Earlier this week, Apple pushed out new beta versions of iOS 9 and iOS 8.4. Developers immediately began installing the updates and finding out what goodies they contained, and some new details have come out today that reveal some of Apple’s plans.
It’s been discovered that some code inside of the update may hint at future front-facing camera features. Developer Hamza Sood has found references that hint at 1080p video capture, 240fps slow motion video recording, panoramic capture, and flash support for a device’s front camera.
The iPhone 6’s front-facing camera is capable of capturing 1.2-megapixel (1280x960) photos and 720p video, so the features hinted at in the iOS 9 code would be major upgrades from the existing iPhone’s front-facing shooter. While Apple typically places a lot of focus on the performance of the iPhone’s rear camera, the recent explosive popularity of selfies may cause Apple to focus more heavily on the front-facing camera’s capabilities in future iPhone models. Of course, these iOS 9 code references aren’t a guarantee of a future iPhone’s feature set, but it shows that Apple is a least considering beefing up the front cameras on its smartphones.
When it comes to iOS 8.4, the new beta 4 update includes a fix for the Unicode string of characters that can crash an iPhone. When a friend sent you the specific string of characters, your phone would crash and reboot, and then your Messages app would crash when you open it. Apple shared a temporary fix shortly after the bug’s discovery, but it appears that iOS 8.4 will permanently squash the bug. Apple hasn’t announced a public launch date for iOS 8.4 yet, but it’ll arrive sometime before the Apple Music launch on June 30.
