14 DAY TRIAL // The second iOS 6 beta is out for registered Apple developers with tons of tweaks and enhancements, including one visually-pleasant change – moving gears in the Settings icon as the OTA update is performed.
Discovered yesterday evening as Apple pushed out the bits over the air (OTA), the cogwheels / gears inside the Settings application icon (in the OTA screen, not on the Springboard) are now animated when the update is being installed (video embedded below).
One would say it’s a useless thing to note, but Apple fans will surely be delighted by the change.
Moving on to the more useful changes, people privy to the software report that users are now greeted by a toggle to control Shared Photo Streams (displayed both in Photos and in iCloud settings).
Apple is now using the Twitter icon across the entire iOS, and TweetSheet inside Siri has been redesigned.
The Cellular settings page now features a toggle for syncing Reading List over 3G (previously available only in the Safari settings), and Calendar items now show ending dates in Notification Center.
Guided Access, a brand new feature in iOS, is now functional. The feature blocks some of the phone’s hardware our touch-screen functions to prevent the user from accidentally exiting an application, or changing the phone’s settings.
Smart Banners is also a go. The feature allows web sites to embed application ads that take users straight to the App Store, once clicked.
Passbook now features more passes, and “Wi-Fi Networking” has been added in the privacy tab to the list of system services that can determine your whereabouts.
Camera and Photos app are now grouped together in the data usage page, and the 3G toggle has been put back in the General settings for iPhone 4 users (not for iPhone 4S, though). And Photos allows users to create a new album at any given time by the tap of a button.
These are just some of the changes spotted in iOS 6 Beta 2 so far. We’ll be back with more coverage as soon as new features are discovered.
