Photo Credit: Pok Rie
With iOS 13.3.1 only twenty days old, the first developer beta of the next major update to iOS 13 has been released to developers.
There are a lot of new features and changes to look forward to. Changes are all over the place from Location Services to file sharing. Those not discussed in full will be listed at the end of the article.
Universal Purchase
Perhaps one of the most useful updates, especially for users working cross-platform in the Apple ecosystem, will be Universal Purchasing. Developers will be able to combine their apps for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS into one bundle.
The latest beta version 11.4 of Xcode, Apple’s development software, has unified purchases enabled by default for new apps written with Catalyst turned on.
Apple took it a step further and enabled in-app purchases to also be shared cross-platform, should the developer have unified purchasing enabled on their software.
Read my article explaining how Universal Purchasing will work as well as an explanation about what Catalyst is.
Folder Sharing in iCloud
Users will now be able to collaborate using iCloud. File sharing was revealed as a new feature with the introduction of iOS 13 but was held back due to implementation challenges. Apple addressed those challenges and made it possible with iOS and iPadOS 13.4.
New Toolbar in Mail
Tired of accidentally deleting an email when you actually want to reply? The delete and reply icons are next to each other in the current public releases. It causes users to unintentionally delete a message when they miss the reply icon by millimetres.
This will not be a problem in the near future, as the two icons will be placed as far away from each other as possible. The trash bin will now sit on the far left side while the reply will be on the far right.
CarKey
There is proof in both watchOS 6.2 and iOS 13.4 of the CarKey API. Car manufacturers will be able to develop apps to merge with Wallet and in turn, give users the potential to unlock, lock and start their NFC enabled cars with their Apple Watch or iPhone.
Other Changes or Features
- New stickers for Memoji
- CarPlay adds new call and navigation controls for third-party apps
- iPhones without the notch at the top of the screen will now have a status bar when in control centre
- Shazam Shortcuts are added
- When VPN is disabled a notification will be visible in the status bar
- Hey Siri can be set to Always Listen, as an accessibility option
- Location Services has new popup when an app requests Always use location when the app was set to While Using
- Siri can now take you to your Home screen
- TV app gains family sharing
- New shortcuts for iPad keyboard in Photos app
- Hardware key mapping
- Lyrics panel in Music gets ellipsis when instrumentals are playing
- Still waiting to see whether iPhone SE/iPhone 9 support will be discovered in the code
If I missed something, please let us know in the comments
Closing
This update looks like a packed one with a lot of useful features. Let me know in the comments what feature(s) you look forward to the most and what features is on your wish list for iOS and iPadOS 14.
