News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Public Beta 2 for iPhone, Adds Over 200 New Emoji & Apple Music Lyric Sharing

Apple just released the second public beta for iOS 14.5 today, Wednesday, Feb 17. The update comes just one day after the company seeded developers the second 14.5 beta. Because of that, we've had 24 hours to sink our teeth in beta 2's new features, like 217 new emoji, Apple Music lyric sharing, Apple Music UI updates, and new Shortcuts options.

Arguably the biggest feature for beta 2 is new emoji! According to Emojipedia, there are 217 new emoji, as part of Emoji 13.1. New emoji include an updated headphones emoji to match AirPods Max, gender options for people with beards, heart on fire, exhaling face, and options for couples with mixed skin tones, among many more.

• Don't Miss: All the New Features & Changes in iOS 14.5, Including Updates for Gamepads, Privacy, 5G & Reminders

You can now share Apple Music lyrics with friends! When a song has real-time lyrics active, you can choose any series of lines, at least until you hit Apple's character limit. If you send to a 14.5-enabled device, your friend will see a dynamic window with your lyrics directly above the Apple Music link. If their device is running an older version of iOS, they'll simply see the lyrics as plain text above the song link.

Apple also added swipe gestures for adding songs to your queue. Swipe right on a song, and you'll see a blue icon (Play Next) and an orange icon (Play Later). Swipe left on the song to reveal a gray (+) icon, which you can use to add the song to your library.

You'll also see a floating context menu when tapping the ellipsis (•••). In 14.4 and earlier, this context menu would appear as a scrolling window at the bottom of the display.

Beta 2 slightly changes the animation that appears on your Apple Watch when it unlocks your iPhone. This feature first appeared in beta 1.

We also see three new shortcut tools: "Voice & Data mode," which allows you to jump between 5G, 5G Auto, 4G, LTE and 3G, depending on your iPhone model; "Orientation Lock," which lets you both toggle the lock, or turn the lock on and off; and "Take Screenshot," which snaps a screenshot directly to your camera roll, no thumbnail needed.

There's also a new security feature for iPad (8th generation), iPad Air (4th generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation), and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation), that will mute the microphone when a connected Smart Folio case is closed. That way, you know that your iPad can't "listen" to you when you've closed things up for now.

Beta 2 fixes some bugs from beta 1. Reportedly, this beta fixes the green tint issue affecting certain iPhones. According to Apple, CarPlay will now start even if your iPhone is set up to share contacts over CarPlay. You can also share your ETA with Siri without issue when using CarPlay. In addition, you can now share locations from Maps to Notes and Reminders.

iOS & iPadOS 14.5 Beta 2 Release Notes

Overview

The iOS & iPadOS 14.5 SDK provides support to develop apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices running iOS & iPadOS 14.5 beta 2. The SDK comes bundled with Xcode 12.5 beta, available from Beta Software Downloads. For information on the compatibility requirements for Xcode 12.5, see Xcode 12.5 Beta Release Notes.

Accessibility: New Features

• Many SF Symbols now get a default accessibility label automatically from a curated list of descriptions. (70305995)

CarPlay: Resolved

• Vehicles can now start CarPlay if the user's iPhone is set to share contacts over CarPlay. (71458958)
• You can now use Siri to share your ETA as expected. (70440576)

Combine: Resolved

• Using Published in a subclass of a type conforming to ObservableObject now correctly publishes changes. (71816443)

Displays: Known Issues

• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later) and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) are unable to connect to external displays using the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. (72618916)

Maps: Resolved

• You're now able to share locations to Notes and Reminders as expected. (72879313)

Privacy: New Features

• iPad (8th generation), iPad Air (4th generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation), and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation) now mute the built-in microphone when its Smart Folio is closed. To avoid unnecessarily recording the muted signal, the default behavior is to interrupt an audio session that is using the built-in microphone when the Smart Folio is closed. You can opt out of the interruption using the new AVAudioSession.CategoryOptions overrideMutedMicrophoneInterruption, allowing the audio session to continue playing uninterrupted while microphone input is muted. For more information, see Responding to Audio Session Interruptions. (57042856)

SKAdNetwork: New Features

• With view-through attribution, SKAdNetwork now supports all ad formats for promoting apps. (70345857)

SwiftUI: New Features

• Added TitleAndIconLabelStyle, a new style for Label views that shows both the title and icon of the label using a system-standard layout. In most cases, labels show both title and icon by default. However, some containers might apply a different default label style to their content, such as only showing icons within toolbars on macOS and iOS. To opt in to showing both the title and the icon, apply the title and icon label style: Label("Lightning", systemImage: "bolt.fill").labelStyle(TitleAndIconLabelStyle()). (64646578)
• Types conforming to any style protocol, such as ButtonStyle, ToggleStyle, are now enforced to be value types. Styles must be structures or enumerations, not classes, and conforming a class to a style protocol may trigger an assertion. This is the same restriction that the system has always enforced on types conforming to View. (62886135)

SwiftUI: Resolved in iOS & iPadOS 14.5 Beta 2

• The dismissal animation of a popover modifier when running in a compact horizontal size class now renders as expected. (52606403)
• Setting .preferredColorScheme(nil) now correctly resets to the system's preferred color scheme. (67000774)
• NavigationView push and pop now correctly respects disabled animations. (70062477)
• HoverEffect no longer causes a ghosting effect, especially over Text. (71344349)
• Using the pointer on iPadOS no longer confuses certain gestures. (71344436)
• onHover(perform:) is now recognized as expected in a stack. (71344436)
• The destination of NavigationLink that only differs by local state now resets that state when switching between links as expected. (72117345
• Dynamic properties such as State, Environment, and others now work correctly in ButtonStyle instances. (62886135)
• AppStorage property wrappers now work as expected when contained inside an ObservableObject, causing the system to emit the objectWillChange publisher. (65562845)
• ProgressView instances initialized with a Progress object now correctly track updates to the Progress object from background threads, and no longer issue a "not allowed" console warning. (69999449)
• Using scrollTo(_:anchor:) without specifying an anchor now scrolls the List the minimum amount to make it visible. (70184639)
• A TabView with PageTabViewStyle now correctly invokes onAppear(perform:) and onDisappear(perform:) for its tabs. (71225006)
• InlinePickerStyle now resolves as an in-line section if applied to a Picker within a List on iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, using a checkmark to indicate the selected option. (71383311)

Xcode: Known Issues

*You're currently unable to collect GPU performance counters in Xcode and Metal System Trace. (74165162)

To update your iPhone to iOS 14.5 public beta 2, sign up through Apple's beta site, download and install the configuration profile, then update over the air. If you already have the profile, go to Settings –> General –> Software Update to begin the installation of the latest beta build, or you can wait until it installs automatically if "Automatic Updates" is enabled.