What's New? iOS 14.5 Beta 1 is Out

 Hi, everyone. 

Aaron here for Zollotech. And today Apple released iOS 14.5 to developers, it’s not out to beta testers yet,  it is, but either way, I’ll let you know.  Now, this came in at a very large 4.5, two gigabytes on my iPhone, 12 pro max.

And it was similarly sized on the iPhone six S plus iPhone 11 and iPad pro 12.9 that I’ll have in this. And so Apple released this along with watchOS 7.4 beta one TVs OS 14.5 beta one, iPad iOS 14.5 beta one, and they released Macalester 11.2 to the public as well. So a lot of new releases and updates for beta testers and the public.

If you have a Mac. So let’s go ahead and take a look at the build number, and then we’ll talk about what new. Now let’s take a look at the build number. Well go to settings than general than about, and as you can see, it says 14.5 18 E five one four zero J. And this particular update has some great improvements in it to help with things like face ID, for example. So well talk about those in just a moment, but the first thing this has that’s updated is the modem and the modem has been updated at least in the iPhone 12 pro max, not necessarily all phones, but if you were having connectivity issues with say, 4g or 5g,n this should help improve those.

Now the first new feature has to do with Apple privacy or them limiting the ability for apps or websites to track what you’re doing. So not only what you’re doing, but where you’re going, and you’ll now get prompted from different apps, such as Facebook, for example, whether or not its allowed to track what you’re doing. So that sort of goes along with the privacy settings under settings and tracking. If you want to allow different things to track you, they can request that information. If you have it turned on, of course they can’t and they can’t track across different websites for example. So this gives you more information about it, but now it’s going to be enforced and enabled with 14.5. So once it’s available to the public, no one will be able to do that.

And that will be great for privacy for everyone using iOS. Now, the next thing is they’ve updated that you can physically see anyway, is if you go to your settings, then go to general than software update. You’ll see that its changed the text a little bit. It now says your iPhone is up to date with all the latest bug fixes and security enhancements. So this is a new look and this also carries across to Apple watch or the watch iOS app. 

So if we go to watch and again, check for an update here, for example, it gives you the same sort of look to it. So they’ve completely updated that to give you more information and it just looks a little bit different. So that’s something they’ve changed. Now, speaking of Apple watch, if you have an Apple watch, you have watch a 7.4 and you go into your settings for example, and then you go down to face ID and passcode under face ID and passcode. There’s a new feature that says unlock with Apple. Watch.

It says iPhone can use your Apple watch to unlock. When face ID detects a face with a mask, your Apple watch must be nearby on your wrist unlocked and protected by. And so I’ve tried this out and enabled it. So let me go ahead and show you what that’s like. So now I’ll hold my phone up. You can see, I have a mask on a lock, my iPhone 12, Promax bring it up to my face. It actually notifies me on my wrist. It says iPhone 12 pro max unlocked by this Apple watch, and then it unlocks and you can use it. So it vibrates gives you haptic feedback on your wrist. And it’s a nice way to get around not being able to use your phone easily with face ID.

So now it’s using biometrics from your wrist as well as your phone, and now it will unlock making it more secure and much more convenient for many of us. Now there’s a slight interface change when you’re using Siri to send a message.

So you can hold the power, sleep, wake button, or use the word Hey, in front of it. So let me show you what it looked like before and what it looks like. Now. Send a message to Steve Moser. So you can see, it looks a little bit different on the old one on the left than it does on the new one on the right. So I think it’s just a little bit clear as to what is going on now. All sort of go along with Siri, there’s a new command where you can call for emergency help. So you can say, Hey, then you can say the assistants name and then call emergency. 

So Call emergency calling emergency services. And it looks like this. You want to make sure you cancel it in time, of course, but that’s what it looks like. And it’s just a slight new update to that and makes it easier to call emergency services. Should you need them now?

Something I know a lot of people will be very happy about is this update now supports Xbox series S X-Box series X and PlayStation five controllers. So if you’re using the beta, you can use those now. However, it will be available to everyone once its released to the public. Of course. So if you have a PS five or the latest X-Box, you can use those controllers. Another thing I know a lot of people will be happy about is this now supports dual 5g SIM cards. So Apple talked about bringing this later last year, but now if you have dual 5g SIM cards, whether that be an ECM and a regular 5g SIM card, you can use them simultaneously. If you have that set up. So in your cellular, you’ll have that option and you’ll see 5g in the upper, right?

Just like you would before with 4g. So that’s a really nice update. I know a lot of people were looking forward to now within the reminders, they’ve given us the ability to sort our reminders now. So if I go into one of my lists, you tap the three dots in the upper, right?

You can now tap on sort by, and you now have the option to sort by manual due date creation, date, priority, and title. So we now have those options to sort our different lists by if we want to arrange them a little bit differently. So they’ve added a little extra functionality there. They’ve also updated the podcasts app. So if I go into podcasts, for example, and I bring in iOS 14.4, you can see here, well go to say the same thing. And some of the categories are a little bit different and then well go back to, Oh, well go back into gadget cast here and gadget cast on iOS 14.4. And it looks a little different. So it says, continue listening here at the top.

They’ve changed the interface to look a little bit nicer. I think so we have a big resume button. So there’s small tweaks throughout the podcast app. So that’s been redesigned a little bit too. Now app library seems to be rearranged more and more so every time this updates a lot of the time, the app library will rearrange where the categories are located. So depending on what version you’re using, they’re in different places. So iOS 14.4 on the left, iOS 14.5 on the right. You can see there’s different locations for the categories. They’re the same at the top, but they’re different towards the bottom. So it seems to be rearranging by what I use most, or at least I thought so, but it doesn’t necessarily do that for everything.

So maybe that’s where it will go eventually, but they keep rearranging the category location. Now there is one more small physical change you can see and that’s in the watch app. So if you go in the watch app, the face gallery, now it looks a little bit different. So within the watch app, if I bring in 14.4, again, the face gallery looks a little bit different here and the icons have changed slightly. So not a huge change, but it’s something to note. 

Now there’s a couple other things that you can’t necessarily see. So for example, if you use fitness, plus you have Apple fitness, plus well go to activity for fitness. And if you have Apple fitness, plus you now have the ability to use this with airplay two supportive devices.

So you can broadcast these to airplay two and you’ll have that option.

So to TVs and things like that. And then finally, there’s also code indicating that you’ll be able to share an Apple card with other people in the future. Steve Moser found this in the code and it looks like in the future, we’ll be able to have shared cards like you would normally would with maybe your spouse or significant other. 

So you have an a card shared between a family, for example. So that should be here in the future. Now last week, Apple released iOS 14.4, along with watchOS 7.3 and a new unity watch face that represents the Pan-African flag. And so they’ve made that wallpaper available to all Apple devices. So on apple.com, Ill link this in the description. You can get the iPad, iPhone and Mac wallpaper to match your watch.

So they’ve given this to us for free for black history month. And you can see here a celebration of truth, power, and solidarity. So that’s something you can get if you want to use that. And again, like I said,  as far as bugs and known issues while there’s five noted by Apple in their notes. And some of them are significant. 

For example, some vehicles can’t start CarPlay. If the phone is set to share contacts over CarPlay. So it may just not work altogether. If you have that sharing option turned on. Also if you use Apple maps and you share your ETA and routes, it will give you an error and not complete. So that’s on iOS and CarPlay. And then finally the share extension for notes and reminders doesn’t appear in the share sheet when you’re using maps.

So if you go into maps and you want to share your location, you won’t have the option for that for notes and reminders. So that’s something they need to update. They’ve noted it doesn’t work in this beta. So if those are important to you, just keep that in mind. 

Now with iPad pro there’s also another bug as well, where it will not connect via the USBC to digital AV Multiport adapter to run an external display on the third generation iPad pro 12.9, an iPad pro 11 inch and iPad air fourth-generation. So if you use that function a lot, again, that’s going to affect how it works for you as far as using a beta versus the public version, when it’s time to actually use it, if you can’t use an external display, for example, now with iPad OOS, they’ve added a couple small changes.

One is if you’re using an external keyboard, for example, maybe the magic keyboard here, well attach it. Well go into notes and well hit the little button that allows us to change keyboards or search emoji. And now we actually have a search field for emoji. We didn’t have that before. So now there’s a search box so we can figure out what emoji we want, whether that be a heart, for example, now we can search for it and it works just like it does on iOS. 

Now, also, some people are saying that when you turn this off and reboot, it you’ll actually have a horizontal logo or Apple logo. So let’s try that. Let’s see if we reboot it. Well turn it off here. Wait for it to boot here. There we go. Now we have a horizontal logo. Now I’ve found this only works when its attached to the keyboard. If it’s not attached to the keyboard, even if its rotated to landscape, the logo will be in the portrait position.

So now it’s in landscape since it’s on the magic keyboard and it looks correct now, as far as other fixes, there’s nothing else noted. And a lot of people want to know about the green tint issue on the iPhone 12 series. And unfortunately it’s not fixed yet. My friend, Juri on Twitter was able to reproduce it. So let me turn the lights off here and I’ll show you that you can actually see it there just a hint. 

Let me turn the brightness up and you can see there’s a green tint to his phone and he’s able to reproduce it. So they have not fixed that yet again, they’ve said, they’re going to address it in a future update. And they just haven’t with this one. So maybe later on with the betas and things like that. So any of the display issues people were having does not seem to be resolved now, should you install iOS 14.5 beta one? 

Well, that really depends on whether or not those issues I already mentioned are going to be a problem for you if using an external display on your iPad and you have one of the newer iPads pro or the iPad air fourth-generation or CarPlay isn’t not working is going to be a problem for you properly. Well, then I wouldn’t install it. 

However, if you wanted to try out some of the new features such as the PS5 controller, and you know, what you’re getting into with a beta will then ensure you can install it. Also make sure to submit feedback, though, if you’re having issues since Apple uses that sorts, that and fixes the most high priority issues and then works their way down now, as far as overall battery life, well, this is a new beta. So it’s going to take a few days to know that. So if we go into battery, you’ll see my battery health is at 100% and updates don’t affect that. Like I’ve said many times, but it may premeasure it and you may see it go down just based on what its actually doing, the physical capability of the battery. But if we look at my usage with iOS 14.4, I was getting about eight hours.

If we were to make this go over to 100% of usage. So one hour and 55 minutes of screen on time, 57 minutes of screen off time. And I used about 25% of the battery. Most people were saying iOS 14.4 gets decent battery life. It’s not amazing, but it’s not bad. It just depends on the phone. The 12 pro max was getting eight to 10 hours or 10 to 12, depending on what you’re using. And 11 pro max easily gets 10 to 12. So it just depends on what you’re using. But again, it will take a few days to measure this as far as performance, while that lag issue is gone for me, that I was having with 14.4, when you close an app, for example, swipe it off the screen. It’s no longer stuttering, but before it did take a day or so to come back on the iPhone 11 and success, plus I noticed performance is quite good, except the success plus occasionally has lagged when scrolling.

So Ill scroll through here and I saw it stutter a little bit opening app seems to be okay, scrolling through those is fine, but like I said, on the success, plus there was a small stutter. It seems to have gone now, but it was there a little bit earlier. So just keep that in mind again, it’s an early beta, so just make sure you’re reporting feedback. If you’re having an issue. Now, as far as the geek bench scores, let’s go ahead and take a look at those on my iPhone 12 pro max, you can see, I scored 1,598 for single core, 4,170 for multi-core. And if we take a look at the history, you’ll see that it’s actually a little bit higher than it was with iOS 14.4, for example. So here’s February 1st, here’s January 21st. And it’s a little bit better by a little, not a ton, but it is better.

Let’s go ahead and take a look at all of these devices. So here’s the iPhone 11, I’ll put it next to the iPhone 12 pro max, the iPhone six S plus, there we go. And the iPad pro 12.9 from 2020. So there you go. There’s all the different versions or all the different devices. So hopefully this gives you a general idea of how it should be for you. So that should tell you that if there’s somewhere in this general ballpark, as far as the scores, it should be fine. Now, as far as iOS 14.5 beta two, well, based on what we’ve seen in the past, I wouldn’t expect anything for a couple of weeks. 

However, Apple only released two betas with iOS 14.4, and we could see as many as seven betas. So it’s really up in the air as far as what they’re going to do next. We’ll just have to wait and see. I would like to see them release say iOS 14.4 0.1 though, to fix that green tint issue in between the release of 14.5. So that’s it iOS 14.5 beta. One of course, if I find anything else new and there’s a lot of other significant features, I’ll be sure to do a video later in the week with more new features. Now Ill usually do a up on it as well, talking about battery life performance and more. So be sure to look back for that usually around Sunday of the following week, after doing a YouTube community poll.

More New Features - iOS 14.5 Beta 3