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Apple releases iOS 9.1 beta 5 for developers and public beta testers

Apple has seeded the fifth iOS 9.1 beta for developers and public beta testers. The new beta includes various bug fixes and improvements … we’ll let you know if there’s anything drastically new. The new seed comes less than a week after beta 4 as Apple comes closer to a public launch of iOS 9.1.

iOS 9.1 includes new emojis, new wallpapers, developer support for Live Photos and iPad Pro / Apple Pencil compatibility, amongst several other changes.

Of most interest to many is the addition of new emoji to type and share with others, including the much-beloved ‘middle finger’ icon. These were first introduced in beta 2.

Let us know in the comments if you see anything new.

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Comments

  1. applegetridofsimandjack - 9 years ago

    Why does the ‘edit’ button keep vanishing in the phone app – recents – all. Sometimes it’s there sometime’s it’s not.

    Pulling down for spotlight is very laggy on iPhone 6.

    I always need to turn on personal hotspot, enter password on mac if I want my Mac to connect to my phone’s cellular connection. Apple announced a feature in iOS 7 or iOS 8 that allowed you to connect to your phone’s connection without the need of turning on personal hotspot or having to enter a password. It should detect your mac is logged in with the same Apple ID and just connect without any trouble.
    But this feature has never worked!

    • Sebastian (@sebajans) - 9 years ago

      For me this is working pretty well, you need to have enabled both wifi and bluetooth on your iPhone and then it should be working.

    • Tim Wells (@timwells15) - 9 years ago

      To connect your Mac to your Personal Hotspot, you will need a Mac that’s capable of it, basically you need Bluetooth 4.0 or above and both devices need to be signed in with the same iCloud account. I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro 13 inch that isn’t capable of this feature, and it’s also not capable of Handoff which is something I would love to use.

    • Paul Greeve - 9 years ago

      First of all the feature is known as Instant HotSpot, it doesn’t require the iPhone’s HotSpot to be one and it makes its connection via Bluetooth LE (4.0 or higher required) Bluetooth must be on, on all devices that will be using it.

      If you have the correct Bluetooth and it’s still not working then. Try these tips:

      1) Turn on Personal HotSpot on your iPhone, wait for it to show in the normal WiFi list, if you have set it up previously with a password, tap the i on the right and select forget, then try and connect to it again

      2) change the name of your iPhone – I have found new devices or iPhones that have had their firmware reinstalled can cause devices not to see the iPhone, possibly because the same name has been used for different hardware, but I have found this works when the HotSpot doesn’t show (I have submitted bug reports for this and even Apple’s specialist support doesn’t know much about fixing it)

      3) log out of iCloud and then back in on all devices, starting with the iPhone – warning, this can be a real pain if you are using the iCloud Pour Library but it has worked for me

      4) nuclear option, reset all data and settings, you can try a restore (so backup before doing this) but in my experience restoring just causes the problem again – also you will lose all health and home kit all an if you find you can use your old back up

      5) restore iOS see 4

      If you do steps 4 and 5, do not log I to iCloud during the initial setup, go through the setup, then change the name of your iPhone and then login to iCloud, especially when you’ve just replace your phone.

      Before any in place upgrade, backup all devices, check the HotSpot immediately after the upgrade, you may not see it at first, turn it on, on your iPhone, then click on it on your other devices, when you change to another WiFi it should show as an instant HotSpot again.

      These are things that have worked for me and I can’t guarantee they’ll work for you but they are worth a try if you’re willing to go the distance.

      Apple needs to fix this feature,though because its way too buggy.

  2. pshaw13 - 9 years ago

    Another 1.6 GB? Hope to see some good changes…

  3. RP - 9 years ago

    9.1 beta 4 on my 5s gave me the best battery life by far, hope this one is just as good.

    • What results u have on 5S? how many hours?

      • RP - 9 years ago

        I haven’t measured but far longer than on 8 or 9

    • On my iPhone 6 plus, unplugged my phone yesterday at 6:00 am CST. running beta 5 i am currently on 18% (low power mode activated at 20%) Usage 9 Hrs. 10 Min. Standby: 34 hrs 19 min. Whatsapp 49% of my battery consumption not the best but pretty close.

  4. tonywmd23 - 9 years ago

    The animations on beta5 is obviously a lot more sluggish than 9.0.2. I finally succumbed to 9.1 beta for the alleged smoother performance but very disappointed to find out that it actually makes my 6s plus stutter. It’s not sensible.

  5. taoprophet420 - 9 years ago

    What happened to smaller updates both beta 4 and beta 5 are 1.4 GB on my iPad Air 2. Beta 3 was much smaller.

  6. Mike Sullivan - 9 years ago

    Given that IOS9 has deleted all my business emails from my POP account, I’ll be using the middle finger emoji if it’s not fixed pronto. Maybe Apple have forgotten that some people use their phones for serious work. Perhaps they should get their quality assurance systems sorted first.

    • PhilBoogie - 9 years ago

      If you were to take your work serious you would’ve migrated from POP to IMAP.

    • maybe do not run a BETA software on a device you do such serious work on?

    • Kevin Vexerzo - 9 years ago

      It actually reminds you, every single time you update and even before you install any version of beta, that iOS should ‘only be deployed on devices dedicated for iOS (whatever) beta software development’.

      • Juan Tarrío (@jtarrio) - 9 years ago

        That kinda defeats the purpose of a *public* beta. That said, it’s still a beta, so you should be willing to take risks and if you rely on your phone for professional purposes perhaps it’s best not to install beta versions. And if you do, well… don’t complain. You should’ve know what you were getting into…

  7. wedosodavid - 9 years ago

    Does anyone meet the problem “hold near the reader” when using Apple Pay in 9.1 public beta software

    • Doug Mellen - 9 years ago

      Used Apple Pay several times today and had no issues with 9.1 beta 5

      • wedosodavid - 9 years ago

        I asked technical supports serval times, and they had no idea about this. They just suggested me to wait until the official 9.1 release.

    • djngoma - 9 years ago

      You could also downgrade to 9 as well, but I suppose if it isn’t critical you can wait it out. Probably 9.1 will be released alongside the iPad Pro.

      • wedosodavid - 9 years ago

        I have tons of health data which cannot be fully recovered when I downgrade to 9. So I won’t do that. Now the only thing I can do is to wait for the 9.1 at the end of October.

      • wedosodavid - 8 years ago

        Finally it is the hardware issue. I contact the Apple support asking for the replacement.

      • djngoma - 8 years ago

        Glad you got sorted.

  8. how many friggin emoji’s can a person need? seriously.

  9. rsteinla - 9 years ago

    I’m really disappointed that Apple hasn’t fixed the scaling issues that many 6S users are experiencing using Apple Wallet when they’ve upgraded from iPhone 5 and 5S.

  10. b (@therealdesib) - 9 years ago

    Running great on my 6s

  11. Luis Viray - 9 years ago

    Why is the beta 5 big? It’s not a GM, right?

  12. Kevin Vexerzo - 9 years ago

    Does anyone else have trouble with Siri’s ‘double beeping’ sound? I hold down the home button to ask a question, but no longer hear the two tones, before or after speech. However, if I activate Siri via ‘Hey Siri’ THEN it will play. I’m trying to get the sounds going again.

    • Michael Carioti - 9 years ago

      Apple eliminated the sounds when you hold the home key down. I asked the same question when the first beta came out. I thought it was a bug but it was intentional.

  13. Christian Espinosa - 9 years ago

    I can’t belive apple is unable to fix the slow graphic performance on the 6plus, disabling transparency does the trick, but I don’t see anywhere the so called performance improved against 8.4.1, it was so much better then, for the springboard and for the applications.

    • Qais Mazhar - 9 years ago

      This is the first time I see someone else complain about sluggish graphics on the 6plus, I thought it was just me! Google just gives me generic “iPhone running slow?” articles.

      I’m not one to complain about temporary issues with software updates (I’m a developer) but this is pretty bad. My phone stutters constantly like it’s years old and the processor is just giving up. Did a whole restore cuz I thought it just needed to “reset” after the update, no change. I’m forced to turn off transparency but that doesn’t stop it completely, it still struggles with transitions and animations…

      And like you said, this was with the expectation of a more efficient iOS.

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.