Following the public release of iOS 8.2 earlier this week with Apple Watch support, Apple is continuing development of iOS 8.3 by seeding the third beta on Thursday.
Developers registered with Apple can download the beta over-the-air on their iPhone or iPad or from the Developer Center. Apple says the update "contains bug fixes and improvements," but there's also new features.
Apple today seeded new iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3 betas to its registered developers and included in the former are more than half a dozen new Siri languages, 9to5Mac said.
When iOS 8.3 is released for public consumption this March, owners of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices will be permitted to converse with the voice assistant in Danish, Dutch, English for India, Russian, Swedish, Thai and Turkish.
Apple has seeded iOS 8.3 beta 2 to developers, now available to download over-the-air or from the Developer Center. Along with the iOS software, Apple has also seeded Xcode 6.3 beta 2 with Swift 1.2 for developers to begin using with their apps and a new beta for the Apple TV.
“Multiple people briefed on the plans” told 9to5Mac's well-connected Mark Gurman that Apple could soon launch the first-ever public beta program for its mobile operating system in an effort to help eradicate bugs that have traditionally plagued major iOS releases, especially iOS 8.
Tim Cook & Co. are said to release upcoming iOS 8.3 code-named Stowe as a public beta through the existing AppleSeed program in mid-March, matching the third iOS 8.3 beta for developers expected to release the same week.
Improved Siri voice is reportedly among the under-the-hood improvements in Apple's upcoming iOS 8.3 software update. Though a better-sounding Siri may not always be apparent to an untrained ear, Apple should be credited for consistently improving the voice assistant's speech synthesis capabilities.
Quick comparison of today's more natural-sounding Siri versus the original Siri from 2011 gives you a good indication of Apple's advances in this area.
And now with iOS 8.3 in tow, Apple's bound to boost Siri's speech synthesis further. Listen to the new and improved Siri voice in iOS 8.3 relative to iOS 8.1.1 and let us know what you think.
Monday morning, Apple somewhat unexpectedly seeded the first beta of iOS 8.3 to developers. Registered iOS developers can download the software through Apple's Dev Center portal.
The first beta of iOS 8.3 arrives just a week after seeding the fifth beta of iOS 8.2, which is also currently in testing and due for release soon.
BGR said recently that iOS 8.2 will arrive ahead of the Apple Watch launch in April so it's unclear what new features iOS 8.3 brings to iOS.
Not one, not two, but three major updates to iOS 8 — iOS 8.1, iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3 — are in tow for 2015, perhaps signaling that Apple is speeding up its iOS development process, Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac reported Monday.
This would represent a break from Apple's practice of releasing a major new iOS version each Fall, followed-up by a substantial update early in the following year.
Gurman was able to confirm the three upcoming iOS 8 releases via “a developer of a major hardware-connected iOS application” who shared with him their analytics, in addition to traces of iOS 8.1, iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.3 spotted in Google Analytics for 9to5Mac.com.