Following Monday’s release of iOS 14.5 to the public, Apple is pushing ahead with beta testing of iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6. The company is now rolling out the second beta of these updates to developers, coming just over a week after beta 1 was released to developers and public beta users.
Update: iOS 14.6 beta 2 is also now rolling out to public beta users as well.
Today’s new release of the iOS 14.6 beta 2 is available to developers via an over-the-air update in the Settings app. As usual, if the update does not immediately appear for download, keep checking, as it sometimes takes a few minutes to roll out to all registered developers. The build number for today’s release is 18F5055b.
Apple is also rolling out the second beta of tvOS 14.6 and HomePod Software 14.6 to Apple TV and HomePod. Apple has also released the second beta of watchOS 7.5 to developers.
Thus far, iOS 14.6 does not feature many changes. In fact, the only change we’ve noticed so far is that iOS 14.6 makes it easier for beta users to install RC build and skip other available beta updates.
You can now directly update your iOS or iPadOS device to the latest Release Candidate without removing the beta profile. After updating to the Release Candidate, you can choose to update to the next available beta or uninstall the profile to remove your device from the beta program.
It’s also likely that iOS 14.6 includes new features in the Apple Podcasts app for the upcoming Apple Podcasts Subscriptions platform, which will launch sometime in May.
If you spot any changes in the iOS 14.6 beta or the other new releases from Apple today, let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @9to5Mac. Stay tuned for our full hands-on coverage with the new releases right here at 9to5Mac today.
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Apple Music is still the 'default' music app. But you can train Siri to remember what your preferred music service is over time. That way, when you ask it to play a certain song or playlist, you won't need to specify 'from Spotify' to get accurate results. The same principle applies to audiobooks and podcasts.
Whichever service you subscribe to, here's how to set your preferred music streaming service on an iPhone using iOS 14.5. Plus, you'll see how to do the same for your audiobooks and podcasts.
How to set a new preferred music app in iOS 14.5
(Image credit: Future)
Before we explain the steps, make sure to get iOS 14.5 on your iPhone. Otherwise, this trick won't work the way it should.
You may also need to go to Settings > Siri & Search and check how to grab the voice assistant's attention. In most cases, you can press and hold the power button or have your phone always listening for the 'Hey Siri' activation phrase.
Once that's out of the way, contact Siri and ask it to play a specific artist or song. A list of apps should appear, along with a message from Siri that it is 'learning how to choose the right audio apps for you'.
Choose the app you regularly listen to. If it is a non-Apple app, you'll likely be asked if you're willing to provide Apple with its third-party data. Say 'Yes' and it will start playing your requested song.
Now, ask to play a new song and don't specify an app. If Siri has accepted your preference, and your preferred app has the song in question, it will start playing music from that source instead of from Apple Music.
You can also have Siri learn your preferences for podcasts and audiobooks.
Which apps can you train Siri to prefer?
(Image credit: Future)
Only specific music or podcast apps can connect to Siri. YouTube Music, Spotify, Deezer and TuneIn Radio are just a few examples of apps where Siri can actually search them for the songs and podcasts you want to hear.
For other apps like Audible or Bandcamp, if you ask Siri to play something from it, you'll receive a message like 'Audible hasn't added support for that with Siri'. So your music preferences are limited to apps that play nice with Apple.
Why isn't Siri remembering my preferences?
Having tested this feature by making Spotify our preferred music service, we found that Siri initially defaulted to Spotify but reverted to giving us Apple Music results after a few requests. At that point, we had to go back to specifying 'from Spotify' at the end of our voice commands.
Don't despair if this happens to you. After a handful of Spotify requests, Siri went back to treating the third-party app as the default.
The main thing for you to remember is that your initial choice of a preferred app doesn't guarantee it will be the default. You need to convince Siri through repetition that you really want it to pull from that app first and foremost. Be patient, and eventually the feature will work more consistently.
One of Apple's biggest privacy changes in years has arrived in a software update you may barely even notice until after you install it on your iPhone. The new software, boringly named iOS 14.5, was released Monday. It includes the typical fixes you'd expect in a minor software update. Apple will now allow people to unlock their iPhone with their Apple Watch, which is handy when wearing a face mask in public to protect against the coronavirus. People using Apple Maps can also report accidents they see on the road. And of course there's new emoji, like a heart on fire, a dizzy face and an exhaling face.
Apple's move, which it delayed from its original plans to implement the privacy features late last year, mark the latest way the tech giant is attempting to live up to its advertising promise of offering software tools that guarantee better privacy.
Whether you think it's a genuine effort to embrace CEO Tim Cook's mantra that "privacy is a fundamental human right," or merely a way to kneecap competition while looking good to customers probably depends on how you feel about Apple.
But Apple is making these moves as people are reckoning with how the internet truly works. Between Facebook's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, seemingly unrelenting streams of hacking attacks and creepily well-targeted ads appearing on Google, Amazon and all manner of other sites we visit daily, users are starting to learn what they trade away for all those "free" services they use.
Buried deep in the agreements we all say yes to but almost never read, most tech companies have written in the right to surveil us on a level once thought possible only in science fiction. Companies can track us across the apps we use, sites we visit and shows we watch. They can learn where we spend our money and what we buy and pair that with the data from our closest friends to create rich profiles of who they think we are.
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As we've learned over the years, that data is worth unimaginable amounts of money. Facebook and Google may've kept their promise that they won't sell information about us to the highest bidder, but still, they have helped advertisers target us with shockingly precise advertising -- and Pew Research has found that many people feel that's bad.
In an interview with the Toronto Star on April 12, Cook said iOS 14.5 was created in part because he believes people should be asked to give consent to modern advertising techniques. In Apple's case, the new software will include a pop-up, asking users if they consent to allowing an app or company to "track" them "across apps and websites owned by other companies" in order to "deliver personalized ads to you."
"We think that some number of people -- I don't know how many -- don't want to be tracked like that," Cook said. "And they should be able to say they don't."
Though Apple's new iOS 14.5 privacy settings will push these issues front and center when they offer people an easy way to turn off more-invasive tracking, they won't put an end to the practice, though Google promises it's easing up a bit.
It's a pretty simple question: Do you want a smartphone app to track your digital activity across other apps and websites?
And yet it's a question most apps have never bothered to ask. As of this week, Apple is changing that.
The iPhone maker's smartphone software received an update Monday that is now asking users if they want to allow apps to track their digital activity. And while it might seem like a simple pop-up option, it's a change that has already sent shockwaves through the app economy — including at Facebook and Google, the internet’s two biggest ad businesses.
“What Apple’s doing is both totally revolutionary in shaking up the mobile app ecosystem, and it’s also really normal,” said Gennie Gebhart, a privacy researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco that advocates for privacy online.
The internet's evolution gave rise to tracking systems that started simply enough — what websites you visited — and evolved into a vast surveillance system in which just about any web activity is often logged, shared and sold. That includes activity on smartphone apps, and most of the time, this happened without tracking systems asking permission.
What will it mean for the smartphone now that apps have to ask? Let's dive in.
It’s centered around a four-letter acronym: IDFA, the Identifier for Advertisers. Consider it a license plate for your phone, Gebhart said. The IDFA is a string of characters that apps on an iPhone can use to watch certain activity without necessarily knowing a user’s name.
Now, for any app on an iPhone or iPad, Apple is requiring the app developer to ask your permission before using your IDFA. The question pops up for each app — similar to other privacy prompts.
April 27, 202101:06
"This is definitely the most aggressive step because this is changing the defaults," said Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy and tech policy for Consumer Reports. "That's what really matters."
Apple says the change is about transparency, and it has its own acronym for it: App Tracking Transparency, or ATT.
First, make sure your iPhone's software is updated to iOS 14.5. You can check that by going to the "Settings" app and tapping "General" and then "Software Update."
Once that's done, there are two main options. The first comes with the pop-ups. When you're in some apps, the iPhone will start asking if you want to allow the app to track you. If you say no, the iPhone will make sure that app doesn’t get data based on your IDFA. If you say yes, it will allow the app to collect information about your online habits.
The second option is to turn it off at once for all apps. Go to the "Settings" app again but this time tap "Privacy" followed by "Tracking" and then toggling "Allow Apps to Request to Track" to off. That means apps won't even be able to ask you to track your activity.
For people who think personalized ads are creepy, this is a way out — at least part of the way. You may see fewer ads that follow you around your phone, or that are based on your activity online or offline.
“This tracking was designed to be unseen and invisible, and now Apple is adding some visibility,” Gebhart said.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, at Apple Park in Cupertino, Calif.Handout / AFP - Getty Images
Privacy advocates say that some apps hoover up data without needing to, sometimes making money off it. They also argue that less tracking would change the online economy, possibly for the better.
Other than delivering personalized ads or content, the IDFA has no functional purpose, Gebhart said. “This is a feature that was never for users. It’s never worked in their favor,” she said.
Facebook isn't happy. The company relies on tracking users to serve targeted ads, and this change could mean that's harder for Facebook, the owner of four top iPhone apps. As recently as Wednesday, Facebook warned investors that Apple’s change would be a “headwind” for its ads business.
The social network has tried to put a positive spin on the situation, arguing that people would rather see personalized ads rather than random ones and that targeted ads benefit small businesses. It has blasted Apple for the design and wording of the pop-ups, and Facebook says it will display its own “educational screen” pop-up to users before presenting Apple’s prompt.
“The fact that Facebook’s panicking is a good sign that it’s probably going to work,” Gebhart said.
Aside from Facebook’s objections, the response from the ad industry hasn’t been much of a freakout. Apple gave the industry many months to prepare for this, and marketers couldn’t exactly come out in direct opposition to transparency. There may have been a sense that a crackdown was unavoidable given regulatory and consumer scrutiny over data generally.
“The way someone’s data was being sliced and diced by companies behind their backs just wasn’t sustainable,” the trade publication Digiday said.
Maybe. That depends in part on how Apple rolls out the feature so that users aren’t seeing a flood of notifications, adding to the pop-ups they already see when using a web browser or in other contexts.
“I’m really worried about notification fatigue,” Gebhart said. “These notifications come up at the exact moment when you’re trying to open an app.”
One early indicator came from AppsFlyer, a data firm that studied about 550 apps that used the Apple notifications early. Its preliminary research found that users opted to allow tracking by IDFA 39 percent of the time, but there was variation among apps, perhaps indicating how much people liked or trusted the brand.
Adweek, a trade publication, reported this week that marketers will take several routes, including preserving the information they already have and spending money to gain information directly from consumers, what’s known as “first-party data.”
Some of China’s biggest tech companies are testing their own tool to bypass Apple’s changes, The Financial Times reported in March.
“Any anti-tracker initiative is going to set off a cat-and-mouse game,” Gebhart said. But, she added, “That’s not a reason to not do this.”
That remains to be seen. Companies such as Facebook have certainly warned that Apple’s changes are a big step away from the ad-supported, often-free internet that has developed over the decades.
But it’s also possible that marketers find that mobile ads are still effective even without the targeting bonus provided by a near-universal IDFA.
If formerly free apps do start charging iPhone users, though, at least one company stands to benefit: Apple, which takes a commission on sales made through its app store.
Not yet, but changes may be coming to Android, the Google-owned operating system for phones made by Google, Samsung and others. Android has a counterpart to Apple’s IDFA, called Advertising ID, and while Android users can reset their identifier or opt out of personalized ads, they don’t get the reminders and prompts that Apple users do.
This month, the European privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint over the Android identifier, asking authorities in France to investigate the tracking of users, but any outcome could be a long way away. In the meantime, Google is testing a new way of ad-targeting on web browsers meant to be less invasive.
“To me, a lot of this has a ring of ‘Your move, Google’ to it,” Gebhart said, adding though that she’d be surprised, “pleasantly” so, if Google made a similar move.
Apple yesterday officially released iOS 14.5 with a new App Tracking Transparency feature, 200+ new emoji, the ability to unlock the iPhone using the Apple Watch while wearing a mask, and more. Now that iOS 14.5 has been available for 24 hours, what’s your favorite new feature in this update?
App Tracking Transparency is the most important feature Apple introduced in iOS 14.5. With it, users can opt out of being tracked by third-party apps across other apps and websites. In an interview, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi emphasized that the goal of App Tracking Transparency is merely to give users a choice over the sharing of their user data. The abuses of personal data, Federighi explained, can range from “creepy to dangerous.”
The ability to unlock the iPhone with the Apple Watch while using a mask is also one of the most requested features for users as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. It makes it easier to use the iPhone while wearing a mask. Here’s how to set up this function.
In iOS 14.5, Apple has added 200+ emoji. Most of them are support for different skin tones for each individual in couples emoji, and there are some others like the flaming heart, an updated syringe emoji, and the headphone emoji now replaced by an AirPods Max.
The Podcasts and Musicapps received some new tweaks as well. In iOS 14.5, Podcasts show pages are redesigned to make it easier to start listening to them, and there is a new option to save and download episodes, automatically adding them to your library for quick access. In the Music department, Apple finally rolls out a new “Share Lyrics” feature. Now, you can share just a snippet of one of your favorite songs on Instagram Stories. There’s a new City chart showcasing what’s popular in over 100 cities from all over the world.
Siri also received improvements in iOS 14.5. There’s a new Siri intelligence feature that helps the virtual assistant adapt to your preferred music application. Siri also no longer defaults to a standard female voice starting with iOS 14.5. It has two additional Siri voice options from which to choose. Apple has said that these changes are part of its ongoing commitment to diversity.
With all that available in iOS 14.5, what’s your favorite new feature in it? Vote in the poll and use the comment section below as well.
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Here's every rumor about iOS 15 we've heard so far and every educated guess we can make, including when it may be available to download, and what new features we may see.
Apple typically reveals new versions of iOS at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Last year's virtual WWDC started on June 22, and we got our first look at iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and MacOS Big Sur. This year, WWDC 2021 will again be all virtual, and will take place June 7-11.
After the new iOS is announced, it becomes available to developers for testing and, usually later in the summer, as a public beta.
The final version of iOS 15 is likely to launch in September, alongside the iPhone 13. Even though last year, the iPhone 12's release was delayed to October due to the pandemic, we still saw iOS 14 released in September. So it's a pretty good bet that iOS 15 will follow the same schedule.
CNET Apple Report
Stay up-to-date on the latest news, reviews and advice on iPhones, iPads, Macs, services and software.
Device compatibility: iOS 15 will probably work on iPhone 7 and later
The only rumor we've heard about device compatibility so far is that iOS 15 will require an iPhone 7 or later, according to Israeli site The Verifier and French site iPhoneSoft. That's not a huge surprise, since the iPhone 6 models are now more than five years old, and run on the A9 chip. It seems that iOS 15 will require devices with an A10 chip, which include the iPhone 7 and beyond, and the seventh-gen iPod Touch.
New iOS 15 features: Upgrades to notifications and autoreply, changing default apps, making widgets interactive
iOS 14 added widgets that you can customize in smart stacks. iOS 15 will likely add more widget capabilities.
GIF by Jason Cipriani/CNET
We won't have a good idea of what features are actually coming to iOS 15 until it's actually unveiled at WWDC 2021. Since iOS 14 was a large update, it's possible that iOS 15 will make fewer changes, and instead build on the base iOS 14 set up and improve its functionality.
An April 22 report from Bloomberg said that iOS 15 will include upgrades to notifications, new device privacy protections, an updated lock screen and a redesigned iPad home screen with widgets. Users will be able to set different notification preferences depending on their current status (for example, driving, working or sleeping), and have the option to set automatic replies for each situation, according to the report. Apple is also working on changes to iMessage, with the goal of turning it into more of a WhatsApp competitor, though that may come later, the report said.
PhoneArena also predicts that iOS 15 will make widgets interactive, the way they are on Android, which would let you do things like change volume or toggle things on and off. We may also see more widget size options, the site reported.
The iPhone 13 is rumored to have an always-on display, similar to the Apple Watch. While this is a hardware change, iOS would also likely change to accommodate it, possibly by updating the lock screen to display notifications in a different format, according to PhoneArena.
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iOS 15 download instructions: The same as always
If you're part of Apple's developer program, you'll likely be able to download the iOS 15 developer beta after the new OS is announced in June to test your apps. The OS will likely be available to download as a public beta later in the summer (it was in early July for iOS 14), so you could download it then if you like, but be warned: Betas are usually buggy, and we don't recommend that you download it on your primary device.
Once iOS 15 is generally available, which we expect to be in September, Apple will likely send a notification letting you know you can update. Or, you'll be able to do it manually, by going to the Settings app > General > Software Update.
In spite of redesigning its Podcasts app with iOS 14.5, long-standing bugs within the app persist, and Apple has introduced a range of new crippling usability problems, according to hundreds of reports from users across Twitter and Reddit.
Apple's iOS 14.5 update, accompanied by iPadOS 14.5 and macOS Big Sur 11.3 brought a major overhaul of the Podcasts app, including a new design, a re-thought system of "following" shows instead of "subscribing," a new centralized location to change new episode notifications, in-app paid podcast subscriptions for the first time, and more.
Apple's Podcasts app has been infamous among some podcast enthusiasts for its range of long-standing bugs and unreliability. Such bugs have included skipping playback, inaccurate timestamps, skewed UI elements, and unresponsive scrolling.
One of the most bemoaned aspects of Apple's Podcasts app has been its issues with syncing, where users have found that the app outright fails to sync episodes added to a library, individual podcast settings, and listened to episodes across devices.
Apple sometimes gets an unfairly bad rap for its cloud services—iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive both work well—but whatever they’re doing to sync podcast state across devices is an unmitigated disaster and has been for years. — Jim Wong (@james_d_wong) April 29, 2021
How many updates do Apple need to release for Podcasts to make the thing sync between devices? What’s the point of putting it on Apple Watch, iPad , iPhone, TV etc if none of it ever bloody syncs? How is it everyone can seem to add sync to stuff like this apart from Apple?! — Andy (@AndyNicolaides) April 15, 2021
Such problems have supported the rise of some third-party podcast apps such as Overcast, Pocketcasts, and other apps that do not have so many debilitating bugs.
Some users hoped that the overhaul of Podcasts in iOS 14.5 would put an end to these long-suffered problems, but the updated app seems to have included a range of crippling new issues for some users, in addition to the previous problems that have not been resolved.
After the iOS 14.5 update, the Apple Podcasts app is now an active obstacle to listening to podcasts. 🤦♂️ — Velma Dinkley (@marlapropism) April 28, 2021
The new iOS 14.5 Podcasts app is a serious regression. They’ve removed most of the features to bring it down to par with the awful Spotify player. — Ryan Poole (@rmp135) April 27, 2021
The biggest problem seems to be related to Apple's re-thought system of following Podcasts, which has replaced subscribing and adding episodes to the library.
For some users, the Podcasts app is now adding and downloading every unlistened episode of every followed podcast to users' libraries, in some cases stretching back years and many hundreds of episodes.
Updated to iOS 14.5 and the Podcasts app got a facelift! It also reset all my download preferences to download every episode ever of every podcast I subscribe to. 🤦🏻♀️ — teenerd ☂︎ (@tinaburnell) April 28, 2021
iOS 14.5 Podcast app brought all old episodes that I did not listen, either deliberately or because of timing, back to the feed. So annoying 🤦🏻♂️ ugh. — N Koh 🐝 (@nakgon_co) April 26, 2021
Some users are reporting that having hundreds of old episodes added to their device is also using massive amounts of mobile data.
The only way to practically use the app for affected users is to manually mark every unplayed episode of every podcast a user subscribes to as played, one by one. Worse still, users will have to continue marking every episode of a podcast that they do not want to listen to as played in order to remove it from view.
So Apple Podcasts app in ios 14.5: i want to hide already played episodes and you didn’t bring over the list of episodes i’ve heard from ios 14.4 so now i have to go through hundreds of episodes and mark each one as played and there’s no bulk way to do that. nice. @AppleSupport — John Martinetto (@bigjohn) April 27, 2021
Since you can no longer add an individual podcast to your library, you can also no longer remove a podcast from your library, leaving countless episodes in users' lists with no way of removing them from view except marking them as played and toggling "Hide Played Episodes" on in Settings.
It is not yet clear if this is intended behavior, at least in part. Apple has fundamentally changed the way in which podcasts exist within a library in iOS 14.5. There is no longer a library that users can add episodes to. This means that the "library" side of podcasts that users now see is effectively the direct view of feeds, with all episodes on display, rather than what they have chosen to add or remove themselves.
Since Apple has hamstrung the library feature in iOS 14.5, effectively removing the ability to add or remove episodes, there is even greater confusion among users about how to remove or delete the hundreds of newly-added episodes.
How do you delete played podcasts on ios 14.5
😭😭 plz help. I’m going crazy. — Kath (@Kath_146) April 27, 2021
I'll pay you a thousand dollars if you can tell me how to delete a podcast with the new iOS update. Sweet merciful lord of christ. — Paul West is Vaccinated (@PaulMWest) April 26, 2021
If the hundreds of added episodes are intended, it seems to be a significant oversight, considering that most users do not want every unplayed episode of every podcast they follow in their library.
The new system is fine for listening to podcasts like watching a TV show, with podcasts such as Apple's "The Line," where users need to start from the first-ever episode and listen in chronological order, never skipping an episode. But for many types of podcasts, such as news podcasts, where it is pointless to listen to older episodes and users may want to sometimes skip an episode, it is actively obstructive.
All in all, many of these problems seem to be design changes rather than overt bugs, brought on by Apple's virtual removal of the concept of an individual podcast library. Separate issues such as a bug preventing episode limits from working have only exacerbated this problem.
Other, more simple design changes in iOS 14.5's Podcasts app have also met the wrath of users. Apple has removed the "recently updated" tab and the ability to see how many unplayed episodes there are per show. Podcasts are also now sorted by the order in which they were originally followed by default.
@AppleSupport Updated to iOS 14.5. Apple Podcasts has lost ‘recently updated’ making the app a complete mess — Professor Popcorn (@profpopcorn) April 27, 2021
In Apple’s infinite wisdom, the Podcast app in iOS 14.5 now sorts by date subscribed by default. — Chris O'Brien (@bigdweeb) April 26, 2021
I'll probably be switching to something else unless I can find a way to quickly view all the podcasts I follow and when they were last updated like you used to be able to do easily in the "library" tab. — Justin Yarbrough (@FatElvis04) April 26, 2021
iOS 14.5 bummer. They removed the Episodes list from Podcasts and no longer show how many unplayed ones there are for each show in the Shows view. — A T L W X (@atlwx) April 26, 2021
Yet there are also a number of newly-reported defects that join the pre-existing spate of bugs, such as crashing and long library load times.
Updated to iOS 14.5 and now my podcast app says “updating library” for 10 minutes now @AppleSupport — LOCAL TEEN (@localteenmicah) April 27, 2021
Some users are reporting that their custom Podcast Stations are now virtually defunct, with Stations failing to aggregate the selected episodes correctly, while others are reporting an inability to find unplayed episodes in the new design and problems loading new episodes.
Literally can’t find my unplayed podcasts in iOS 14.5. Not sure what Apple were thinking with the Shows changes in Podcasts but it’s a car crash of UX. — Rich Paul (@richpaul) April 27, 2021
@AppleSupport Since iOS 14.5 latest version podcasts does not load new episodes, some are missing at all. — Léon Dekkers (@LeonDekkers) April 22, 2021
All of these design complaints and reports of new bugs come alongside many of the pre-existing problems with marking as played and syncing.
@AppleSupport - Podcast app on iOS 14.5 has a TON of episodes across MULTIPLE podcasts that now show as not played. Worse still, I just finished marking a bunch played for one podcast and now it isn’t syncing to my iPad even though sync is enabled. — A T L W X (@atlwx) April 26, 2021
There are countless complaints about the new Podcasts app on various social media platforms and MacRumors editors have also been subjected to many of the same problems that are being reported.
The best thing that users affected by the plethora of issues in the Podcasts app can do is share feedback with Apple.
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