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Apple releases iOS 9 beta 2 to developers for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

Screenshot 2015-06-23 10.00.35

Two weeks following the 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference and release of the first iOS 9 beta, Apple has seeded iOS 9 beta 2 for compatible iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches to developers. The update is available over-the-air via Software Update in Settings, and it will also become available via Apple’s developer portal on the web.

iOS 9, due to be released to all in the fall following a public beta in July, brings several under-the-hood enhancements to iOS as well as new features. The upgrade brings a new Proactive menu on the left side of the first Home screen, new features for the Maps app, an upgraded Notes application, and a redesigned app-switching interface.

Apple has also released Xcode 7 beta 2 alongside the new OS seeds. Some users of the first beta have complained about poor battery life and unsurprising system-wide bugs, and we’ll be tracking all fixes and changes in beta 2 below.

– Redesigned Podcasts app in iOS 9 now includes a new icon as well (thanks Matt!)

Podcasts iOS 9

– Apple Watch app added during iOS 8.2 is now renamed simply Watch

Watch

– Automatic app deletion and re-installation now possible to enable iOS updates with insufficient storage (thanks Kaleb!)

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– Lower Power Mode description has been tweaked (thanks Dayton!)

– New buttons to undo/redo text input on iPad keyboard

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– Continuity returns to multitasking view with new design in iOS 9 (thanks Marvin!)

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Comments

  1. Jordan Krahn (@jkrahn) - 9 years ago

    Possible that there’s a delay, but not seeing it in the OTA

    • mushu405 - 9 years ago

      I do not as well. Usually takes 30 mins for OTA to get it….

    • Nic Buhrman - 9 years ago

      This article was likely pre-written; probably some assumptions being made

      • Jordan Krahn (@jkrahn) - 9 years ago

        Good point.

      • joaopedro1520 - 9 years ago

        it’s available now via ota

      • Jordan Krahn (@jkrahn) - 9 years ago

        Did a reboot, and still not seeing it here (in Canada). Might just take the CDNs time to cycle it through?

      • Those of you who were in the public beta. Remember to remove the public beta profile to switch back the standard update channel.

      • Jordan Krahn (@jkrahn) - 9 years ago

        @MichaelWai – Great call. That was exactly what was holding me back. Thanks!

    • Developer beta’s are not OTA

    • Kyle (@fung) - 9 years ago

      Not seeing the OTA yet either, trying to install because my test Air 2 iPad has AWFUL battery life now. Not mission critical but always a freindly reminder that you should never install this on your only device.

  2. pshaw13 - 9 years ago

    I am not seeing OTA Update

  3. New feature: I haven’t got enough free space on my iPhone. A pop up prompted and asked is I wanted to let iOS temporarily delete some apps, so there’s more memory.

  4. Nick Techman - 9 years ago

    Numbers on clock face in the Clock icon are now bold. That, or they’ve been switched to the San Francisco font.

    • Adam Lechowicz - 9 years ago

      Yup, just zoomed in on the icon in a screenshot, Apple changed the font to San Francisco and made them bold

  5. Victor Lim - 9 years ago

    After updating to iOS 9 beta 2, the issue with hashtags on Instagram still remains. If you upload a photo with hashtags, it will not appear in the hashtags itself and it is like you have set your account to private. I have tried with iOS 8.4 beta 4, no issue with hashtags on Instagram, hopefully the next beta release will resolve the issue.

    • Glauco Miranda - 9 years ago

      Vitor, good morning. I´ve the same problem, and all of the photos that i uploaded after installins IOS 9 beta, aren´t showing in none of the hashtags that i put.
      Unfortunatly, i don´t think that´s a IOS problem, but a Instagram one. I guess that Instagram consider the IOS 9 beta a non official OS.
      We need do rollback to a preview version, like 8.4, wait the IOS 9 official, or upload from another device. EVERY THING AGAIN.
      Damn.

  6. Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

    New buttons to undo/redo text input on iPad keyboard

    Phew I can finally stop knocking everything off of my table try to undo on iPad!

  7. Taylor Deveraux - 9 years ago

    Redesigned artist page in music app.

  8. North McCormick - 9 years ago

    The speed increase is stellar. Yay!

  9. Robert Lee - 9 years ago

    If you have an iPhone 6 DO NOT INSTALL THIS PERIOD you will get wifi and bluescreen crashes wait basically EVERYTHING CRASHES this also applies to my fellow developers

    • Duston Foster - 9 years ago

      Thanks Rob.. I will test myself and update you

    • Matthew Aaron Davis - 9 years ago

      Even on the first iOS9 beta mine is running fine, I’m downloading beta 2 now. I’ve done this every year since 2012 and obviously it is a beta, but I have continued using my phone, iPad, macbook betas without much of an issue. The only real issue that I have encountered is the battery life, which was expected and I have multiple chargers at different locations. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to get the betas, you get the features early and you have to deal with minor bumps here and there, but I’ve never lost any kind of data and I love having new feature before everyone else. Besides, once you get to beta 3-4, its nearly complete anyway. I’m just saying don’t be scared, adjust your expectations properly and jump right in. You won’t regret it.

      • James Wilson - 9 years ago

        I have it on the the iPhone 6 Plus as my daily use device. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve installed all the betas over the last 4 interations on my daily use iPhones and have had minimal issues. Nowhere near all the doom and gloom I hear reported. Sure, the phone lags sometimes and even crashes every once in awhile, but the normal iOS does sometimes too. This beta is the cleanest and has the least issues I’ve seen yet. Again, maybe I’m just lucky because I’ve heard a lot of people complain.

  10. Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

    Did they change the keyboard back to always displaying capital letters or is my build just wonky? The toggle in accessibility doesn’t seem to do doing anything.

    Also the toggle says:

    this affects keyboards that use a Shift key to switch between uppercase and lowercase letters.

    Did it always say that because it sounds like this a global setting that will affect even third party keyboards. Which makes sense that it’s under accessibility. Some people find it distracting.

    • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

      whoops. Looks like it’s just a little buggy still. Had to close the app I was testing in and relaunch for the keyboard settings change to take effect.

  11. Is it just me or does the app switcher go the wrong way? If you look at it like a book (here in the west), I feel it should go the other way, or at least give us a setting to let us decide ourselves. What do you guys think?

    • ChristianGeek - 9 years ago

      I think they should switch back to the old switcher! I hate the new one.

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        why?

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        I can give you 3 good reasons why this one is more usable once you get used to it being different.

      • ChristianGeek - 9 years ago

        I thought it looked better visually (ironically, the new version is more skeuomorphic), it was faster to scroll through (on the iPhone at least) when swiping the app icons at the bottom, you could access up to 5 apps at a time with one tap (again using the app icons), and you had access to your recent contacts at the top.

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        1. Like I explained to John, it follows the logic that content to the left is “back” in time. Swipe left to right to go back in an app and now swipe left to right to go back to a previously used app. It’s just more consistent.

        2. The app icon and app preview now move at the same rate and always line up. This is good in two ways. A, you never get confused which icon is for which preview, and B, you never accidentally scroll to fast by touching the wrong area.

        3. App icons and titles have been moved to the top. Thats usually where people glance to see where they are and they don’t get covered up by your thumb when scrolling. The app previews are nice, but sometimes they are pretty useless when the app hasn’t loaded or if it’s on a screen that looks the same as another app. Icons are how we process information quickly anyway so it’s good that info is no longer obscured. You can just keep your eye focussed in one place as you scroll through until you see the app icon you want.

        It kinda addressed my two biggest issues with the iOS 7 design. I think maybe they could go a little lighter with the blur effect on the 4th app. I don’t get that on my old iPad but I noticed it in the simulator and it seemed a little much.

        What do you think is bad about it?

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        Ah didn’t see you replied already. Funny how one of the things I list as bad you thought was good.

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        it was faster to scroll through (on the iPhone at least) when swiping the app icons at the bottom,

        It just didn’t make sense to me that one area should scroll much faster than the other. Seemed like a more confusing interaction for users and someone could accidentally swipe in one and get messed up. My main criticism was it took more fine motor controls than the old iOS 6 way did. iOS 9 one is just simpler.

        you could access up to 5 apps at a time with one tap (again using the app icons),

        it wasn’t quite 5 full icons. It was like trying to be a hybrid of iOS 7s focus on the last 3 apps and something like iOS 6 where you could see a set of icons at a time but I didn’t think was very successful. I think the new one is just giving up on trying to be a hybrid and just committing to being really good at showing the first three apps and then if you really want to scroll to look back for stuff you still can.

        and you had access to your recent contacts at the top.

        This felt like a weird thing that didn’t quite belong but I’ll admit I might have never gotten used to using it. I think they expect the new search screen to replace that. Maybe they could

    • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

      I think it makes more sense this way. It’s like a timeline. New content is added to the right as per western reading. It’s just like the back button navigation animations too. You swipe from left to right to go back.

      It’s certainly different but I think the concept is sound. I wonder if El Capitain’s cmd` interface will change direction too or if they are too afraid to touch that.

    • epicflyingcat - 9 years ago

      Yeah, I agree, it would be way better having it the same way as the old one. I actually think Android does this the right way, have it from bottom to top (because this new multitasking menu is clearly a copy from Lollipop.)

    • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

      I think the new way especially makes sense when using the 4 finger iPad swipe gesture to switch to the last used app.

  12. Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

    Anyone seeing the new transit layer on an iPad 2? Seems like a weird feature to leave off of the iPad especially since my build has 3g. I didn’t think it was really a performance thing.

  13. carltausend - 9 years ago

    there is a toggle for news in the iCloud settings, dose not appear to do anything.

  14. bradleyza - 9 years ago

    When you hit an album in the mustc app, the abulm content is now fosty with the colors of the album as opposed to white as before

  15. BK (@beakay_) - 9 years ago

    Now you can choose an accent for siri (American, Australian and British)

  16. Mauricio Ramos - 9 years ago

    Is it just me, or Radio isn’s working in Music app?

  17. Mouxy - 9 years ago

    It doesn’t work with WatchOS 1.0.1

    • Jason Truitt - 9 years ago

      Not having any issues with 6+ and Watch OS 1.0.1

      • calebdharrison - 9 years ago

        BUG:
        I’m experiencing constant (about every 5 seconds) drops in Bluetooth connection to my Apple Watch (on watchOS 1.0.1).

  18. jamdungyute - 9 years ago

    Seems like the battery drain issue is gone… Been on 100% for around a hour.
    Anyone else notice this?

  19. The “Bono” icon has been changed to just a microphone in Music (the default icon for missing artwork in artist view)

  20. Titanas - 9 years ago

    Is the new beta 2 more stabled compared to iOS 9 beta 1? Comments are mixed and beta 1 seemed to be very unstable. Anyone who has experience from both betas?

    • carltausend - 9 years ago

      Only thing I had a problem with in beta 1 was battery died super fast and charged very slow they both seem to be much much much better in beta 2

    • I think you have to try yourself. My experience (iPhone 5s) is that it was a buggy yet usable, and battery lasted a lot and charged very fast.

    • joshblinney - 9 years ago

      Yeah update. It’s so much better. Almost nothing crashes anymore. And there’s new stuff for assistive touch in the settings to rearrange stuff.

    • csr1972 - 9 years ago

      Beta 2 is much better than 1 – 1 was pretty “rough”

  21. Zachary Land - 9 years ago

    The “Find iPhone” app is now a default app on both iPhone and iPad.

  22. Justin Cooper - 9 years ago

    Is anyone else having problems on both of the betas with updating apps? Every time I try to update an app, it asks for my Apple ID password. After I enter it, the loading circle next to the app changes back to just saying “Update”. Then the app becomes unusable until I restart my phone.

  23. iOS 9 (Beta 2) .

    • Battery charging at a very good rate.. (5% every 4 minutes) if brightness is mid-way & wifi is connected.

    • Battery charging very-fast (7% every 4 minutes) if brightness is very low & on aeroplane mode.

    Tested on iPhone 6.

  24. Nicholas Sebastian Veron - 9 years ago

    Can i update to ios 9 b2 from b1 via ota without uuid?

  25. dasralph - 9 years ago

    Still no transit information for Chicago yet

  26. mytzu21 - 9 years ago

    I don’t know if it is new in iOS 9 (beta 1 or 2) or if it’s old but I’ve just noticed that when going to touch ID settings and place down a finger it will show up in the list of registered fingerprints.
    If someone could say to me if it is new or not would be great (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ

  27. The Low Power Mode is gone for me on my iPod Touch!…

  28. calebdharrison - 9 years ago

    BUG:
    I’m experiencing constant (about every 5 seconds) drops in Bluetooth connection to my Apple Watch (on watchOS 1.0.1).

  29. csr1972 - 9 years ago

    Battery life in iOS 9 is terrible – beta 2 a little bit better

  30. The performance of Beta 2 is WAY better than I could expect. Unplugged the phone today at 7:00am, now at 5:30pm with light use is at 80% when on beta 1 would be at around 50% (iPhone 6 Plus).

  31. Avenged110 - 9 years ago

    I have to say, that new app switcher looks really slick. The blur effect is quite pleasing.

  32. I’m just glad that the battery issue is fixed!! beta one of ios 9 sucked when it came to battery performance, but, that is expected with betas, just glad it was fixed!!

  33. prius3 - 9 years ago

    Question is – what happens on iPhones 5s and 5/5C and 4S when low power mode is enabled? how much can you throttle down on those devices to achieve battery lifetime while not compromising badly on user experience (the 4S already struggles with iOS8 at full throttle….).
    Or is this an iPhone 6 only feature?

  34. Tử Công Cherry - 9 years ago

    iPhone 6 iOS 9 Beta – preview
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWnXlZwSI_o

  35. hi!I installed ios 9 and I do not really,the battery insanely quickly and for a long time to charge…..