Apple’s long-awaited iOS 12.2 update hit yesterday, complete with a ton of new features, changes, and fixes, including access to Apple’s News+ subscription service for publications.
The update, which weighs in as a hefty download, offers the following fixes and changes:
Apple News+:
- Apple News+ is a new subscription service that extends the Apple News experience with hundreds of magazines and top newspapers.
- Handpicked top articles and magazine issues along with personalized recommendations on the topics most interesting to you.
- Automatic downloads for magazines for offline reading.
- Available in Canada, with a free experience that includes handpicked Top Stories, a personalized Today feed, and support for both English and French.
- Available in the U.S. and in Canada, with dozens of additional Canadian magazines.
- Free 1-month trial, $9.99 a month thereafter.
Animoji:
- Four new Animoji characters, including a giraffe, shark, owl, and warthog.
AirPods:
- Support for new 2nd-generation AirPods.
Apple Music:
- The Browse tab makes it easier to discover new music, playlists, by showing more editorial highlights on a single page.
AirPlay:
- Control Center and the Lock screen now feature dedicated quick-access TV controls.
- AirPlay multitasking — browse other apps, as well as play other short form audio and video files locally on your device without interrupting AirPlay.
- AirPlay destinations now grouped by content type, which makes it faster to find a destination device.
Apple Pay:
- Apple Pay Cash customers can now transfer money to their bank accounts instantly using their Visa debit cards.
- Wallet app now displays Apple Pay credit and debit transactions right below the card.
Safari:
- Website sign-in now occurs automatically after filling credentials with Password AutoFill.
- Warnings now appear when loading unencrypted webpages.
- Removes support for the expired Do Not Track standard to prevent potential use as a fingerprinting variable.
- Intelligent Tracking Prevention now protects against cross-site tracking by default.
- Smart Search Field queries can now be modified by tapping the arrow icon next to search suggestions.
Screen Time:
- Downtime can be configured with a different schedule for each day of the week.
- A new toggle enables easily turning app limits on or off temporarily.
Siri:
- Ask Siri on your iPhone or iPad to play any video, show, movie, sports game, or channel on Apple TV. For example, “Hey Siri, play Spiderman: Enter the SpiderVerse on Office TV.”
Additional bug fixes and improvements:
- Supports Air Quality Index in Maps for US, UK, and India.
- Includes information in Settings on how much time remains on your device’s warranty period.
- Supports real-time text (RTT) for phone calls made through a nearby iPhone on iPad and iPod Touch.
- Displays a “5G E” icon for iPhone 8 and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) or iPad Pro 11-inch indicating that users are in an area where AT&T’s 5G Evolution network is available.
- Improves quality of audio recordings in Messages.
- Improves stability and performance of Apple TV Remote on iOS.
- Fixes an issue that prevented some missed calls from appearing in Notification Center.
- Addresses an issue where a badge notification could appear on Settings even though no action is needed.
- Addresses an issue in Settings > General > iPhone Storage where the storage size of some large apps, the System category, and the Other category in the storage bar graph could be incorrect.
- Fixes an issue that could cause Voice Memos to automatically play back recordings after connecting to a car Bluetooth device.
- Resolves an issue that could cause Voice Memos to temporarily prevent renaming a recording.
If you’ve installed iOS 12.2 on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and have any feedback to offer, please let us know about your experience in the comments.
Via 9to5Mac