Apple releases iOS 14 public beta with widgets, all-new home screen and more

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Published on July 9, 2020

by Pradeep Viswav

published on July 9, 2020

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At WWDC, Apple announced iOS 14 that will be available for iPhones in the coming months. After weeks of developer beta testing, Apple today announced the public beta release of iOS 14. The iOS 14 beta comes with several new features including the new home screen experience, improved Siri, new Translate app and more. You can read about some of the features below.

App Library: This feature automatically organizes apps installed in the iPhone. It organizes the apps based on category and other factors.
Widgets: This is basically Windows 10 Live Tiles experience. You can place widget anywhere in your home screen. And you can also resize the widgets. You can browse through the widgets in the widgets gallery and add your favorite ones.
Picture in Picture support: This feature is available already in Android. As you can expect, you can keep watching videos while you are working inside other apps.
Improved Siri: Instead of launching full-screen experience all the time, Siri can now provide you answers in a small pop-up window without interrupting your workflow. Siri can now send audio messages. Also, you can now use on-device dictation feature through Siri.
Translate: New Translate app that works completely offline. Supports 11 languages at start. Supports text, audio and conversation mode.
Messages app update:
- Conversations: You can now pin conversations to the top of your message list.
- Memoji: New customization features including face covering and age options.
- Groups: Inline replies, Mentions and improved UI.
Apple Maps update:
- UK, Ireland and Canada to get updated map data this year.
- Guides to help people explore places.
- Cycling directions.
- EV routing.
CarPlay:
- New wallpaper support.
- iPhone can be used as digital key for cars. BMW 5-series 2021 will support this first. This feature coming to iOS 13 as well.
App Store:
- App Clip – A small part of an app, it is light and fast. It is an easy way to discover new apps. App Clips are available from Safari, Apple Maps and other apps.