Nearly two week after Apple seeds the third iOS 8.3 beta and more than a month after the first iOS 8.3 beta, Apple makes available to public today the fourth version. The latest beta is available for download from the iOS Developer Center and along with this is the Xcode 6.3 beta 4.
These betas are limited to 100,000 beta testers worldwide to maintain the exclusivity of the product. The release of these betas allow non-developers to experience the new iOS and its versions and for them to allow submit concrete feedbacks before the official public introduction for a wider consumer use. These trends of beta releases is Apple's answer to previous criticisms that the company fails to limit the glaring mistakes in iOS 8 for their lack of beta tests.
The latest iOS 8.3 beta is codenamed Stowe and its first version was out on early February. In general, the iOS 8.3 beta make a lot of additions to emoji with skin modifiers. Aside from emoji, several Siri languages are introduced, ApplePay for China UnionPay users, Google log-in services and CarPlay connectivity are incorporated within the betas.
Macrumors reports that the fourth iOS 8.3 beta allows iMessage filtering which allows users to separate messages from those found in the Contacts from those received from strangers (labelled as "Unknown Sender").
The constant beta tests of iOS 8 spur rurmors and speculations of the apparent arrival of iOS 9 any month from now and earlier than expected. In fact, TechTimes reports that iOS 9 previews in the summer and debuts at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Moreover, the final release of iOS 9 is set this coming fall. The new iOS 9 is codenamed Monarch and improvements focus mainly on stability and optimization particularly on performance fixes along with several enhancements. Furthermore, there are speculations on adding new features but the same is not yet confirmed by Apple nor elaborated by recent iOS 9 leaks.
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