What's New? - iOS 14.5 Beta 5 is Out!

Hi, everyone.

Today Apple released iOS 14.5 beta 5. This is available to developers and soon to public beta testers. Usually by the time I post this video its available, but at the time of recording it, it’s not. So I’ll be sure to update you on that. This came in at 254.1 megabytes on my iPhone, 12 pro max, and it was similarly sized on the iPhone 6S plus a little bit smaller than that, as well as the iPad pro 12.9 from 2020 and iPhone 11. Now, as far as this particular update, Apple also released a bunch of other updates for iPad with iPods 14.5 beta 5, as well as watches 7.4 beta 5, those 14.5 beta 5, as well as macros big Sur 11.3 beta 5.

And they also updated keynote numbers and pages apps as well. So a lot of updates rolling out today. Now let’s go ahead and take a look at the build number. So well go to settings, then well go to general then about, and you can see the build number is 18E5186a a and this particular build being an a at the end is very similar to what we had last time. It’s just a revised version of that. So they’ve updated that a little bit. 

Now, as far as new features are concerned, there is a new modem update in this particular build. So if you were having connectivity issues, whether that be with your iPhone 12 pro max, or an older iPhone success, plus hopefully its resolved for you. There were some issues specifically with the newer phones switching between 4g and 5g on say T-Mobile for example. So if you were having those issues, be sure to check it out and see if you’re still having it after this update, as hopefully it resolves that switching issue. 

Now, other than that, as far as new features go, if you go into settings and then you go to general and then software update go to automatic updates and you’ll see it says install iOS updates. So this has been reverted back to what it was like before. So on the left, I have iOS 14.5 beta four. And on the right, I have beta five. We go to the same automatic updates. You’ll see before with beta four, they changed it to install security updates. Now they’ve reverted it back to just install iOS updates.

So maybe we won’t be able to install security updates separately, but based on this, they’ve changed it back to what it was before. So with beta five, maybe they’ve abandoned that for now. Maybe that will carry over to iOS 15. Now,as far as anything else in this, there are no more physical changes that you can see in this beta. That means were getting very close to a final version and its fixing a lot of bugs. In fact, in Apples notes, they’ve said there are no new release notes for this beta software update.

So whether or not they fixed any additional things. I mentioned issues with lag and freezing. And in particular, I had quite a few issues with Bluetooth before, and that was all a problem. Hopefully that’s fixed now with connecting to AirPods. For example, that was a big issue for me before. And it seems to be even more sensitive to the home pod as I bring it closer, say a home pod when playing music. 

So I’m not sure if you can see this, let’s see if we bring it close. So well bring the home pod up and you’ll see. It’s nice and sensitive to that. Now, somewhat over-sensitive from my experience so far today. So you’ll see, I’m quite a ways away. I’m about a foot away at this distance. And as I come closer, it pops on the screen.

I’ve seen this pop up two to three feet away this time. So this feature of handoff to the home pod is nice, but it seems to be very sensitive. I’d like a way to actually adjust that. Now, as far as green tin is concerned, I know a lot of people are wondering about that and they did fix the initial issue when you boot up your phone, for example, and it had a lot of green tint, some people said you could see that on the settings page. 

I have not been able to see that even in lower, lower darkness’s, let me turn off the lights here. And I don’t see any green fringing around the outside edge of anything. And that’s where people saw a very green tint to begin with. And so with that, I don’t really see that issue that people have experienced. I haven’t experienced it myself on these phones, but some people have.

So if you have that issue, we’ll have to test that over the next few days. See if its fixed that as well as the HDR flicker pay issue that people were having. So other than that, there are no changes in this. Now, as far as iPad iOS 14.5 beta 5, well, with beta four, it was actually pretty solid. I had no issues as far as speed scrolling, any lockups, any crashes or anything like that. My major issue with the iPad has been battery all along. 

And as I’ve said before, I plan to completely wipe this device. Should it keep having that issue, but I’ll show you what it was like over beta four. It will take a few days to know what it’s like with beta five. So if we go to the last 10 days, for example, you’ll see it was last charged yesterday to 100% at around almost 1:00 PM, 12:56 PM. And I only had two hours and 22 minutes of screen on time,52 minutes of screen off time and another 25 minutes, were down to 48% battery life. Now, to be fair, it did install an update without being on battery.

So it’s still is using an excessive amount of power for the iPad. So hopefully that’s much better, but as far as the overall experience on here, everything’s basically the same and the automatic updates are the same here as well. It just says, install, iPad, iOS updates, instead of those security updates. So they’ve reverted that back to what it was before now, as far as battery life on the iPhone, let’s take a look at the beta battery life with beta four, and this hopefully will be improved with this version. 

It wasn’t bad, but it seems to be getting better and better. So well take a look at battery health and you’ll see I’m at 100%. So no issues there. And the updates won’t change this at all. They’ll just premeasure what the physical battery is at, but let’s go back, take a look at the last 10 days. And as you can see, depending on the day, it varies greatly.

Some days I only had two hours and 11 minutes of screen on time. If we go back a few more days, I had three hours and 52 minutes of screen on time and used a little bit over 50% of my battery life. Based off this, I’m getting about eight hours of screen on time, this phone, although when I put it on the charger at night, before I go to bed, I’m getting about 50% of my charge leftover, maybe more. 

So this battery measurement, I’m still not sure as a hundred percent accurate, but many people are saying battery life was greatly upper improved, and you can see this just popped up. That’s from the home pod. I haven’t moved it closer or anything. It just popped up out of nowhere. So its overly sensitive. It seems in this particular update, but you’ll see that battery life seems to be okay.

Hopefully it improves even more with this update, but well know that in a few days, when I do a up now, as far as the overall performance of this version,  actually noticed it to be very smooth just as I was looking for changes and looking through the OS. It seems incredibly smooth. In fact, the frame rate doesn’t seem to drop at all. 

It’s just mostly very nice and smooth, no problems here whatsoever. Even on the older phone, after it was done rebooting and sort of doing its background tasks, it’s still a little bit warm from doing that. You’ll see I’ll open music for the first time. I normally leave this for the video, but as I scroll through, it’s nice and smooth. I don’t see any stutter or lag throughout the OS, which is great. I did see that on previous versions, let’s go into settings and you’ll see its smooth again.

So it seems like Apple has resolved any lag or stuttering that was going on with beta four. I had no issues closing out of apps, for example, swiping to go home or just closing them in general. There hasn’t been any issues like that whatsoever for me. So it’s been pretty solid overall. Now let’s go ahead and take a look at the geek bench scores. And if we go into geek bench five here, you’ll see, I scored 1,590 for single core, 4,085 from multi-core. 

This is actually a little bit lower than I had in the previous version, but this has been run right after installing the update. So a lot of the background information indexing and things could still be going on. So if you take a look here, there’s March 23 and March 15, it’s a little bit lower in general, but it’s not a big concern as it feels much smoother just using the OS overall, at least in my experience so far.

Now let’s go ahead and take a look at the benchmarks on all of these devices from left to right. I have the iPad pro 12.9 from 2020 in the middle is the iPhone six S plus. And on the right is the iPhone 12 pro max. And based on these scores on the iPad and the success, plus its actually about the same or a little bit better, depending on which score you’re looking at single or multi-core compared to the previous version. 

And that’s right after installing the update. So if I give this a couple hours, run it again, it will probably improve quite a bit on all of these devices. So, so far I’m impressed with the overall smoothness, but this should just give you a general idea of what to expect if you’re using these betas. So should you update to iOS 14.5 beta five? Well, if you’re already on beta four, then I would say absolutely. Or any of the betas as you want to make sure you’re testing this and seeing if its improved anything for you.

It usually takes a few days to know if your batteries improved and it may have improved additional issues with green tint, for example, or any lag or issues you were having saying closing an application. If you were having that problem, definitely update. If you haven’t already. However, if you’re on iOS 14.4 0.1, the public version or an earlier public version, and you’re looking to fix some issues you have such as green tint. For example, I would not update until the final version is out. 

Generally when you install a beta, it may break something else. So you want to keep that in mind, if you know what you’re getting into with a beta, then absolutely you could install it, but just be prepared to, to revert back if you had to and make sure you have a backup of yours, of your overall OOS. Now, as far as when to expect the next version. Well, really we expected iOS 14.5 RC or release candidate. And that was expected pretty much today.

And it seems like we’re going to have another week without that. So we could even go into beta seven so we can have a couple more weeks of betas. Meaning next Tuesday, we could see the beta six even, or maybe our RC generally when they release our, see, it means that they’re going to release a public version within a week after that. 

So we could have an event in April, like many people are predicting and were still waiting for Apple to introduce WWDC 20, 21, which takes place in June. So were waiting for all of that information from Apple to determine when this final version comes out. Since so many people were predicting today as an Apple event, that’s why many people expected the final version out by now. 

But since that time has come and gone, it looks like April is when well see an event or some new updates as well. So I would expect another beta or release candidate next week, and then a final release within a couple of weeks from now. And then it will be available to the public. So look for those. Now, if I find any additional features, I’ll have a different video later in the week talking about more new features. But other than that, you can look for the follow-up usually around Sunday, where I talk about the overall experience with this bugs you’re having as well.