Apple Releases iOS 9.2
by Brandon Chester on December 8, 2015 1:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- Tablets
Today Apple released iOS 9.2 to iPads, iPhones, and iPods worldwide. The update is another incremental release, improving on features and removing bugs that are still lingering since the release of iOS 9 earlier this year. This time around, Apple's change log is fairly substantial, and it looks like there's a bit more detail on some of the major bugs and stability fixes being made, which are often not highlighted in the list included with the OTA update.
One notable feature addition in the update is support for Mail Drop in the Mail application, which allows you to send attachments that are several gigabytes in size by storing them in iCloud. It's a bit surprising that Mail Drop has taken so long to make its way over to iOS, but the relatively small size of the files that iOS users would have been attaching in the past may have played a role. With support for recording and editing UHD video on newer devices the feature has become more relevant.
The Music app sees a number of improvements relating to Apple Music as well. You can now download albums or playlists to local storage from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud button next to their listing in the app. There's also an indicator to let you know whether tracks are stored locally or being streamed from the cloud. Apple has also improved the display of metadata for classical music, with listings for works, composers, and performers, along with a few additional UI and functionality changes.
Other notable changes include support for 3D Touch in iBooks on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, a new Top Stories section in Apple News, and support for Siri in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
As for the bug fixes and improvements, there are a great number of them and I can't list them all here. Some of the ones that stand out to me are a fix for a bug that would disable alarms when updating iOS, which is something that caused a number of people who rely on their phone alarms to not be woken up when iOS 9.1 was released. They've also fixed an issue where the iPad keyboard would randomly trigger the text selection mode, which is something that I've encountered myself. Other fixes include layout changes to the calendar app to fix a bug that prevented all seven days of the week from showing up in the week view,
On the hardware and software side, the update brings one final change which is support for Apple's new USB Camera Adapter. This product was just released today, and it improves on the older camera adapter by supporting USB 3 transfer speeds on the iPad Pro, and bringing support for iPhones which were previously not supported. The old lightning camera adapter should now also work with the iPhone 5 and up, but it appears that the 30pin version is still limited to iPads, and all versions of the iPod Touch are left off the support list.
iOS 9.2 is rolling out now, and by the time you read this you should be able to download it to your device by visiting the software update section of the iOS settings application. The size of the OTA update on an iPhone 6s is 271MB, while on an iPad Mini 4 it's 260MB. When updating, you can view the full change log for the update by clicking on the learn more button underneath the update highlights.
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nathanddrews - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
So is Apple going to bring iOS up to 10, then merge it with OSX and go ARM/X86 hybrid the same way Microsoft is currently doing it with Windows 10?melgross - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
No.tipoo - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
What would that even entail, in your vision? OSX and iOS already share a similar UNIX core, with only some extra touch APIs and some pruning back from OSX, on iOS. What would it mean to "merge" them then? They're already tailored to touch or non-touch environments.If you mean Surface like hybrids, Apple has made it pretty clear they see the iPad Pro as their alternative to that, whether you like it or not.
melgross - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
Apple has stated, numerous times that they won't be doing what Microsoft is attempting, because according to what they know, people don't really want it (and we can see that by the tiny sales of Win Phone and Surface tablets, and it would be a mess.I see no reason to disbelieve that. What they are doing is bringing the two more together in usage modes, and having files and conversations automatically move from one device to another so that they can be worked on anywhere. You don't need the same OS on all machines to do that.
And Win Phone is not Windows. X86 apps will never work on it. It's a one way street, so it's not really combining into one OS no matter what they say, and no matter how they make the UI Look the same. You might remember that "Windows Everywhere" is an old thing for Microsoft, and it's never been true. Win Mobile, for example, also looked like Windows, and Microsoft insisted that it was, but it wasn't.
shabby - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
Apple says a lot of things, in the end if it'll make them more money they'll do it.chinajon - Friday, January 1, 2016 - link
You say this like it was a bad thing. Should they do stuff which will make them less money?Leonick - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
Apple also stated a smaller iPad wouldn't be any good and that no one was going to buy phones with larger screens so I wouldn't write it off just like that...But yea, I don't think there is a big reason to merge iOS and OS X. Having a more proper keyboard dock for a future iPad Pro (essentially a laptop when docked with a proper hinge on it) could be really nice, especially if mouse/pointer became an input option but iOS can handle that, no need to run OS X or merge them.
Michael Bay - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
Surface is making a profit and selling more year over year.Perhaps you should start reading something beside Apple propaganda.
robinthakur - Monday, December 14, 2015 - link
So what if it's making a profit? How much profit is it actually making MS, and how much has the Surface Program cost them upto now? Their latest figures from October showed Surface revenue fell from $908 million to $672 million. How much of that is profit, is not known, and neither are the unit sales figures published. I do like my Surface Pro 3, but it has been swapped out 3 times for different faults each time. Stuff like that will eat into their profit, assuming it's not just me its happening to. I also know lots of people who wanted a surface, but got sticker shock once they'd priced up the spec they wanted and then ended up buying something cheaper from Lenovo et al.bull2760 - Thursday, December 10, 2015 - link
Try reading up on UWP (Universal Windows Platform). A UWP app can run on any Windows-based device, including phones, tablets, and PCs. https://dev.windows.com/en-us/develop