News: Apple's iOS 14 Developer Beta 7 for iPhone Includes New Wallpaper Options

Apple's iOS 14 Developer Beta 7 for iPhone Includes New Wallpaper Options

Apple just released iOS 14 developer beta 7 for iPhone today, Thursday, Sept. 3. The new update (18A5369b) features new wallpaper options. Now, you can choose any color background for the rainbow wallpaper, and iOS will turn the background black when you enable dark mode.

These new dynamic wallpaper options replace the old static colors, meaning you won't be able to see a color background on your rainbow wallpaper with dark mode enabled. Of course, this is beta software, so Apple could change things down the road. You'll find the new options in the "Stills" section of your Wallpaper settings.

As for bug fixes you might notice coming from beta 6, here's what we've found:

  • The overlay that appears when connecting AirPods now shows the correct information
  • Your signature in Mail is no longer duplicated if you close a draft and reopen it.
  • On iPadOS, the Weather widget no longer unexpectedly has Always location access.

The update comes nine days after Apple released iOS 14 beta 6 to developers and public testers. Apple released this update at 10 a.m. PDT, the company's standard release time for developer beta updates. If you're a public beta tester, this update isn't for you. Instead, you'll need to wait for Apple to release iOS 14 public beta 7, which we expect to see today at 1 p.m. PDT, or tomorrow at 10 a.m. PDT.

iOS 14 Beta 7 Full Release Notes

You'll find the full release notes for iOS 14 beta 7 below:

iOS & iPadOS 14 Beta 7 Release Notes

Overview

The iOS & iPadOS 14 SDK provides support to develop apps for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices running iOS & iPadOS 14. The SDK comes bundled with Xcode 12 beta 6, available from Beta Software Downloads. For information on the compatibility requirements for Xcode 12 beta 6, see Xcode 12 Beta 6 Release Notes.

General: Known Issues

Important - Updating to iOS & iPadOS 14 beta from previous versions of iOS & iPadOS might take significantly longer than expected. Data loss could occur if the update is interrupted. (59101197)

  • macOS Big Sur 11 beta or Xcode 12 beta might be required to sync or update devices running iOS & iPadOS 14 beta.

Apple Security Bounty

  • iOS & iPadOS 14 beta 7 is designated as qualifying for the 50% Apple Security Bounty bonus payment for issues that are unknown to Apple or reintroduced in this release. See Apple Security Bounty for more information.

App Store: Known Issues

Core Haptics: Known Issues

Fonts: Known Issues

  • Beginning in iOS & iPadOS 14 beta, fonts installed using configuration profiles are only available to apps supporting the font APIs and entitlements introduced in iOS & iPadOS 13. If your app provides a custom font-selection interface, it can no longer access fonts installed via configuration profiles. For reference, see the WWDC 2019 Session Font Management and Text Scaling (55317428)

Home Screen: Known Issues

  • Spotlight might not appear as expected. (64121178) Workaround: Restart your device.

Mail: Resolved

  • The signature is no longer duplicated if you close a draft and reopen it. (66843208)

Maps: Known Issues

  • After updating to iOS & iPadOS 14 beta 2 or later, user data, such as Favorites, Collections, and Recents no longer syncs with devices running earlier versions of iOS & iPadOS. (65005848)

Safari and WebKit: Resolved

SwiftUI: Known Issues

SwiftUI: Resolved

  • The leading navigation bar, trailing navigation bar, and the bottom bar layout leading to trailing. automatic toolbar items no longer overflows to the bottom bar by default. Use ToolbarItemGroup with a placement of bottomBar to place items in the bottom bar. (66790502)
  • Children of multi-column navigationViewStyle(__:) views now have the correct default styles and environment on iOS & iPadOS:
  • Multi-column navigationViewStyle(__:) views that specify only a single subview, and so get an empty placeholder view, won't get the new behavior. Specify an explicit placeholder view to opt in to the new behavior.
  • Multi-column navigationViewStyle(__:) views that use a single ForEach to generate columns won't get the new behavior. Unroll the ForEach to opt in to the new behavior. (62699768)

Third-Party Apps: Known Issues

  • Apps using JSONKit might quit unexpectedly on launch. Some forks of JSONKit hardcode private, pointer-representation details, which are subject to change. (60290929) Workaround: Use NSJSONSerialization instead.
  • fstab has been removed. You can no longer use Filesystem contents outside of an app's sandbox for validation. (61098152)
  • Apps using the NativeScript framework might quit unexpectedly on launch. NativeScript performs an unsafe operation to determine if an arbitrary pointer is an Objective-C object pointer. You can temporarily resolve this issue by using object__getClass(__:) instead of reading the isa directly; however, update this code to avoid checking whether arbitrary pointers are Objective-C object pointers. (62913064)

Wallet: Known Issues

  • isPassLibraryAvailable() doesn't ensure uniform availability of pass library functionality between platforms and devices. (60697880) Workaround: Call a more specific API to check available functionality, such as canAddPasses().

Widgets - Known Issues

  • When the parent app of a widget has been granted Selected Photos access, an alert might appear each time the widget runs. (66398732) Workaround: Add PHPhotoLibraryPreventAutomaticLimitedAccessAlert = YES to the Info.plist of the widget extension.
  • All widgets must be rebuilt using the iOS & iPadOS 14 beta 4 SDK or later, and won't run on previous versions of iOS & iPadOS 14 beta. (65290210)
  • Some widgets might disappear from your Home Screen after updating to iOS & iPadOS 14 beta 2 or later. (64823469) Workaround: Add the missing widgets back to your Home Screen.
  • You can't resize an existing widget. (63500799) Workaround: Remove the widget and re-add it at the desired size.
  • You might need to reconfigure your widgets after updating to iOS & iPadOS 14 Beta 3 or later. (65485709)
  • The Weather widget might appear blank after updating to iOS 14 beta 6 or later. (66782070) Workaround: Tap the widget to open the Weather app, then return to the widget on the Home screen.

Widgets: Resolved

  • On iPadOS, the Weather widget no longer unexpectedly has Always location access. (66922805)

The Weather widget is now able to determine your location. (66929312)

How to Update Your iPhone to the Latest Beta

To update your iPhone to iOS 14 beta 7, you'll need to be a registered developer. You can use the restore image for your iPhone available in the Developer portal (install with iTunes or Finder) or install the configuration profile, then update over the air. If you already have the profile installed on your iPhone, head over to Settings –> General –> Software Update to start installing the latest beta build, or you can wait until it installs automatically if "Automatic Updates" is enabled.

Just updated your iPhone to iOS 18? You'll find a ton of hot new features for some of your most-used Apple apps. Dive in and see for yourself:

Cover image by EverythingApplePro/YouTube; screenshots and GIF by Jake Peterson/Gadget Hacks

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