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Apple Seeds Fifth Beta of iOS 10.3 to Developers [Update: Public Beta Now Available]

Wednesday March 8, 2017 8:59 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming iOS 10.3 update to developers, just over one week after seeding the fourth beta of iOS 10.3 and almost three months after the release of iOS 10.2, the last major update to the iOS 10 operating system.

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

ios-10-3-beta
iOS 10.3 is a major update, introducing several new features and changes to the iOS 10 operating system. The biggest new consumer-facing feature is "Find My AirPods," which is designed to help AirPods owners locate a lost earphone. Find My AirPods records the last known location of when an AirPod was connected to an iOS device via Bluetooth and can play a sound on a lost AirPod.

Apple's latest update also introduces a new Apple File System (APFS), installed when an iOS device is updated to iOS 10.3. APFS is optimized for flash/SSD storage and includes features like strong encryption.

Apple plans to introduce some App Store changes in iOS 10.3, allowing developers to respond to customer reviews for the first time. iOS users are also able to label reviews in the App Store as "Helpful" or "Not Helpful," which should help surface the most relevant review content.

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Apple also plans to limit the number of times developers can ask for a review, allow customers to leave app reviews without exiting an app, and provide a "master switch" that will let users turn off all app review request prompts.

Also new in iOS 10.3 is a redesigned app open/close animation, an Apple ID profile in Settings, a better breakdown of iCloud storage usage, warnings about outdated apps that won't work with future versions of iOS, HomeKit support for programmable light switches, improvements to SiriKit (bill paying, bill status, and scheduling future rides), CarPlay interface improvements, iCloud analytics options, and more.

Update: iOS 10.3 beta 5 is also available for public beta testers.

[ 91 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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AppleFan91
31 months ago
For those that will ask:

• We don't know about battery life
• No Dark mode
• Safari isn't snappier

(Hopefully, this is the last one before a public release, I love the speed improvements of this release so far)
Rating: 23 Votes
Avatar
Floris
31 months ago

• We don't know about battery life
• Don't believe anyone that says Dark mode
• Safari isn't snappier


There I think that takes care of those posts.

(Hopefully this is the last one before a public release, I love the speed improvements of this release so far)

Sorry, but saying "oh here we go with those msgs", is on the same level as "what about dark mode" comments..
they're obvious and filling the thread with useless offtopic content.
this reply i just made, probably adds to that :D
Rating: 10 Votes
Avatar
AppleFan91
31 months ago

Five betas is kinda scary for a point upgrade.

Don't turn on the news.


Also, this is not uncommon lately. Most of them are going 5-7. I much prefer this method in comparison to no betas or 1 or 2 and a flawed release personally.
Rating: 8 Votes
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imnotthewalrus
31 months ago

Five betas is kinda scary for a point upgrade.


How so? Before the beta program, there was always a "risk" of jumping on a new iOS release. I personally am glad to see Apple giving developers and PB users an opportunity to have a sneak peek and offer feedback while others can just keep an eye on it to see whether they want to upgrade or not when the GM is released. Multiple betas should be good news (that bugs are being discovered and fixed prior to official release), not "kinda scary". Just my two cents.
Rating: 6 Votes
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C DM
31 months ago

Five betas is kinda scary for a point upgrade.

Not really unusual, and certainly pretty far from anything like scary.
Rating: 6 Votes
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itsmilo
31 months ago
And on the 5th day Apple still did not fix the rotation bug on the Air 2

#BibleHashtagCuzEmojisStillDontWorkOnHereEvenThoEveryTenthNewsIsAboutIt
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
SeaFox
31 months ago

Five betas is kinda scary for a point upgrade.


[LIST=1]
* Apple rushes software out without enough testing.
* People worry about falling quality software that needs a couple bug-fix updates to be really usable.


[LIST=1]
* Apple does more testing and betas.
* People worry about the quality of the software because of so many betas.
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
mattopotamus
31 months ago
most exciting thing to me about 10.3 is the app switcher in CarPlay.
Rating: 4 Votes
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C DM
31 months ago

so for the 99.999% of owners who don't have airbuds this update will mean nothing.

If the rest of the things that are changed are also not counted.
Rating: 4 Votes
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SteveJobzniak
31 months ago
I love the priorities of this article:

- The biggest new consumer-facing feature is "Find My AirPods," a feature which sounds like the kind of parody news The Onion would joke about.
- "Oh and there's a brand new filesystem which is modern, corruption-proof, fast and safe and replaces everything we've known about Apple for the last 30 years of living with the old and buggy HFS+. No big deal."
Rating: 3 Votes

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