Apple on Friday began seeding the sixth beta of iOS 11.2 and macOS 10.3 2 to developers and public beta testers.
The iOS 11.2 update brings a number of notable features to compatible iPhone and iPad devices, including support for Apple’s peer-to-peer mobile payments platform, Apple Pay Cash, as well as support for the company’s next-generation AirPlay 2 wireless streaming protocol. Also present is support for SiriKit via Apple’s upcoming smart speaker, HomePod.
In its testing of the new beta on iPhone, 9to5mac reported the following noteworthy changes:
- iPhone 8/8 Plus/X marketing still wallpapers now available on older iPhones
- No sign of Messages in iCloud yet, some level of AirPlay 2 present.
- Calculator bug caused by slow animation fixed.
- Some emoji are tweaked.
- Additional Live wallpapers for iPhone X.
- New introductory pricing option for subscription apps.
- New Control Center explainer for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth behaviors.
- New Control Center indicator on iPhone X.
- Faster wireless charging?.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download iOS 11.2 beta from Apple’s Developer Center.
Today’s iOS 11.2 beta six update could be the official golden master build, which suggests that we could see the official release of iOS 11.2 sooner than we think.
macOS 10.3.2
Also on Friday, Apple released the sixth beta of macOS 10.3.2 High Sierra, which notably includes a permanent patch for the previously discovered “root” vulnerability, which enabled the root superuser on a Mac with no password and no security check.
Technically, Apple released a patch for the vulnerability on Wednesday of this week, which appeared to rectify the issue on Macs running the current version of macOS High Sierra, 10.13.1. MacRumors pointed out, however, that even despite this week’s fix, the “root” bug has “remained in macOS 10.13.2 to this day.”
Those currently running an earlier beta build of macOS 10.3.2, in particular, will want to update to the sixth beta as soon as possible to protect their machine from this critical security bug.
Both iOS 11.2 and macOS 10.3.2 beta six can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center now.