Today, Apple has seen fit to release the first beta of watchOS 4.2 and tvOS 11.2 to developers for testing purposes. The two betas have been released more than a month after the company rolled out tvOS 11 and watchOS 4 to the general public. One thing to note here is that tvOS 11.1 and watchOS 4.1 is still in the beta phase. So let's dive in to see some more details on what the new beta versions of the upcoming operating systems for the Apple TV and Apple Watch have to offer.
Apple Has Released The First Beta Of tvOS 11.2 And watchOS 4.2 To Developers
watchOS 4.1 will be the very first major update after the company rolled out its next-generation firmware for the Apple Watch in September. At this point in time, it's not yet clear what the new watchOS 4.2 beta has to offer or what forward-facing feature is it bringing to the table. For what we can speculate at this stage is that it could potentially carry support for Apple Pay Cash. Apple Pay Cash is the company's P2P payment feature, which we will see in the upcoming updates.
However, if you're interested to give it a go, you can install the watchOS 4.1 beta from the Apple Developer Center once the proper profile is installed. The watchOS 4.1 beta can be downloaded from the dedicated Apple Watch app on your iPhone by navigating to General and then Software Update. Do make sure that you follow the prerequisites right for the installation process.
In terms of tvOS 11.2. the notes accompanying the new beta firmware release suggests that it fixes various bugs related to the new 4K support. It also adds new 4K features which include the automatic mode switching to the native frame rate and dynamic range of the video content on 4K Apple TV models.
tvOS 11.2 includes new features, bug fixes, and security improvements in the OS and SDK, including:
- Automatic mode switching to native frame rate and dynamic range of video content with Apple TV 4K
- Support for switching Apple TV 4K display output to SDR for apps that are GPU-bound when running in HDR
- Restoring Unwatched category in Home Sharing for Movies, TV Shows, and Home Videos
If you're interested in trying it out for yourself, the tvOS 11.1 beta can be installed in the fourth and fifth generation of the Apple TV models. You have to install the proper profile via the Xcode to complete the process. We will share more details with you guys on the new beta updates as soon as developers done tinkering with the firmware.
As for now, what are your views on the watchOS 4.2 and tvOS 11.2 beta? Do you think Apple will add any major feature in the upgrade? Let us know in the comments.
