comparing macOS or iOS to Windows is pure foley. You're likely too young to know the pain. Having gone thru decades of Windows and seemingly daily hot fixes, I don't think iOS is at that at all. Major point number releases are scheduled and infrequent.

Amazingly, my household full of Apple devices that I update as readily as possible are experiencing no issues, and largely never have. Some minor ones here & there over the years but that's it. Not at all like the hundreds of times I had to completely re-install Windows. Not sure what I'm doing wrong?

fastasleep · September 25, 2020 11:14PM

dysamoria said:

I can’t even give the benefit of the doubt to Apple anymore. This is Microsoft level inconsistency and bug deployment & ignoring (generation after generation). I was willing to accept they’d learned something, in context to that news item where they announced new internal coding rules to stop pushing out incomplete and broken code. Clearly lesson not learned.

I am officially only using Apple products because they’re “kinda less enraging” than any competitor. What a low bar for value they’ve left us all.

I wonder if I’ll skip iOS 14 too. Still on iOS 12 (skipped iOS 11, 8, & 7).

[shakes head]

I've noticed a few small bugs so far but absolutely nothing that caused any issues beyond noticing it and quickly moving on. That's to be expected in ANY .0 software and not sure why you think Apple is somehow special here. I have yet to hear of any kind of bug that's caused major problems for anyone.

It must be exhausting being so miserable all of the time.

fastasleep · September 25, 2020 11:15PM

alexmac said:

Does anybody know where CAR PARKED feature is? i think is gone, despite you can search and find a result in settings search bar.

I always just ask Siri where I parked.

BeDifferent · October 4, 2020 2:40PM

It seems quite obvious that iOS 14.1 is planned to ship on the iPhone 12 models. Apple needs to finish work on code for that hardware, and they cannot tie the software that supports their new models to new features that might not be ready in time for the product launch.

Everything new in iOS 14.2 beta 1 -- updates to Control Center, Watch icon & more

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