What’s New in iOS 14.2 Beta [VIDEO]

Apple yesterday afternoon surprised everyone by releasing iOS 14.2 beta, skipping iOS 14.1 beta. Other beta releases were made available for iPadOS 14.2, tvOS 14.2 and watchOS 7.1 beta.

Many are suspecting Apple’s upcoming iPhone 12 models may come installed with iOS 14.1, thus Apple leaving out the release for everyone else, for now.

As for what’s new in iOS 14.1 beta 2? EverythingApplePro gives a good breakdown of some key changes, including:

• Redesigned media controls in Control Center: cover art now shows as Apple Music shows suggestions; volume bar UI is now larger to make it easier to adjust
• Shazam in Control Center: new Music Recognition toggle to allow song recognition in the background; runs until it hears a song
• Now Playing: new interface with a larger volume slider and play button placement; also new on lock screen
• AirPlay menu gets new animation and UI
• New Apple Watch app icon: now has the Solo Loop band
• Analytics & Improvements: New ‘Improve Handwashing’ toggle, to allow for “sharing limited motion and audio data” to improve the feature
• Magnifier app: new option for people detection
• News widget: first widget is now Topic instead of Today
• Weather widget: text placement now optimized
• Sounds & Haptics: under Headphone Safety, you can now enable Headphone Notifications.

You can also check out another iOS 14.2 beta video below from Brandon Butch as well.

Butch notes “performance feels great” and also shows more detail of the changes to the Now Playing interface.

We may see a shorter beta phase for iOS 14.2, leading up to a final golden master release ahead of a potential iPhone 12 launch in October.