Apple seeded the release candidates for iOS 16.4 and macOS Ventura 13.3 to developers on Tuesday, signaling that beta testing for these upcoming operating systems is almost over. The same is true for the release candidates for iPadOS 16.4, watchOS 9.4 and tvOS 16.4.
These will usher in new emoji, a better way for devs to work with betas, and other changes.
How do you reinstall Apple apps like Music, Podcasts, Weather, Maps and Find My onto your iPhone or iPad? If you can’t find them, it’s possible you uninstalled them and your device needs to download them again. Or they might have simply disappeared from your Home Screen, and are now hiding in the App Library.
There are also a few iPhone apps that Apple hasn’t made available on iPad. This was the case with Weather until very recently, so you may need to install an update to get it.
I’ll walk you through all the possibilities, showing you how to get Apple’s stock apps back on your iPhone or iPad.
Apple finally seeded to developers iOS 16.4 beta 1 and macOS 13.3 beta 1 on Thursday, followed by releasing public beta versions on Friday. The same goes for the initial betas of iPadOS 16.4, watchOS 9.4 and tvOS 16.4.
The wait for new betas has been much longer than usual. The last round of new prerelease versions was in mid-January.
The new betas bring in a collection of new emoji, an improvement for Apple Pencil, a better way for devs to work with betas, and more changes.
According to official data from Apple, 81% of all iPhones released in the past four years are running some version of iOS 16. That’s a vastly higher percentage than Android users have installed the latest OS update from Google.
But iPad users upgrade at a far lower rate than iPhone users. Only 53% of Apple tablets released in the last four years have iPadOS 16.
Stage Manager in iPadOS 16 makes Apple’s tablets act much more like a Mac. The optional multitasking system puts applications into floating, resizable, overlapping windows.
Even better, the system can also be used on external displays, greatly increasing the available space to work in.
Here’s how to get started using Stage Manager.
Apple said Tuesday the App Store is undergoing “the most comprehensive upgrade to pricing capabilities” since its launch, allowing prices to be set as low as 29 cents and as high as $10,000.
It will start offering developers 700 new price points to apply to the apps they sell, plus new tools to make international selling easier to manage.
A second round of ‘Rapid Security Response’ bug patches for the iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 betas were seeded to developers and other beta testers on Monday. At this point, Apple is testing the system for distributing these by releasing them for beta versions of the operating systems.
Once testing is over, these will allow Apple to fix security problems without releasing a full OS update.
The new Stage Manager multitasking system is Apple’s answer to requests for floating app windows on iPad. It’s drawn a lot of criticism, much of which is undeserved.
I use the new system all day every day. Here’s why there’s a lot to like in Stage Manager, although there are undoubtedly some problems, too.
iPhone users not on iOS 16.1 can now update their handset to iOS 15.7.1. Apple says it “provides important security updates.” It closes almost 20 security holes in the OS.
There’s also iPadOS 15.7.1 that does the same for iPad.
Apple finally released iPadOS 16.1. The debut of the Stage Manager multitasking system has drawn most of the attention, but plenty of other new features are worth checking out, too.
Monday’s launch is extra-significant because iPadOS 16 never launched. Version 16.1 is the first replacement for last year’s iPadOS 15.x.
