Apple today seeded the sixth betas of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 to developers for testing purposes, updating and refining some of the features that are included in the software.
As the beta testing period goes on, changes get much smaller and less notable. The sixth beta has some minor tweaks and feature additions, but there are no real major changes in the update. We've listed all of what's new in the sixth beta of iOS 14 below.
- Time Picker Design - The time picker interface, available in the Clock app when setting an alarm and other places in iOS, has seen a slight design tweak that adds an orange box around the time to make it more obvious that it can be interacted with to change the time.
- Spatial Audio - Spatial Audio, the feature that brings surround sound to the AirPods Pro, isn't implemented as of yet, but Apple appears to be gearing up to add the feature to iOS 14 and the AirPods Pro. In today's beta, there's a new Spatial Audio toggle available in the Accessibility section of the Settings app. Choose AirPods and then at the bottom of the screen, there's a "Follow iPhone" toggle. Follow iPhone makes audio for supported movies and TV shows sound like it's coming from the phone instead of following head movement. There's also new code and internal messaging related to the spatial audio feature. Though this toggle is available, Spatial Audio is not yet functional.
- Maps Splash Screen - There's a new splash screen for the Maps app that lets you know about new features that include cycling directions, curated guides, and support for speed cameras.
Know of any other changes in iOS 14 beta 6 that we didn't list here? Let us know in the comments and we'll add them.
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You could not have possibly redesigned the app in a more less user-friendly or intuitive way. I am dead serious. It is probably the worst example of user interface design I’ve ever seen as a 34 year old. They need to fire whoever has been designing their UI lately IMO, because most of it has been awful or questionable.
So what features do you guys think will be cut ahead of release and pushed off to a later iOS 14.X update? Seems to happen every year now. I think Spatial Audio might be delayed.
I wonder if they are going to allow us to change our default mail and internet browser apps during the Beta.
Edit: Also I believe that "time picker" design was implemented prior to Beta 6.
The orange box around the time picker box is what changed in beta 6. It was not there in beta 5.
That spatial audio function sounds really weird. Why would I want the sound to appear like it's coming from my phone instead of playing directly into my skull as usual?
I think Spatial audio with movies is just a stepping stone until they release Apple AR glasses, when positioning audio relative to your environment will be a key feature for suspension of belief.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
