Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of iOS 10 to Developers

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of iOS 10 to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the third beta and almost two months after first unveiling the new operating system at its 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference.

The iOS 10 beta 4 update is available as an over-the-air download to those who installed the first three betas or the beta configuration profile and it’s available for direct download through the Apple Developer Center.

iOS 10 is a major iOS update with ton of new features and design tweaks, including a new Lock screen experience with 3D Touch-enabled notifications, a more easily accessible camera, a redesigned Control Center, and a new widgets screen. According to Apple, iOS 10 is the company’s biggest ever iOS update.

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The Messages app has been entirely overhauled with features that include background animations, bubble effects, Digital Touch, handwritten notes, Tapback replies, predictive emoji, and a dedicated App Store, and Photos has gained new facial and object recognition capabilities along with a Memories feature for rediscovering forgotten moments.

Over the beta testing period, Apple is tweaking the features introduced in iOS 10 to refine them ahead of the public release of the operating system. In iOS 10 beta 3, Apple introduced a new locking sound and haptic feedback when pressing the power button, an iOS 9 style Touch ID accessibility option, a new keyboard sound, an option to send Health data to Apple, and more. We’ll list any new changes found in beta 4 below.

iOS 10 is currently available to developers and public beta testers, with a full public release planned for the fall. For full details on iOS 10, make sure to check out our iOS 10 roundup

What’s new in iOS 10 beta 4:

Emoji – There are new emoji designed to promote gender equality. Many professions and activity emoji are now available in both male or female options. Emoji have a new texture and many emoji have seen slight design tweaks.

Control Center – There’s an intro screen when opening Control Center for the first time that instructs people to swipe left to access the different Control Center cards.

Haptic feedback – In iOS beta 3, Apple added haptic feedback when pressing the power button on the iPhone to lock it. In beta 4, this feature has been removed. There’s no longer a haptic feedback buzz when locking an iPhone.

Notification Center – The widgets screen, accessible by swiping to the right in the Notification Center, now displays the date. In previous versions of iOS 10, the date was not available.

Home – In the Control Center, the Home app icons have been tweaked again.

Keyboard sounds – Keyboard sounds have been slightly tweaked. Backspace now has a distinctive sounds unique from other key press sounds, and there’s a new sound for space, return, shift, and number/emoji shift.

Wallpaper – Some older wallpaper options have been removed and the mountain wallpaper with stars from an earlier version of iOS has been re-added.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
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