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iOS 5 beta 4 now offers OTA updating

As Erica announced moments ago, the latest beta of iOS 5 (beta 4) is now downloadable from Apple's developer website. There's another way to get it, however, if you're a registered developer with beta 3 installed on your device: over the air.

Beta 4, according to Apple's release notes, is eligible for OTA download on beta 3 devices by choosing Software Update under the General settings pane. Our testers report that it isn't working quite yet, but wait for a bit and try again if you're having troubles.

Up to this point in the iOS 5 development cycle (and in all previous versions of iOS), all updates have been monolithic; developers have to download the full multimegabyte OS to install the new version, rather than a lean delta update with only the changed code. This has caused frustration for those with metered ISP connectivity and others who simply felt it was unreasonable to download a half-gigabyte or more just to patch a PDF security hole.

The preliminary bits hinting at OTA updates showed up a couple of beta cycles ago, but the feature itself is no surprise: it was one of the announced improvements from Apple's iOS 5 presentation at WWDC, although it's not clear whether it will be supported under 3G or only using Wi-Fi connections.

When iOS 5 is released in the fall, it will still require iOS 4 users to download a full version to make the move from 4 to 5; after that, however, the slimmer updates will prevail in most situations short of a device restore.



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Developer iOS

As Erica announced moments ago, the latest beta of iOS 5 (beta 4) is now downloadable from Apple's developer website. There's another...
 

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Mine updated fine about two hours ago. For me, everything seems to be snappier, and apps don't hesitate to open ( as compared to Beta 3 ) which is great.

Still have to work out iCloud.

July 23 2011 at 2:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MetallicAfan

Now if carriers would make the data downloaded for updating over the carrier networks free....

Like the 133 MB downloaded for this shouldnt go on the data plan...

July 23 2011 at 2:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to MetallicAfan's comment
Leonick

They make one thing not count towards the limit, people are going to demand the rest doesn't either.
Of course, US mobile carriers (and some other countries too I suppose) should stop being so overly greedy and remove all the stupid limits, they make no sense at all from anything but a making money point...

Sure, we kind of have limits here too (sweden) but not that makes us pay for going over it. After having past 1, 2, 5 or whatever amount of gigabytes specified you simply get lower speeds (about 1/4, 1/2 megabit/s), not perfect but a lot better.

July 23 2011 at 7:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Leonick's comment
mbm29414

@Leonick:

You said, "they make no sense at all from anything but a making money point..."

Exactly why do you think the carriers are in business?

July 24 2011 at 3:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
RobActivatesiOS5

For those who have done the research and just need to get registered to play with the betas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLs3fKkKIE

Everything is pretty much explained there. Enjoy!

July 23 2011 at 2:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eli

i wonder with release of Lion and the OTA, how much stress that puts on apples shinny new "Data Center".
a million downloads in 24 hours.....

July 22 2011 at 11:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andrew

When I go to Software Update I just get the settings icon, a white bar, and a gray unclickable option that reads "Downloading...". No other text or activity in the screen, and it stays like that forever.

July 22 2011 at 10:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Andrew's comment
 Mike Beasley

Tap that white progress bar and the information shows. I think it's a bug. Also, if you leave the Software Update page open, quit Preferences, then start it again, it will show even MORE info. Pretty sure the OTA update page is still a bit buggy.

July 22 2011 at 10:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eli

running iOS5 Beta-3 jailbreak, when i go to the software update i get this message lol, ( iOS 5.0 Your software is up to date. ) a few days a go it just gave an error.

July 22 2011 at 8:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Eli's comment
 Mike Beasley

Musclenerd tweeted earlier this afternoon that it's because Apple does a check for whether your device is jailbroken before updating. It checks a few things that at this point in time cannot be changed about jailbreaks.

July 22 2011 at 10:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Richard Hyland

I don't know why this is a surprise. In the early iOS days Apple offered an incremental update but because of the way JB modifies the device it bricked JB devices when upgraded in this way.

I don't blame Apple at all, it'll save thousands of complaints of 'OMG Apple bricked my device'

July 23 2011 at 3:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
iosdevaccess

I have a few developer registration spots available if you want to try, $7 iosdevaccess at gmail dot com

July 22 2011 at 7:02 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
Tristan Norman

My download is pretty adamant about being stalled at

July 22 2011 at 6:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Tristan Norman's comment
Vera Comment

mine was too.. about 3/4 inch from the end. just powered it off and on, update was complete...

also
just got itunes 10.5 beta 4 which seems to fix the "waiting for itunes to reconcile" issue which prevented me from syncing the ipad (first gen)

July 23 2011 at 2:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Reek Bizzle

I don't have the personal hotspot feature on my Orange UK iPhone - but when i go to settings>general>network the 'personal hotspot' tab has a constant spinning circle. I have 4 bars 3G.

July 22 2011 at 6:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Reek Bizzle

I cancelled my iCloud backup at beta 3 just to see if it would toggle back on again afterwards. It wouldn't.

Beta 4 let's me toggle it back on and actually works.

July 22 2011 at 6:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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