Apple Seeds Third Beta of iOS 10.2 to Developers

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming iOS 10.2 update to developers, one week after seeding the second beta of iOS 10.2 and three weeks after releasing iOS 10.1, the first major update to iOS 10.

Registered developers can download iOS 10.2 beta 3 from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air with the proper configuration profile installed.

iOS 10.2 doesn’t have a single main feature like Portrait mode in iOS 10.1, but it does offer several smaller feature tweaks.

New emoji are included the update, such as clown face, drooling face, selfie, face palm, fox face, owl, shark, butterfly, avocado, pancakes, croissant, and more. There are more than a hundred new emoji, including several profession emoji available in both male and female genders, such as firefighter, mechanic, lawyer, doctor, scientist, and more. Apple has also redesigned many existing emoji, adding more detail and making them look much more realistic.

Along with new emoji, iOS 10.2 includes new wallpaper, new Music sorting options and buttons for Repeat and Shuffle, a new “Celebrate” Screen Effect,” an option for preserving camera settings, a Videos widget, Single-Sign On support for watching live TV via apps, and the “TV” app that was first introduced at Apple’s October 27 event.

The TV app serves as an Apple-designed TV guide that’s designed to simplify the television watching experience and discover new TV shows and movies to watch. The TV app will eventually be available on both iOS devices and the Apple TV.

Apple has called iOS 10 its “biggest release ever” for iOS users, with a revamped lock screen, a Siri SDK for developers, an overhauled Messages app, a dedicated “Home” app for HomeKit users, new facial and object recognition capabilities in Photos, and redesigned Maps and Apple Music apps.

What’s new in iOS 10.2 beta 3:

SOS – It appears the SOS functionality that allowed users to call emergency services by pressing the power button multiple times has been removed in this beta. According to Apple’s release notes, SOS is currently only available in India.

TV settings – In the Settings app, there’s a new section for the TV app. It allows users to choose whether to use cellular data for playback and choose the streaming quality over Wi-Fi and Cellular. There’s also an option to choose whether to make purchases and rentals from the store in HD or SD.

TV functionality – The TV app now supports the “Up Next” feature that keeps track of the television shows and movies you’re watching, saving your place or recommending next episodes across multiple devices.

Videos – The Videos app has been removed from iOS entirely, as it has been replaced with the TV app. The Videos widget, introduced with iOS 10.1, has also been removed, but there is a replacement TV widget that’s been available since beta 2.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
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