First tvOS 11.2 & watchOS 4.2 betas now available for developer testing

Apple on Monday issued the first tvOS 11.2 and watchOS 4.2 betas to its registered developers and members of the paid Apple Developer Program.

Apple today officially seeded the first beta of watchOS 4.2 to developers. It has been over a month since Apple officially released watchOS 4 to the public, and this latest beta actually coincides with the watchOS 4.1 developer beta that is currently taking place as well. watchOS 4.1 has already confirmed that it will be adding quite a few new features to the smartwatch platform, including streaming music from Apple Music or the iCloud Music Library.

The new Watch OS beta (build number 15S5085b) can be deployed on an Apple Watch with an appropriate configuration profile installed using the Software Update mechanism in the companion Watch app on a paired iPhone running the iOS 11.2 beta.

Apple today seeded the first beta of tvOS 11.2 to developers for testing purposes, more than a month after releasing tvOS 11 to the public and while tvOS 11.1, the first tvOS update, is still in testing.

According to the release notes accompanying the tvOS 11.2 beta, the update fixes several bugs related to 4K support and introduces new 4K features including automatic mode switching to native frame rate and dynamic range of video content on 4K Apple TV models.

tvOS 11.2 includes new features, bug fixes, and security improvements in the OS and SDK, including:
– Automatic mode switching to native frame rate and dynamic range of video content with Apple TV 4K
– Support for switching Apple TV 4K display output to SDR for apps that are GPU-bound when running in HDR
– Restoring Unwatched category in Home Sharing for Movies, TV Shows, and Home Videos

tvOS 11 was something of a minor update, introducing features like full support for AirPods, automatic switching between light and dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options designed to keep multiple Apple TVs in a single household in sync, and new background modes and notification support.

The tvOS 11.2 beta (build number 15K5085b) is available through the Software Update mechanism on an Apple TV with an appropriate configuration profile installed.

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