The Xcode 8.3 IDE also received a Beta 2 milestone

Feb 7, 2017 03:20 GMT  ·  By

Apple has seeded earlier today the second Beta builds of the upcoming iOS 10.3, tvOS 10.2, and watchOS 3.2 operating systems to registered developers, along with the Xcode 8.3 Beta 2.

While the iOS 10.3 and tvOS 10.2 Beta 2 builds come two weeks after the January 24 release of the first Betas, watchOS 3.2 Beta 2 is here only one week after its first Beta milestone, and it looks like Apple decided to postpone the Beta 2 of its upcoming macOS 10.12.4 Sierra operating system for a day or so.

The new Betas are now available from your Apple Developer account and have been tagged as build 14E5239e for iOS 10.3 Beta 2, build 14W5231d for tvOS 10.2 Beta 2, build 14V5214d for watchOS 3.2 Beta 2, and build 8W120l for Xcode 8.3 Beta 2, which includes the latest iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS Beta SDKs (Software Development Kits).

Swift 2.3 no longer supported in Xcode 8.3

As for the changes, we'll start with Xcode 8.3 Beta 2, which deprecates support for the Swift 2.3 programming language. Apple recommends developers to migrate their projects containing Swift 2.3 code to Swift 3 syntax by opening the respective project and choosing Convert -> To Current Swift Syntax from the Edit menu.

Xcode's debugging, simulator, organizer, FileMerge, and testing areas received various small improvements described in the release notes attached to your Apple Developer account. We'll continue with watchOS 3.2 Beta 2 as it only addresses two SiriKit issues discovered since the first Beta release.

There aren't any details about the changes implemented in the tvOS 10.2 Beta 2 build, but Apple says that it will be a major update with accelerated scrolling support for TVMLKit and UIKit apps, support for Apple File System (APFS) and the VideoToolbox framework, as well as Device Enrollment Program and Expanded Mobile Device Management support.

Finally, iOS 10.3 Beta 2 includes various small fixes for iCloud backup and analytics, making nightly backups to no longer fail with the "Some files were unavailable during the last backup" error message, improves support for managed and shared devices, as well as the Xcode simulator.

As expected, numerous other known issues remain unresolved in this second Beta release of iOS 10.3, watchOS 3.2, tvOS 10.2, and Xcode 8.3, so we recommend checking out the release notes for each build before updating from Beta 1. To update, simply use the integrated OTA (Over-the-Air) system on your registered devices.

If you are updating an Apple Watch to watchOS 3.2 Beta 2, please keep in mind that you will have to update your iPhone device to iOS 10.3 Beta 2 first. Public Beta 2 versions of iOS 10.3 are expected in the next 24 hours or so, when Apple should also seed the second Beta build of the macOS Sierra 10.12.4 operating system. We'll keep you guys informed as soon as that happens.