Apple Releases First Beta of iOS 11.3 for Public Beta Testers

Thursday January 25, 2018 10:09 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today released the first public beta of an upcoming iOS 11.3 update to its public beta testing group, one day after seeding the first beta to developers and a few days after releasing the iOS 11.2.5 update.

Beta testers who are members of Apple's beta testing program will receive the iOS 11.3 beta update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on an iOS device.

Those who want to join the beta testing program can sign up on Apple's beta testing website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas. iOS betas are not always stable and should not be installed on a primary device.

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iOS 11.3 is a significant update that introduces multiple new features like Messages on iCloud for storing your iMessages in iCloud, and ARKit 1.5, a new, upgraded version of ARKit that can more accurately map irregularly shaped surfaces and recognize and place objects on vertical surfaces like walls.

Four new Animoji are available for the iPhone X, the Health app has a new Health Records feature where you can store your medical records, and AirPlay 2 features are available in both iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3.

Other features new to iOS 11.3 include an Apple News "For You" section that displays the top videos of the day, Advanced Mobile Location (AML) for sharing more accurate location info when placing an emergency call in a supported country, and a new Privacy icon that will show up whenever Apple asks you for info. iBooks has also had the "i" removed from its name, so it's just "Books" now.

In the future, Apple plans to introduce more detailed information about the health of a device's battery. The update should provide a lot more data about battery health, and there will also be an option to let customers turn off the power management feature entirely, though Apple does not recommend disabling it.

Business Chat, which will let you interface with businesses like Wells Fargo, Delta, Hilton and Lowe's right in the Messages app is coming when iOS 11.3 is released, and improvements to Apple Music will bring better support for music videos.

Apple says iOS 11.3 will be released to the public in the spring.

Related Forum: iOS 11

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Top Rated Comments

justperry

90 months ago

Have fun out there, some nasty bugs in this one. Obviously beta 1, just remember that kids.

Please tell us instead of using the word "some".

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

MrGimper

90 months ago

Apple today released the first public beta of an upcoming iOS 11.2.5 update to its public beta testing group, one day after seeding the first beta to developers and a few days after releasing the iOS 11.2.5 update ('https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/23/apple-releases-ios-11-2-5/').

Surely you mean 11.3?

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

C DM

90 months ago

They should first fix all bugs of iOS 11 before they start to add new features.

No such thing really exists in the software (or even hardware) world.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Chris Grande

90 months ago

There's a part of me that likes the idea of Messages over iCloud but part of me that gets concerned about accidentally deleting something and having it gone permanently. I have multiple OS and iOS systems, and I had one important Messages thread that I accidentally deleted from my phone by swiping the wrong thread. 100% my fault. Fortunately, I still have the important stuff on my iPad. Yes, I could have theoretically restored from backup, but what a pain for one message thread. Had that occurred while managed on the cloud, it would have been a huge hassle.

Now what about this: I have a phone that has different messages on it than my iPad and Macs due to different uses, though they all sync to the same iCloud account and all initially receive the same iMessage texts. If I enable iCloud Messaging, does it simply sync every thread on all devices? Is there a chance that--since I have deleted some threads on different devices--those threads will be deleted across all devices?

These are all good questions, I have yet to test, but during the initial 11.0 betas it would sync up all convos in their current state on all devices.

But I recommend everyone who has the Feedback app request that the delete feature be replaced with "Archive" which would just hide the conversion on all devices and then make Delete a two step process.

Also another question is what happens with conversions that split across Apple ID's, the Mac merges them, iOS never did...

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

lsutigerfan1976

90 months ago

You get an Animoji! And you get an Animoji! And you get an Animoji!!!

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)