New: Apple launches iOS 10, macOS Sierra and watchOS 3 Public Betas

TECH — You now no longer need a developer account to try the latest Apple software releases. The company today launched their Public Beta program for iOS, macOS, and watchOS. Sooo, if you’re looking to break your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch, today is your lucky day! Just make sure you backup your device with iTunes, for the love of Tim Cook, and also seriously don’t try this if you don’t have a backup device.

When + where: Grab the Apple device you want to update and go here. Make sure you backup with iTunes first, and turn on encryption if you want to keep your health data.

Here’s the basic run-down of new features from Apple press releases:

iOS 10

Personal & Expressive Messages
Messages is the most frequently used iOS app, and with iOS 10 it is more expressive and fun with animated and personalised ways to message friends and family. Messages includes powerful animations, such as balloons, confetti or fireworks that can take over an entire screen to celebrate a special occasion, invisible ink to send a message only revealed after a friend swipes over it, and for added personalisation, handwritten notes. Automatic suggestions make it easy to replace words with emoji, Tapback creates a quick and simple way to respond with just a tap and rich links let you see content inline and play media without ever leaving your conversation.

iOS 10 brings the power of the App Store® to Messages, opening up new opportunities for developers to create fun new ways for users to communicate in a thread, including stickers to be peeled and pasted into conversations, the ability to quickly personalise GIFs or edit photos, send payments or schedule dinner or a movie, all from within Messages.

Siri Opens to Developers
In iOS 10, Siri can be extended into major new areas and do more than ever by working with the apps you love to use. For the first time, developers can build on the intelligence Siri offers and let users interact directly with apps using just their voice. SiriKit™ helps developers easily design their apps to work with Siri for messaging, phone calls, photo search, ride booking, personal payments and workouts, or use Siri to control CarPlay® apps, access climate controls or adjust radio settings within automakers’ apps.

Beautifully Redesigned Maps
Maps in iOS 10 gets a beautiful redesign that makes it even simpler and more intuitive to use. Now open to developers with new extensions, apps like OpenTable can integrate bookings right into Maps, and services like Uber and Lyft can make it easier for users to book a ride, without ever leaving the Maps app. Maps is even smarter with new intelligence that proactively delivers directions to where you most likely want to go next, based on your routine or appointments on your calendar. Once a route is planned, Maps can search along the route for gas stations, restaurants, coffee shops and more and provides an estimate of how the stop impacts the length of your trip.

Rediscover Memories in Photos
Photos in iOS 10 helps you rediscover favourite and forgotten occasions from your photo library by automatically surfacing them in Memories. Memories scans all your photos and videos and finds favourite and forgotten events, trips and people, and presents them in a beautiful collection. A Memory also contains the Memory Movie, an automatically edited movie with theme music, titles and cinematic transitions.

Memories uses advanced computer vision to group the people, places and things inside your images into albums with on-device facial, object and scene recognition. This intelligence brings Memories and related photos to life in a way that’s personal and meaningful to you, while maintaining your privacy.

Home App for Simpler Home Automation
The Home app is deeply integrated into iOS, delivering a simple and secure way to set up, manage and control your home in one place. Accessories can be managed individually or grouped into scenes so they work together with a single command and can be controlled by using Siri. They can be managed remotely or set up for home automation with Apple TV®, and can respond with automatic triggers set by time of day, location or action.

Support for HomeKit™ continues to expand globally with nearly 100 home automation products adopting HomeKit this year, bringing support for thermostats, lights, window shades, door locks, video cameras and more to the Home app. Later this year, leading home builders, including Brookfield Residential, KB Home, Lennar Homes and R&F Properties, will begin integrating many of these HomeKit devices into new homes.

All-New Design for Apple Music & News
Apple Music has an all-new design, bringing greater clarity and simplicity to every aspect of the experience. It uses a new design language that allows the music to become the hero and a new structure that makes it easy to navigate and discover new music. The Library, For You, Browse and Radio tabs have been completely redesigned to provide an even greater sense of place, and we’ve added a Search tab to make finding music even easier. All of these changes come together to create a design that is clear and intuitive. iOS 10 features a redesigned News app with a new For You, organised into distinct sections that make it easier to find stories, support for breaking news notifications and paid subscriptions.

iOS Experience
In iOS 10, accessing the information you need is easier and quicker than ever. Raise to Wake automatically wakes the screen as you raise your iPhone®, making it easier to view all your notifications at a glance, right from the Lock screen. Notifications, Today view and Control Center are accessible with just a swipe or a press, and deeper 3D Touch™ integration with iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus makes interacting with apps even easier.

Additional iOS 10 Features
• Siri intelligence brings new QuickType® features, including contextual predictions to surface relevant information based on location, calendar availability or contacts; and predictive typing supports multiple languages without switching keyboards.
• Phone adds integration for third-party VoIP calls, voicemail transcription and a new caller ID extension for spam alerts.
• Built-in app updates include Safari® split-view for iPad®, Notes collaboration and Live Photos™ editing.
• Apple Pay® can now be used to make easy, secure and private purchases on participating websites using Safari, in addition to paying in-stores and within apps.
• Bedtime Alarm in the Clock app lets you set a regular sleep schedule and receive bedtime reminders.

macOS Sierra

Siri Debuts on the Mac
Siri on the Mac is now just one click away. The familiar features of Siri are now on the Mac with brand-new capabilities specifically designed for the desktop. Easily accessible from the Dock, menu bar or keyboard, Siri lets you use your voice to search for information, find files and send messages. For example you can ask Siri to locate a specific document you worked on last night, add a meeting to your calendar or start a FaceTime® call. With Siri on the Mac, you can also drag and drop items from Siri search results into your documents or emails, pin Siri search results in Notification Centre to keep an eye on information like sports scores or stock prices, and even adjust system preferences, set reminders and search your Photos library. With its debut on Mac, Siri is now on all four Apple software platforms — iOS, macOS™, watchOS® and tvOS™ — and handles two billion requests per week across 36 countries.

Your Desktop & Documents on All Your Devices
With macOS Sierra you can automatically have all the files on your Desktop and in your Documents folder on any Mac, iOS device or even PC. You simply save your files on your Desktop or within your Documents folder as you usually do and you will have them everywhere you need them. You can access your files on your iPhone and iPad in the iCloud Drive® app and on iCloud.com or the iCloud for Windows app. And when you log into a second Mac, your files are automatically on the Desktop and in the Documents folder, exactly where you saved them.

Copy & Paste Between Devices
Continuity across your Apple devices also gets better in macOS Sierra. With Universal Clipboard, the contents of your clipboard are available across all your Apple devices via iCloud. You can easily copy and paste text, images, photos and video between your Mac and your iPhone and iPad.

Tabs in Almost Every App
To help you navigate your Desktop with more efficiency, macOS Sierra takes the popular Tabs feature from Safari® and makes it available across Mac apps that support multiple windows, including Maps, Mail, Pages®, Numbers®, Keynote® and TextEdit, and even third-party apps. With Tabs you can browse multiple locations in Maps without losing your place, copy and paste between Pages documents in full screen, or quickly jump between multiple email drafts in Mail.

Picture in Picture on the Mac
You can now keep an eye on one thing while working on another. macOS Sierra lets you float video from Safari or iTunes® in a window over your desktop as you work, and even resize, drag and pin video to any corner of your screen. The video stays put when you switch spaces, so you’ll never miss a thing.

Shopping on Your Mac with Apple Pay
Users love to shop online using their Macs and with macOS the shopping experience in Safari is now even better. Apple Pay on the web makes it easy to make secure and private purchases when shopping on participating websites. You no longer need to share credit or debit card numbers with an online merchant and actual card numbers are not stored on your device, nor on Apple servers. Just look for the Apple Pay button at checkout on many of your favourite shopping sites and complete your purchase with Touch ID® on your iPhone or by using your Apple Watch®. Strong encryption protects all communication between your devices and Apple Pay servers, and Apple Pay does not track your purchases.

Rediscover Memories with Photos
The new Memories feature in Photos helps you rediscover favourite and forgotten moments deep in your Photos library by automatically creating curated collections of occasions like a first birthday party, wedding or family vacation. With new advanced computer vision, Photos now understands the people, places and things inside your images using on-device facial, object and scene recognition and location information to group images into albums. The People feature automatically groups your photos into Albums based on who is in them. Places now displays your photos on a world map so you can see where they were taken. And, perfecting your photos like a pro is now even easier with the new Brilliance tool, which pulls in highlights and adds contrast to enhance details throughout your images.

Additional macOS Features
• Auto Unlock lets you simply walk up to your Mac while wearing your authenticated Apple Watch and be automatically logged into your desktop.
• Optimised Storage frees up space when your Mac starts getting full by storing infrequently used items in iCloud and reminding you to delete used app installers, and even clearing out duplicate downloads, caches, logs and more.
• Messages makes conversations more interesting, now allowing you to preview web links and watch video clips within the app, post reactions like a heart, thumbs up and more directly onto a message bubble with Tapback, and use bigger emoji for more message impact.
• Apple Music® in iTunes makes it even easier to discover new music and browse exclusives and new releases.

watchOS 3

Instant Performance & Simple Navigation
It is easier and faster than ever to perform common tasks with watchOS 3, including replying to a message, starting a Workout or skipping a song. By pressing the side button, users can access the new Dock with their recent and favourite apps. Right from the Dock or the watch face, users can launch their favourite native and third-party apps instantly and have the latest information in the app already updated and ready for viewing. Similar to iOS, users can swipe up from the watch face for the new and improved Control Center, continue to swipe down for Notification Center and swipe left or right to easily switch out a watch face.

Fitness & Health
Motivation through social engagement is an important factor in changing fitness and health behaviour, and now with watchOS 3, it’s possible to share, compare and compete with friends, family or even a personal trainer. Users receive notifications about their friends’ progress, including completed Activity rings, finished workouts and earned achievements. Activity sharing is now directly connected to the Messages app, so users can communicate, motivate and celebrate with friends and family with new Smart Replies specially customised for Activity and Workouts. In watchOS 3, the Activity app experience is now optimised for wheelchair users. Wheelchair pushes contribute to all-day calorie goals, the “time to stand” reminder is now “time to roll” and there are dedicated wheelchair-specific workouts.

The all-new Breathe app encourages users to take moments in their day to do short deep breathing sessions. The beautiful, calming visualisation and haptic cues guide users through deep, full breaths in sessions lasting one to five minutes and on completion, they will receive a heart rate summary.

All-New Communication
Receiving and quickly replying to messages is more powerful and expressive in watchOS 3 with stickers, handwriting, full-screen effects and invisible ink, which reveals the message only after a friend swipes over it. Smart Replies are even faster as they are now available right in the message notification. When a more custom reply is needed, the new scribble feature allows users to quickly write words on the display and Apple Watch will convert the handwriting to text.

SOS in watchOS 3 enables people in critical situations around the world to initiate a call with emergency services through their iPhone® or while on Wi-Fi, and notify their emergency contact by simply pressing and holding the side button.

Watch Faces
Apple Watch is even more personal with new watch faces including Minnie Mouse, Activity and the simple and elegant Numerals. Even more apps can launch straight from the watch face including Workout, Music or Messages. Users can also now add complications to the Photo, Motion or Timelapse watch faces. It’s easier to customise watch faces and discover third-party apps with the new Faces Gallery in the Watch app on iPhone.