Yesterday, Apple dropped the second developer beta of iOS 11.3, giving us our first look at the company’s “fix” for the iPhone battery throttling problem. As per hallowed tradition, that means that the public beta with all the same features drops today — which means it’s time for all you non-developers out there to hook up to Wi-Fi and start the download.
The biggest change in iOS 11.3 beta 2 is the addition of Apple’s Battery Health settings options. The new features will tell you about the health of your iPhone’s battery as a percentage of maximum capacity retained. If your phone drops below 80 percent of maximum capacity remaining, your phone will also prompt you to go get a replacement battery. You can see all the details about the new feature here.
iOS 11.3 will be bringing a whole host of new features to the iPhone when it launches. The biggest point of interest for most people has been the new Animoji. Although we’ve become used to new emoji landing with an iOS update, this is the first time that any new Animoji have been released. Apple is blessing us with the power to become a lion, a bear, a dragon, or a skull, which brings the total number of face-mimicking Animoji up to 16.
In addition, iOS 11.3 brings the newest version of Apple’s augmented reality kit, ARKit 1.5 In addition to horizontal surfaces, ARKit will now be able to recognize and place objects on verticals surfaces, like walls and doors. It can recognize the position of a sign or a poster, which Apple says can be utilized for interactive museum exhibits or bringing movie posters to life. Plus, the view from the camera now has a 50% greater resolution and auto-focus.
A battery health function in the Settings app is another big addition, which will let users check the health of their iPhone’s battery without downloading a third-party app or going to the Apple Store. Apple is offering discounted $29 battery replacements to all iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, and iPhone 7 users, and presumably the company is hoping that having a way to check battery health from within the Settings app will help reduce the number of people swarming the Apple store.
Right now, anyone on the public beta profile should see the update as an over-the-air update option. Just go to Settings–>General–>Software Update, and you should be prompted to download and install the update.
