It brings wireless CarPlay to the iPhone, Google TFA, more

Feb 10, 2015 07:14 GMT  ·  By

Apple has kicked off a new development cycle on the mobile front, delivering the first iOS 8.3 beta to developers with a focus on wireless CarPlay support, scrollable emojis, and more.

Released without warning through the iOS Dev Center hours ago, iOS 8.3 is a new development branch adjacent to iOS 8.2, also unreleased to the public, but much closer to fruition.

The first visible changes

Apple usually leaves a lot of stuff to be discovered, but the release notes accompanying the software already reveal quite a lot about the beta. App Extensions now need an arm64 slice to run on 64-bit devices, with developers being told that attempts to run the armv7 slice on a 64-bit device will fail.

If the bundle contains a framework that both the app and the app extension link against, apps developed under iOS 8.3 will need to have an arm64 slice.

WatchKit has a known issue where creating an animated image using the UIImage method ignores the duration and plays back as fast as possible. A workaround is offered in the seed notes.

Wireless CarPlay is finally enabled. Users will soon be able to connect their iDevices to a CarPlay-enabled vehicle without tethering it. An issue involving the dialog that appears when connecting an iPhone to a CarPlay-compatible car is also listed.

Scrollable emojis, Google TFA

Outside the confines of Apple’s official changelog, developers are reporting that iOS 8.3 packs updated emojis in a scrollable interface. The change is mirrored in OS X 10.10.3, a beta of Apple’s desktop OS seeded recently through the Mac Dev Center.

Another change visible both in the desktop beta and the new mobile beta is two-factor authentication for Google accounts. Apparently, someone at Apple feels that security is paramount when it comes to logging in with Google credentials.

Registrants to the iOS Developer Program can download iOS 8.3 along with the first beta of Xcode 6.3 from the iOS Dev Center.