Apple busts out new betas of iOS 11.1 and other platforms

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iphone 8
iOS 11.1 beta 3 is ready for your iPhone.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Developers received a fresh new batch of beta updates today, just one week after Apple seeded the last set.

iOS 11.1 beta 3 is the biggest of the updates, bringing a bunch of new emojis to the iPhone and iPad along with some other refinements and improvements. Apple also released the third beta builds for watchOS 4.1 and tvOS 11.1.

Registered developers can download iOS 11.1 beta 3 directly from Apple’s online developer portal. You can also install it via an over-the-air update if you have the previous beta installed.

What’s inside iOS 11.1

The last iOS 11.1 beta added support for dozens of new emoji that are part of Unicode 10. Apple teased the new characters for World Emoji Day before making them available to developers.

Some of the new emoji characters include Woman with Headscarf, Bearded Person, Breastfeeding, Zombie, Person in Lotus Position and new food items such as Sandwich and Coconut. The new emojis also have new faces, clothes, sports, food, dinosaurs and other mystical characters. The release notes for iOS 11.1 beta 2 don’t mention any other major new additions.

iOS 11.1 brings back the 3D Touch app switching gesture that was removed. It also comes with a new keyboard tweak that suggests multiple emojis.

The watchOS 4.1 update adds LTE support for Apple Music on the Apple Watch Series 3 LTE. Apple added a new Radio app that lets you listen to Beats 1 radio’s live broadcast. Bug fixes and performances are also plentiful in the new update.

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