It’s that time again. Soon after the end of Apple’s last round of betas the company has released a whole new one — enter iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, macOS 13.4, watchOS 9.5, and tvOS 16.5.
All of the new releases are available in beta right now, although it could be a few weeks before they’re available to everyone. That should give Apple and the beta testers time to get everything lined up, so let’s see what they’re going to be testing.
It’s still very early days for this set of betas, but we might see more changes as the beta numbers increase.
Finally, there’s talk of a new quad-screen streaming system coming to the TV app, although it’s likely to be available on all devices and not just the iPhone. Perfect for watching more than one game at a time.
iOS 16.5
We haven’t yet come across all that many changes with iOS 16.5, but there are some tweaks worth noting.
First, Apple has added a new Sports tab to the News app, moving the content out of the main feed and making it easier to find when you want it.
Next up is the fact that Siri can now start a screen recording for the first time. Just say “Hey Siri, start a screen recording,” and it’ll kick things off.
iPadOS 16.5
Users of the iPad are going to have to sit this one out for now, at least in terms of big new features that are available only for Apple’s tablets. The iOS 16.4 update added support for some cool things, like improved hover support. But there’s no sign of anything like that here just yet. The changes coming to iOS 16.5 mentioned above should apply here, though.
macOS 13.4
Jumping on the macOS 13.4 beta train? You might want to hold off for a little while. Apple’s release notes don’t mention anything in terms of new features, but they do mention a known issue that prevents people from updating the firmware on the Apple Studio Display.
Apple does have a workaround, at least. Users can install other updates by clicking the “More Info” button and then unchecking the Apple Studio Display update option.
We’d just avoid the beta for now unless you really can’t, though.
watchOS 9.5
At this point, it might not be a surprise when we tell you that new features in watchOS 9.5 are hard to come by. Maybe in the next beta?
Just to drive the point home — Apple says there are no release notes for this release.
For now, it’s all about watchOS 9.4 which added a fix that dealt with an alarming bug. That bug saw some wake-up alarms get canceled by accident, which is less than ideal. Cycle Tracking and AFib History also rolled out to more countries.
tvOS 16.5
Apple is never particularly forthcoming when it comes to saying what’s going on in tvOS updates, and tvOS 16.5 is no different. New features again seem to be lacking, although Apple does say that a shared admin in a Home can now add and pair Matter accessories for the first time. That’s in the release notes for iPadOS 16.5 as well.
More to come?
We expect plenty more betas to be released for these particular updates so there might be something more exciting in those. But Apple is likely turning its attention to WWDC23 and what will surely be the unveiling of the next big thing. That’ll include iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17 with all likely to be released in September of October.