Apple on Thursday seeded the first betas of iOS 10.1 and macOS Sierra 10.12.1 to its public beta testers. The Cupertino firm seeded the same betas to developers on Wednesday. The first public version of macOS 10.12.0 was released to the public on Tuesday, and iOS 10 was released to the public a little over a week ago.
Beta testers who are enrolled in the Apple Public Beta Tester program will receive the iOS 10 beta update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on their iOS device. (And if you’re a member, you’ll know how to do that.)
iOS 10.1 brings the promised “Portrait” mode for the iPhone 7 Plus, which was first announced at the iPhone 7 shindig on September 7. Portrait mode gives a similar effect to that of shallow depth of field images which were formerly the bailiwick of high-end DSLRs. The effect creates a photo with a focused front subject over a blurred background.
The new Portrait Mode is an iPhone 7 Plus-only feature, as it requires the dual-lens camera of the larger handset to take the two images needed to create a depth map. other than the new Camera mode, the update appears to address bug fixes, and improve performance.
All beta testers who are a part of the Apple Public Beta Tester program will be able to download and install the new beta via the “Update” tab in the Mac App Store.
So far, it looks as if the first beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.1 is focused on under the hood stuff, such as bug fixes and performance enhancements. It also has added album support to Photos for the new Portrait feature in iOS 10 for iPhone 7 plus owners.
The new betas are currently only available to developers and members of the public beta testing program. The updates will be released to the public at a later date. iOS and Mac users who wish to enroll in the Apple Public Beta Tester Program can visit the Apple beta testing website to sign-up.
