Second iOS 6 beta given to developers
Apple's seeded a second version of iOS 6 to developers ahead of its public release later this year.
Apple has given developers an updated version of its iOS 6 software ahead of a public release later this year.
It's the first such update to the software, which Apple provided to developers in beta form, at its annual developers conference earlier this month. Several more betas are expected ahead of a release to the general public, which Apple said will come in the fall.
Apple-centric blog 9to5mac has posted screenshots and a full change log of the update, which weighs in at 299MB for the iPhone 4S, 322MB for the iPhone 4, and 497MB for the third-generation iPad. No new features have been found, short of spinning gears within the over the air update settings menu, something Apple added as part of iOS 5 last year.
Apple went through seven beta versions ahead of the release of iOS 5, which came last October. During that process bugs were squashed, alongside the addition of a few new features like Wi-Fi sync, location privacy menus, over the air updating, a Hearing Aid Mode, and the scrubbing of Unique Device Identifiers.
According to Apple, iOS 6 adds some 200 new features to iOS 5. Many of the main ones are simply refinements of existing features, such as FaceTime calling over 3G, more information about movies, restaurants and sports scores in Siri, and extended photo sharing features in Apple's Photo Streams feature. However there are a handful of new things, not the least of which is a completely new Maps application, as well as Passbook, Apple's new digital wallet service.
Here's a video of the new gear spinning animation, which hopefully is not on the aforementioned list of new features: