News of the “Tap to Pay on iPhone” framework in the latest iOS beta may prompt a question: How did we not hear about the framework in the latest beta before? Because the latest beta wasn’t out before. I mean, it was, but there’s a later latest beta, now. Along with the “Tap to Pay” news, Apple on Tuesday released the second betas of iOS15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 to developers, along with the second beta of macOS Monterey 12.3, the second beta of watchOS 8.4, and the second beta of tvOS 15.4, according to a few pieces from MacRumors.
The newest newness in the iOS update is the framework making way for “Tap to Pay.” Other upcoming features we’ve heard about, for iPhone and iPad include:
The addition of Face ID with Mask
Support for Universal Control
Loads of new emoji
Other features we’d not heard about (or that escaped my notice) are said by MacRumors to include:
Full 120Hz ProMotion support for app animations on iPhone 13 Pro
The ability to add EU vaccine certificates to Apple Wallet
The ability to turn off notifications for Shortcuts automations
Keyboard brightness controls in Control Center on the iPad
An Apple Card widget
iCloud Keychain notes
Support for adding custom email domains to iCloud Mail on device
The addition of a SharePlay option in the share sheet
There is one fix of note. A piece from Apple Insider says the iOS 15.4 beta “fixes [a] bug that stored Siri recordings even if users opted out.” The first I remember hearing about that was yesterday’s story. Glad to hear it’s getting fixed.
We can’t be certain which of those features will beat the beta gauntlet and make it out to users. We also can’t be certain when the next version of iOS and iPadOS will hit. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman thinks it’ll happen around the same time Apple updates iPhone SE and iPad Air. He’s expecting that in the first half of March.
