Apple has released a new beta build to developers 2 days ago in August 6 and it includes a few interesting changes, with the biggest one being the removal of the YouTube app from all iOS devices except the Apple TV running the new iOS 6 Beta version(4).
Developers installing the new iOS 6 Beta 4 on their devices found out that the YouTube app has vanished from their home screen. Apple issued a statement to The Verge claiming that the license to run the YouTube App in iOS has ended. It’s not clear yet what caused this change but we believe that Apple simply wants the new iOS 6 firmware to be as Google-free as possible, since they also replaced Google Maps with their new map system in the Maps app. Apple also confirmed that YouTube will still work in Safari and also noted that Google is making a new YouTube app that will be available in the App Store.
Apple also included a little surprise to Developers reading the Changelog. This is what the Changelog said:
“As of iOS 6, embedded YouTube URLs in the form of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 will no longer work. These URLs are for viewing the video on the YouTube site, not for embedding in web pages. Instead, the format that should be used is described here: https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters.”
The YouTube link linked in the changelog is Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, known to many as the Rickroll.
Another feature new in this build is that the iPhone Simulator available to Developers now scales up to a resolution of 1136x640 along with a new fifth row for apps. For comparison, the current resolution of the iPhone 4 and 4S is 960x640 and offers four rows for apps in the homescreen.
Here’s a picture of the new resolution courtesy of 9to5Mac(click for full size) :
Other new features in this build are a new Wi-Fi Plus Cellular toggle in the Settings app allowing apps having trouble with the Wi-Fi network the device is connected to to automatically fall back to cellular data, new “App Store” button on the welcome screen of the Passbook app (the button does not currently function, but it will presumably take users to a dedicated section of the App Store for apps that integrate with Passbook), new listing for Bluetooth Sharing on The dedicated Privacy section in the Settings app to help monitor and control which devices can share data via Bluetooth and last but not least, new 3D data in the Maps app for cities in the US, UK and France.
The last we wanna tell you about in this article is the expiry date set on this build of the iOS 6 Beta.
Beta builds include an expiry date that force anyone running a beta firmware past the expiry date update to the latest firmware available (either beta or final), iOS 6 Beta 3’s expiry date was Semptember 30th and iOS Beta 4’s expiry date is unchanged, it is still September 30th, which means Apple will probably release a a new firmware before Septemeber 30th and along with new resolution available, it straightens the Septemeber 12th media event rumor.