My iOS 13 Beta 2 Observations

My iOS 13 Beta 2 observations are here. Quite a few notes of interest.

Upgrade experience and general feeling

1. Free space went from 172 GB to 179 then to 168 GB since my upgrade to iOS 13.
2. Updating from iOS 12.3.1 took 30 minutes on my 2018 iPad Pro.
3. Lots of icons and home screen reorganization is required to take advantage of icon grid density.
4. Applications start faster for sure and make the user experience even more enjoyable.
5. Long pressing on objects or links invoke actions like 3D touch. This is a welcomed addition on the iPad.

Look and design

1. Icon density on the iPad home screen is surprising at first.
2. Icons definitely look different because of the use of SF Symbols. They are definitely not as sharp as they would if they were a simple bitmaps.
3. On/Off switches have a different look. I like them.
4. Multitasking is better but slide over is hard to get rid of. Sliding up the card is the way I do it but this is, in fact, killing the app. Still trying to figure this one out.
5. Share sheets are greatly improved but they can be very slow to show up, sometimes as slow as they used to be pre-iOS 12. Not good. Filling report for this one too.
6. The dark mode still buggy and third-party apps without support for it makes the experience less than enjoyable.
7. I really have to rethink my widgets ordering now that they can sit on the home screen.

If you depend on Notes

1. Notes.app still buggy at times, syncing not always working with macOS still on Mojave.
2. In Notes.app, we can share a folder of notes, not only a single one which can be really useful.
3. Drawings in notes have to be updated to a new format… iOS 12 devices won’t be able to use them after upgrading them. I hate those transition periods.

And the rest

1. Google wants to use Bluetooth alert, denied! YouTube wants to use Bluetooth alert, denied. Why on earth do these apps require Bluetooth access?
2. Favourites are broken in Files.app, should file a bug report. The first one I guess.
3. A few display glitches on the home screen while widgets displayed. That is expected.
4. Mail.app definitely feels different, better in general.
5. Updating apps is not as direct as before as we lose the Updates tab. I’m not sure we way I prefer.
6. The sleeper hit is Mobile Safari with desktop-class browsing experience
7. I had to reboot my iPad once in order to fix instabilities.
8. Taking a screenshot from the corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil is so nice. Really liking this one as I don’t need to press any buttons.

All in all, iOS 13 beta 2 is a surprisingly stable release. I’m currently updating my iPhone 7 as I’m writing this blog post. Hoping for a similar experience. Stay tuned. I’ll have more to write about the Photos app and Files Apps soon.