Apple Seeds First Beta of iOS 10.3 With 'Find My AirPods' to Developers

Tuesday January 24, 2017 10:01 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming iOS 10.3 update to developers, marking the third major update to the iOS 10 operating system that was released in September. The first iOS 10.3 beta comes more than a month after the release of iOS 10.2.

Registered developers can download the new iOS 10.3 beta from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air with the proper configuration profile installed.

ios-10-3-beta
As a 10.x update, iOS 10.3 likely brings bug fixes, performance improvements, and new features to iOS 10. While we won't know what's in the update until developers begin discovering changes, it is rumored to include a new "Theatre" mode with a "popcorn-shaped" icon in the Control Center.

What the rumored Theatre mode does is unclear, but should it be included in iOS 10.3, we'll find out its purpose soon enough. We'll update this post with new features that are found in the update.

Update: Apple has shared release details with several sites, outlining features that are included in the update. While the main feature is a new "Find My AirPods" option, there are also several smaller updates.

What's new in iOS 10.3:

- There's a new "Find My AirPods" tool to help users locate lost AirPods.
- SiriKit can be used to pay bills, check on the status of payments, and schedule future rides.
- The weather icon in the Maps app includes 3D Touch to show hourly forecasts.
- CarPlay includes new shortcuts for launching recently used apps.
- CarPlay's Maps now features EV charging station locations.
- HomeKit supports programmable light switches.
- Conversation View in the Mail app features navigation improvements.
- When installing iOS 10.3, it will update the file system to Apple File System (APFS), so it's important to make a backup before updating.

Related Forum: iOS 10

Popular Stories

Apple Alerts Stores to iPhone Duo's Display Cracking Issue

Friday October 30, 2026 3:20 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol

In a memo shared with Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers this week, and later obtained by MacRumors, Apple provided technicians with guidance on how to diagnose and address the iPhone Duo's inner display cracking issue. If a customer reports the issue, Apple advised technicians to inspect the iPhone Duo and repair or replace it in accordance with their standard procedures....

• 287 comments

Apple Launching Five New Products This Friday

Monday November 2, 2026 1:22 am PST by Tim Hardwick

Apple is releasing five new products this Friday, November 6, following pre-orders that opened last week, including its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models. The following new products will be available from Friday: iPad mini with OLED display and A20 Pro chip iMac with M6 chip 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip 14-inch MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen 16-inch MacBook Pro with OLED...

• 25 comments

Everything New Your iPhone Can Do on iOS 27

14 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 27.2

Friday October 30, 2026 12:42 pm PDT by Tim Hardwick

Apple released iOS 27.2 on October 26, bringing enhancements to Siri AI, adding Suggestions in Messages, and sneaking in a string of smaller additions across Photos, Podcasts, Games, Apple TV, and FaceTime. iOS 27.2 is available to download to your device now via Settings ➝ General ➝ Software Update. Note that some features may not be available in all regions or on all iPhone models....

• 24 comments

Top Rated Comments

waterskier2007

128 months ago

This seems like a pretty big deal (from the release notes):

When you update to iOS 10.3, your iOS device will update its file system to Apple File System (APFS). This conversion preserves existing data on your device. However, as with any software update, it is recommended that you create a backup of your device before updating.

Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)

CarlJ

128 months ago

Wow, eleven comments in and no posts yet explaining how this indicates the imminent downfall of Apple. That's kind of refreshing.

Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)

lunarworks

128 months ago

Apple File System? What? What? What? Apple made a file system? So A, M, S, W, T chips. San Francisco font. Swift language, and now a file system? When will the Apple gimmick train end? Bigger battery, Cupertino. Are you morons listening? Bigger. Battery. Thicker. Phone. Innovation.

People who actually understand operating systems have been begging for a new file system for more than a decade.

They almost went with ZFS, but it became a big problem when Oracle bought Sun.

Also, anyone complaining about Apple's custom chips needs a good kick in the head. They're the best mobile chips around.

Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Tubamajuba

128 months ago

theater mode is apparently still missing according to CNET
[doublepost=1485281257][/doublepost]
wow. no theater mode. this indicates the imminent downfall of apple

Who cares about theater mode? I have had *insert obscure problem here* for two years now, and Apple won't make *insert dream computer here*, so Apple is doomed, Tim Cook should be fired, and I'm buying an Android phone. But I'll stick around to remind everybody why I don't like Apple anymore.

*ahem*

iOS 10.3 may not add much, but the SiriKit improvements look interesting.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

rodrigo_pereira

128 months ago

Can anyone theorize if older devices using the A5 chip (iPhone 5, iPad 4) would benefit from APFS?

There are couple of things we need to consider first to answer your question:

1. APFS in terms of I/O (that is - input-output, read and write data) focuses on improving foreground apps and tasks. It is reasonable to think that background tasks can wait a bit longer to read or write data they need.

2. It doesn’t make processor or graphic processor to handle more task or make them faster.

3. Apps are multithreaded - if app is made along Object-C or Swift guidelines - UI - user interface - is main thread and background tasks are secondary thread (i.e. on slow connection the app you are using downloads data, but user interface is still responsive and probably shows some indicator that data are being downloaded, you can easily switch from one tab to another).

4. Open/save file: with APFS it is possible to do atomic updates - which mean: app is saving only changes to a file or load from a file only things that have changed, not the whole file.

With all that considered: performance gain with APFS would be from reading data needed by foreground app first, using less bandwidth (connection between CPU, RAM, and flash memory) while loading and saving data, postponing some disk operations that are requested by background processes.

To sum it up: you should see some improvements in situations like scrolling through conversation in imessage, saving changes to modified picture, opening files.

(Obviously, sorry for my lousy english, it’s not even my third language)

Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Watabou

128 months ago

Can someone tell more about new filesystem? How it's compared to present one in terms of security and performance?

You can read a pretty good overview here: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/apfs-apple-file-system/

And if you want to get nerdy: ArsTechnica ('http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of-the-good-and-bad-in-apples-new-apfs-file-system/') and Apple's official documentation ('https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/Introduction/Introduction.html').

I was thinking they would hold off until iOS 11 to show off APFS, didn't know it was already ready!

Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Read All Comments

Apple Seeds First Beta of iOS 10.3 With 'Find My AirPods' to Developers

Popular Stories

Apple Alerts Stores to iPhone Duo's Display Cracking Issue

Apple Launching Five New Products This Friday

14 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 27.2

Top Rated Comments

Next Article

Videos

Guides

Upcoming

Other Stories