iOS 14 Beta 4! What's New Review

**Exploring iOS 14 Developer Beta 4: What’s New and Improved**

In this article, we will take an in-depth look at the latest features and changes introduced in iOS 14 Developer Beta 4. This beta version reflects Apple's ongoing efforts to refine and polish the operating system as it approaches its final release later this year.

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### Initial Impressions: Polishing and Refinement

As we dive into iOS 14 Beta 4, one of the most noticeable changes is the overall polish and refinement in both design and functionality. While earlier betas introduced significant new features, Beta 4 feels more like a fine-tuning process, with smoother animations and fewer drastic overhauls.

One major change worth noting is the reinstatement of **3D Touch** for older devices. After being replaced by haptic touch in previous versions, 3D Touch has returned, offering faster and more responsive interactions on supported hardware. This decision is particularly welcome among users who found haptic touch too slow or less precise.

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### New Features and Adjustments

#### Display and UI Enhancements

- **Display Zoom Improvements**: The display zoom feature has seen significant updates. For example, the background in the preview window now uses iOS 14 wallpapers, which are more muted and visually appealing. Additionally, interactions with display zoom feel more refined, particularly on smaller screens like those on a potential 5.4-inch iPhone.

- **Lock Screen Enhancements**: The lock screen has undergone subtle but meaningful changes. Icons and buttons are now more proportional, with text sizes reduced for better readability on smaller displays. These adjustments hint at Apple's focus on optimizing the user experience for upcoming devices with compact screens.

- **Widget Updates**: One of the most anticipated features is the release of the **TV Widget**. This widget provides a sneak peek into what’s next on your favorite streaming service. Alongside this, clock and news widgets have been updated to prioritize world clocks and topics over cities or dates in their organization.

#### App-Specific Changes

- **Mail App**: Swiping through emails now displays a brownish-orange flag icon, bringing back a familiar feature from earlier iOS versions.

- **Maps App**: The search bar has been slimmed down for a cleaner look.

- **Weather App**: New icons for weather conditions, such as moon and clouds, have been introduced. Additionally, the low-brightness icon has been redesigned to be larger and more noticeable.

#### Siri and Dictation

A minor concern reported by testers is that when using dictation or Siri, the app no longer accurately displays where audio is coming from. While this might be a bug, it’s worth monitoring as Beta 4 progresses.

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### System-Wide Adjustments

- **Back Arrow Icons**: Throughout system menus, the back arrow has been made more compact and closer to the text, making navigation feel more streamlined.

- **Widget Customization**: The widget editing interface is now cleaner and more user-friendly. Everything is available on a single page, with color-coordinated backgrounds that match the app being edited (e.g., notes turn yellow).

- **Spotlight Search**: Spotlight search has become more efficient, delivering better-organized and relevant results.

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### Music App Updates

The music app has received several updates:

- A new splash screen video explains how to share music with friends via Apple Music.

- The "add" button is now smaller and less prominent, replaced by a subtle checkmark when an album is downloaded.

On iPads, users can now drag songs directly into playlists, making it easier to organize their music library.

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### Watch App and Podcasts

- **Watch App**: The front page now features orange text, while the chronograph pro defaults to white instead of blue.

- **Podcasts**: A welcome change is the reversion of blue text to black in podcast settings, improving readability.

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### Handwashing Reminders and Geekbench Scores

In watch settings, a new "Hand Washing" tab allows users to enable location-based reminders and set timers. Additionally, iOS 14 Beta 4 boasts a significantly improved multi-core score on Geekbench, indicating enhanced performance across the board.

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### Final Thoughts

While many of the fundamental changes in iOS 14 have already been established, Apple continues to iterate and improve with each beta release. The focus now is clearly on polish, refinement, and addressing potential issues. As we move closer to the final release, it’s evident that Apple is prioritizing user experience and functionality over drastic new features.

Stay tuned for further updates as we continue to explore iOS 14 Beta 4 and beyond!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up guys everything apple pro here ios 14 developer beta 4 is here let's go ahead and take a look at what's new you can definitely tell that apple is getting close to the final release of ios 14 here september october things are getting polished feeling better smoother and not as many changes this time around as most of the fundamental changes in ios 14 have been established but there are over 30 still to report on let's get into it first thing i wanted to mention is while searching for the features on beta 4 my device has been going into this weird dimmed state so i'm experiencing more overheating than usual and sometimes the screen will dim then pop back into normal brightness not sure if that's because i was charging it on max brightness and using it intensely but you may notice this a major change for older devices is apple has reinstated 3d touch so that is once again available more instant responses instead of the delay you get with haptic touch glad to see that apple has brought that one back and not nerfed that feature on your home screen when you have to touch on an app icon the edit home screen glyph as you can see is much more compact more in line with the other icons now in settings you'll notice a new tab for exposure notifications that's because apple has now activated the exposure notifications api within ios 14 beta this doesn't enable anything by default it just allows third-party applications to ask you for that api now throughout system menus you'll notice that the back arrow is slightly more compact closer to the text this is a system wide a couple adjustments to display zoom for one the background within the preview window here is now using the ios 14 wallpapers they're more muted and the actual overall interaction with the display zoom on has become better things look better for example on the lock screen notice how the lock icon is now proportional the buttons here slightly smaller the text smaller so you can tell that apple is working on the smaller displays and of course this is a precursor to the 5.4 inch iphone which will be using this zoomed interface also within the display in brightness settings notice the icon for the low brightness it's now been redone slightly larger and this extends into the weather application which has new icons as well for the sun so in here notice that the icons are now slightly smaller a little bit bolder rays apple has updated those oh and of course the sun sits on the opposite side now so it's mirrored not new to this beta but one i missed overall the folder background will adjust its color depending on what's behind it on the wallpaper fully so this is definitely a different effect than in ios 13. and apple has made available the final widget the tv widget which was teased during the reveal but finally has made an appearance so now we have all of them and hopefully with future ios versions we'll get even more this one just shows you what's up next and that's what that looks like on the home screen and the organization within the clock widget has been adjusted the first thing you'll see is world clock with city being last and same thing for the news widget first thing you'll see is topic with today being last when editing widgets the interface is much cleaner now centered and not scrollable everything's available in one page here also notice the background it's color coordinated heavily now depending on the color of the widget you're editing for example notes here notice everything goes yellow more so than before when searching in ios 14 beta 4 using spotlight search the organization of the results is much better you'll get more relevant results instead of just a static list here in mail when swiping on an email the flag icon has been reverted back to this brownish orange in maps the search bar has been slimmed down and within the weather and air quality index meter right here you'll see the new icons from weather in here also for example the icons right here with the moon and clouds are different on beta 4. i'm not sure if this is a bug or not but when using dictation or using siri you'll no longer get an accurate depiction of where the audio is coming from and for siri here usually on beta 3 it would show you not sure if that's an intentional change or bug and when opening reminders up for the first time you'll see an all-new splash screen this one says welcome to reminders instead of what's new in reminders with new icons and descriptions couple changes in apple news in the news plus category some slightly different promotional material and in the following tab a description on the search bar also within apple news now when haptic touching on an article you get the option to report a concern directly from the quick actions menu my new changes in the watch app some orange text on the front page and in the face gallery chronograph pro now starts with a default white color instead of blue within the music app there is a new splash screen video detailing how to share music with your friends in apple music within the album view you now have some adjusted buttons the add button is no longer highlighted in magenta slightly smaller more icon and when you have an album downloaded this is the new icon just a small check mark instead of the downloaded text when i missed from beta 3 on ipad in the music app you can actually take songs have to touch them and then drag them directly into a playlist of your choosing within sirian search settings in siri suggestions you'll notice the options here have been rearranged some of them changed and for the most exciting change of them all in the podcast settings the blue text has been reverted back to black and to finish off what i missed from beta 3 in your watch settings you'll have a new tab for hand washing where you can enable location based reminders and enable a hand washing timer here and here's that geek bench a significantly higher multi-core score on beta 4 although beta 3 has been pretty good to me on my personal device i like the smoothness and refinement you can tell that apple has slowed down on the features as mostly everything has been established in ios 14 already i'll let you know if there's anything bigger but i don't really see there being much changes from here on out of course we'll report thanks for watching guys stay tuned for the next one peacehey what's up guys everything apple pro here ios 14 developer beta 4 is here let's go ahead and take a look at what's new you can definitely tell that apple is getting close to the final release of ios 14 here september october things are getting polished feeling better smoother and not as many changes this time around as most of the fundamental changes in ios 14 have been established but there are over 30 still to report on let's get into it first thing i wanted to mention is while searching for the features on beta 4 my device has been going into this weird dimmed state so i'm experiencing more overheating than usual and sometimes the screen will dim then pop back into normal brightness not sure if that's because i was charging it on max brightness and using it intensely but you may notice this a major change for older devices is apple has reinstated 3d touch so that is once again available more instant responses instead of the delay you get with haptic touch glad to see that apple has brought that one back and not nerfed that feature on your home screen when you have to touch on an app icon the edit home screen glyph as you can see is much more compact more in line with the other icons now in settings you'll notice a new tab for exposure notifications that's because apple has now activated the exposure notifications api within ios 14 beta this doesn't enable anything by default it just allows third-party applications to ask you for that api now throughout system menus you'll notice that the back arrow is slightly more compact closer to the text this is a system wide a couple adjustments to display zoom for one the background within the preview window here is now using the ios 14 wallpapers they're more muted and the actual overall interaction with the display zoom on has become better things look better for example on the lock screen notice how the lock icon is now proportional the buttons here slightly smaller the text smaller so you can tell that apple is working on the smaller displays and of course this is a precursor to the 5.4 inch iphone which will be using this zoomed interface also within the display in brightness settings notice the icon for the low brightness it's now been redone slightly larger and this extends into the weather application which has new icons as well for the sun so in here notice that the icons are now slightly smaller a little bit bolder rays apple has updated those oh and of course the sun sits on the opposite side now so it's mirrored not new to this beta but one i missed overall the folder background will adjust its color depending on what's behind it on the wallpaper fully so this is definitely a different effect than in ios 13. and apple has made available the final widget the tv widget which was teased during the reveal but finally has made an appearance so now we have all of them and hopefully with future ios versions we'll get even more this one just shows you what's up next and that's what that looks like on the home screen and the organization within the clock widget has been adjusted the first thing you'll see is world clock with city being last and same thing for the news widget first thing you'll see is topic with today being last when editing widgets the interface is much cleaner now centered and not scrollable everything's available in one page here also notice the background it's color coordinated heavily now depending on the color of the widget you're editing for example notes here notice everything goes yellow more so than before when searching in ios 14 beta 4 using spotlight search the organization of the results is much better you'll get more relevant results instead of just a static list here in mail when swiping on an email the flag icon has been reverted back to this brownish orange in maps the search bar has been slimmed down and within the weather and air quality index meter right here you'll see the new icons from weather in here also for example the icons right here with the moon and clouds are different on beta 4. i'm not sure if this is a bug or not but when using dictation or using siri you'll no longer get an accurate depiction of where the audio is coming from and for siri here usually on beta 3 it would show you not sure if that's an intentional change or bug and when opening reminders up for the first time you'll see an all-new splash screen this one says welcome to reminders instead of what's new in reminders with new icons and descriptions couple changes in apple news in the news plus category some slightly different promotional material and in the following tab a description on the search bar also within apple news now when haptic touching on an article you get the option to report a concern directly from the quick actions menu my new changes in the watch app some orange text on the front page and in the face gallery chronograph pro now starts with a default white color instead of blue within the music app there is a new splash screen video detailing how to share music with your friends in apple music within the album view you now have some adjusted buttons the add button is no longer highlighted in magenta slightly smaller more icon and when you have an album downloaded this is the new icon just a small check mark instead of the downloaded text when i missed from beta 3 on ipad in the music app you can actually take songs have to touch them and then drag them directly into a playlist of your choosing within sirian search settings in siri suggestions you'll notice the options here have been rearranged some of them changed and for the most exciting change of them all in the podcast settings the blue text has been reverted back to black and to finish off what i missed from beta 3 in your watch settings you'll have a new tab for hand washing where you can enable location based reminders and enable a hand washing timer here and here's that geek bench a significantly higher multi-core score on beta 4 although beta 3 has been pretty good to me on my personal device i like the smoothness and refinement you can tell that apple has slowed down on the features as mostly everything has been established in ios 14 already i'll let you know if there's anything bigger but i don't really see there being much changes from here on out of course we'll report thanks for watching guys stay tuned for the next one peace\n"