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

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

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Monday June 16, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
terminal macos tahoe

Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

Monday June 16, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted. The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...

Top Rated Comments

CarlJ Avatar
110 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)
waterskier2007 Avatar
110 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)
lunarworks Avatar
110 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 Avatar
110 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 Avatar
110 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 Avatar
110 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)