Heads up, iOS developers: Apple just released iOS 5 beta 3 in on its developer website. The new build carries the number 9A5259f and is available for iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and third and fourth generation iPod touch. Alongside the new version of the iOS beta, Apple also made available beta versions of iTunes 10.5 and the Apple TV software.
The previous version of the iOS 5 beta included new features such as WiFi Sync and over the air updates as well as iCloud changes and other fixes and improvements. There's no word yet on what kinds of goodies that Apple has packing into iOS 5 beta 3, but you can be sure that we'll update you when we learn more. To all of you iOS devs out there: happy downloading! As for the rest of us, well, fall is inching closer every day.
UPDATE: Some of the new features already discovered in iOS 5 beta 3, courtesy of the folks at Cult of Mac and MacStories:
- Most people are reporting that iOS 5 Beta 3 is faster and less buggy.
- New ringtone listings for the iPhone: Tweet and Sherwood Forrest. These aren’t functional right now.
- Bug?: It looks like you can’t change your ringtone to anything. Even if you switch it to the new ones or old ones, the default ringtone is all that plays when you get a call.
- Fixes for AirPlay mirroring, where the AppleTV’s screensaver would cause performance to degrade.
- Fixed an issue where the Reminders application did not send notifications upon the entry or exit of a location if there is no specific date associated with the location-based reminder.
- iMessage is not compatible in Beta 3 with iMessage from Beta 1, but it is compatible with Beta 2.
- Big speed improvement loading up Camera.app on our test iPhone 4.
- Reminders.app got a new icon
- New Location Services screen at start-up more clearly describes the setting for users at first boot: “Location Services uses GPS along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations to determine your approximate location.”
- FaceTime may still be broken, as the FaceTime icon is still missing from Settings. Update: FaceTime isn’t working on our iPhone 4, but it’s there on our iPad 2. Weird. Update 2: Duh. You FaceTime from the Address Book on the iPhone 4. False alarm. FaceTime does still seem to be disabled in iOS 5, though. .
- iPhone 3GS now gets opening logo animation. — Thanks, Thad!
- On-phone setup sequence is more polished with more sections and animations. — Thanks, Thad!
- We’re hearing reports that you can now set custom text tones, and they work!
- New Location Services menu in Settings.
- We’re hearing reports that iTunes Sync is a lot more reliable now with iOS 5 Beta 3 and iTunes 10.5 Beta 3. Lots less syncing errors.
Via Cult of Mac, MacStories
