What's New? iOS 14.5 Beta 3 is Out!

Hi, everyone.

Today Apple released iOS 14.5 beta three to developers. Now this was released late in the day. They originally released it to developers to download and install through a computer. Then they removed the beta.

Then they brought it back out and made it available over the air like normal And on the developer website. Now this particular update is not out for public beta testers yet at the point of this video, but probably will be tomorrow since they released it. So late in the day. Now, depending on the device you have.

It’s going to vary in size, but on the iPhone 12 pro max, it was 492 megabytes on the iPhone 11, which is not updated yet. I used for comparison. You can see that its 510.7 megabytes. So it’s going to vary depending on the device, I have iOS 14.5 beta three on the iPhone 12 pro max, the iPad pro 12.9 from 2020 and the iPhone success. Plus along with this Apple also released iPad iOS 14.5 beta three, and macOS big Sur 11.3 beta three, but they did not release watches yet or TV OS betas yet. So hopefully those will be released alongside the public beta tomorrow. Let’s take a look at the build number and then talk about what’s new. So well go to settings, then well go to general than about, you can see the build number is 18 E five one six four H.

And this particular update has a few changes and updates as well as some bug fixes as well. And the first thing is they’ve updated the modem. So if you have an iPhone 12 pro max, for example, the modem should be updated.

If you were having connectivity issues with your cellular data, hopefully that will be improved with switching between different say applications, where it might not work. So well have to wait and see if that’s improved, but hopefully it will be another first change has to do with podcasts. If you’re using the Apple podcast app and we go into a podcast and maybe go to an episode, I like, for example, well just go to this one here in the upper, right? You’ll see, there’s a new button. So there’s a menu button. There’s a download check button.

And then to the left of that is now a save button. So you can tap on it and it will save in the previous version that wasn’t there. So if I go to the same thing, go to podcasts, you’ll see in the upper, right. It’s not there. So they’ve added that to podcasts. They’ve also updated the menu as well. Now, if I go into the menu on both phones on the left, I have beta two on the right is beta three. 

You can see the settings have changed a little bit under episode downloads. It now says cellular downloads, ask if over 200 megabytes and then you have download episodes is not there in the same spot. And then they’ve made some, made some changes as well. So download when saving enable when following, you’ll see it’s a little bit different. So enable when following is new, for example.

So they’ve updated the menus just a little bit and then hide played episodes is there as well. Now within find my there’s some changes as well. Now, the first time you open it, you’re going to get a splash screen. I took a screenshot of it and it says what’s new and find my, it says support for accessories, improved notifications, find my network. So this is new within the find my app. If we go over to find my you’ll see there’s a new tab at the bottom that says items. So we have the option to add an item or identify a found item. Now, whether or not this has to do with maybe upcoming air tags or just finding different headphones and devices, it’s hard to say, but if we go to add an item, you can see that its searching for an item.

So we have the option to look for an item here. And then also, if we want to identify a found item, you’ll see it says, searching for items. You can learn more about lost items or see if its owner has left a message by connecting to it.

So we have the option to use something that might be like air tags in the future. So that’s been updated within find my. Now, as far as face ID, there’s some wording changes under the settings. So if we go to the settings here, go to face ID and passcode under the new setting that allows you to unlock with the Apple, watch it using a mask for example, or when wearing a mask, it says, use the secure connection to your Apple. Watch to unlock iPhone. When a mask prevents face ID from recognizing your face, your watch must be nearby on your wrist unlocked and protected by a passcode.

Prior to this, it just said, iPhone can use your Apple watch. They’ve changed the wording a little bit. I’m not sure why, but they often update things like this. Now within the code, there’s something interesting for exposure notifications. My friend, Steve Mosher was helping me out find some of these things. And he identified an icon that looks like an app icon for exposure notifications. 

Now, whether or not that means there will be a separate app and they’ll eventually remove it from the settings itself when we hopefully no longer need it. It’s hard to say, but it looks like it may be a new way to report maybe an exposure, or maybe it will just be a separate app as needed since hopefully one day we won’t need it in our settings. So when they remove it from here, maybe they’ll just have a separate app. I’m not sure, but it’s in the code.

And it’s an app icon that you can actually see. So maybe we’ll see something like that. Soon. There’s also code that says the Apple card family support seems to be coming soon. So when you’re using your wallet with your Apple card, there may be an option in the future. I’ve talked about before, where you can add a family member, maybe a trusted child, for example, to use a limit of a family card, um, their phone itself. So we may see something like that in the future. 

Now within the maps app, there’s a slight change to the UI as well when you’re navigating someplace. So let’s go into maps now within maps on the right, I have beta three on the left. I have beta two and you can see the report button is a little bit different. So now it’s filled in on the right. And also the line that you pull down the menu with is no longer there.

So that menu bar is gone. So just a couple of slight changes within maps. Now there was one change found in music. So if you go into music and go to a song you’re playing, for example, watch the icon down here at the bottom, the little circle where you can adjust your volume. If I close out of this, go back in and maybe swipe down, go back into the, the song I’m playing, watch the icon down at the bottom. It sort of disappears and then appears. 

So it’s a little bug that’s in here. I wouldn’t say that’s a necessary change. So something needs to be changed there as well, but they’ve been making a lot of tweaks to music itself. So I would expect them to continue to update that with the future betas. Now, as far as any changes on the iPad, there’s all the same things I mentioned before, along with find my, for example. So if we go on the iPad here, let me rotate it. And maybe we’ll just go into find my within, Find My. You have the same sort of item structure here where it says items, add an item, identify a found item. Yeah.

And that just looks a little bit different because you have more space on the screen. So they’ve updated it here. All of the same changes carry across to this device as well. And so as far as anything new, that’s all that you can see. But as far as resolved issues, according to Apple in the notes, there are seven resolved issues. 

And the one that stood out has to do with the iPad. So if you’re using the USB-C to digital AV multiport adapter with the iPad, this will now work on iPad pro 11 inch first-generation and later, and iPad pro 12.9 third generation. And later, prior to this update, that adapter did not work properly with these iPad. So that’s been resolved and is fixed in this particular update. So that’s something that stood out the rest has to do with developers for the most part. Now, as far as bugs within iOS 14.5 beta three, there are no bugs or known issues that were mentioned as well.

They fixed quite a bit of that with beta too, but I haven’t heard back from anyone that was having those issues as to whether or not they ’re still experiencing those issues on this beta, since it was released later in the day.

Now well give that a few days and wait for the follow-up, of course, and see if there’s anything else in here as far as features or bug fixes when it comes to that or flickering with HDR. But hopefully that’s been resolved as far as the battery life is concerned. Hopefully that’s improved quite a bit because battery life was not great on previous betas. At least for me on the iPhone 12 pro max, I’ve been using this as my main device. And you’ll see my battery health is at 100%. Every time you do an update, for example, it just rechecks the physical health of the battery and gives you a percentage.

So it’s at 100% still since he, since new and here’s my battery life. So today I used it quite a bit looking for new features, installing the update, for example, and it was only at five hours of battery life and I hit about 80% of total usage. So that’s not great. And if you look back over the past week or more here, you’ll see, I only had two and a half hours with about 50% usage. So I was really getting about five or six hours of screen on time. However, when I went to bed, for example, I had 50% of my battery life left. So it’s kind of strange. 

I’m not sure it was reporting accurately, and we’ll have to give it a few days to see if that’s the case with this particular beta. And hopefully they’ve resolved those issues. It is a beta, so I’m not too concerned about it. And I do expect a few more of them as, as the iPad goes, I did have pretty poor battery life on this as well.

I was getting about five hours of battery life in general, total with its usage. So whether that means playing games, using YouTube, for example, over the last few days, you’ll see it was charged to 89% at 5:12 PM today. And were down to 74% and I’ve barely used it. It’s just had its screen on for this video, for example. So you’ll see, I did play a little bit of gaming here, the home and lock screen. Maybe I need to turn off some notifications, but in general, I was getting about five hours total, and then I would have to charge it if I was lucky. So it’s really not great. 

Hopefully it improves with this beta and we’ll have to see how it goes. As far as performance goes, it seems to be okay. Performance wise is all right,

when I’m just scrolling through different things like music, for example, it’s not slow at all. And I haven’t had an app lag when I’m closing it.

So if I’m closing out of music, it seems nice and smooth, but again, that took a few days with beta one and beta two, for example, to see if it was going to lag with beta two, it didn’t lag for me, but for some it did, but overall performance seems to be pretty solid things like face unlock seemed to be about the same. 

So I have beta two on the left, for example, well try this on both. So beta two on the left, beta three on the right two different phones, but let’s see what happens here. And it seems to be about the same. Well try it one more time and its close enough one more time. I’ll bring it up here and its very close. I don’t know that you can tell too much of a difference, but it is something worth mentioning. It seems nice and fast still, as far as benchmarks seem to be okay. They’re not amazing, but let’s go into geek bench. For example, well go to the benchmarks.

And on my iPhone 12 pro max, I scored a 1,590 for single core, 4,167 from multi-core. If we look at the history, you’ll see at the top is today below. That is the other day on beta two. And the multi-core score is a little bit lower, but the single core is identical. So I really wouldn’t expect any performance differences that are noticeable other than hopefully fixing lag. 

It feels very smooth to me, just in general, use the geek bend scores on the iPhone success. Plus, I did run them, but I ran them as soon as I used it. And they’re fairly low because it was warm when I was running it. So it was only 418 for single core, 872 for multi-core the iPad pro performed. Well also, and I’ll just show you for your reference since I tend to do this every time. So well go to geek bench for example, and you’ll see it scored 1,125 for single core, 4,632 for multi-core. As far as the history goes, well take a look and see if we can find today. And so if you look here, we have March 2nd, 2021 its todays score versus say February 16th.

And it’s very close, a little bit higher on multi-core a little bit. Well, the same on single core. And if we go back to March of last year, when this came out, it’s a little bit faster in, so you can see that above here, where I’m pointing to. So it’s actually a little bit faster than it was last year at this time with iOS or iPad iOS 13 on it. So it seems to be performing well now, as far as, should you install iOS 14.5 beta three? Well, if you’re already on the betas, I would say absolutely. You want to make sure you’re getting the best bug fixes, seeing how its performing and reporting back to Apple. 

However, if you’re on iOS 14.4 and you’re anxious to update and trying to fix bugs, I would hold off. If you’re looking for that, as there could be additional bugs that crop up and cause issues. If you know what you’re getting into with a beta, then certainly go ahead, but you’ll have to wipe the device. Should you have any issues?

So be prepared to do that. If you do have issues in general, I say, just wait for the public release. Now, as far as the public release, I would expect it probably later in March at this point, maybe a couple more betas. And since were at beta three, I would expect a beta every week until the final release at this point, based on what Apple has done in the past anyway. So maybe well have a beta next Tuesday or Wednesday, and then the following week, maybe well have a final or a release candidate or maybe another beta, but based on what I think Apples going to do as far as release new products later in this month, I would expect a beta sometime around that, maybe with a new iPad, for example. So hopefully we’ll see something like that.

Now, as far as anything else, if I find any new features, of course, I’ll let you know,