This is just in. iOS 7.1 beta 1 download links have just gone live for iPhone 5, 5s, 5c, 4s, 4, iPod touch 5, and iPad 2 and up on the iOS Dev Center. A new beta for Apple TV 2nd and 3rd gen has also been released.
Apple is usually extremely cagey when it comes to publishing a full and detailed change-log with beta versions of iOS. In terms of changes that actually affect the end-user there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of information being offered through the release documentation. Developers on the other hand have a plethora of changes and additions to get to grips with. An important fix surrounding HTTP requests has been bundled with this latest beta as well as a number of amendments within the CoreText framework that allow developers to integrate advanced text techniques into their third-party apps.
One fix within this beta that could present a noticeable benefit to the end-user focuses on a bug that caused apps loading an iTunes Match library to take an extended period of time. Apple is hopeful that the bug has been eradicated along with improvements to multipeer connectivity and enhancements to the UIKit framework that allows developers to make use of standard user-interface components that are common through most apps.
As with most beta launches, Apple has specified a number of known issues. There continues to be some issues occurring with 32-bit apps running on new 64-bit hardware, namely the iPhone 5s and the new iPad Air along with the iPad mini 2 with Retina display. Apple is also aware of a number of issues surrounding Bluetooth connectivity within this beta.
iOS 7.1 beta 1 firmware pushed out to developers today follows hot on the heels of the public release of iOS 7.0.4 that brought with it a number of optimizations, stability improvements and important security fixes.
To download iOS 7.1 beta 1, you will need to be a registered member of iOS Dev Center. If you are already a member of Dev Center, you can head over to iOS Dev Center now atdeveloper.apple.com/devcenter/ios/ to start downloading iOS 7.1 beta 1.
Notes and Known Issues
The following issues relate to using iOS SDK 7.1 to develop code.
Bluetooth
Known Issue
32-bit apps running on a 64-bit device cannot attach to BTServer.
CFNetwork
Fixed in iOS 7.1 beta
Previously, if the server-side closed an HTTP request with TCP FIN without sending any bytes of HTTP header or HTTP body,
NSURLConnection would synthesize an empty HTTP/1.1 200 OK response. This is now fixed, and the request will result in an error instead of a successful load with a synthesized response.Notes
A new compatibility behavior has been added to address an issue where some web servers would send the wrong Content-Length value for “Content-Encoding: gzip” content. Previously,
NSURLConnection and NSURLSession would send a “network connection was lost” / NSURLErrorNetworkConnectionLost (-1005) error in this situation.
The compatibility behavior applies only if the Content-Length value exactly matches the expanded gzip’d content. It won’t apply for “off by 1” or similar miscounting.
Core Text
Fixed in iOS 7.1 beta
Previously, text drawn with
CTFrameDraw did not correctly place lines to account for the paragraphSpacing attribute of NSParagraphStyle. This has been addressed in iOS 7.1 beta.Crash Logs
Known Issue
Crash logs will not appear in Diagnostics & Usage Data in Settings. The logs will still be available when synced off the device.
GLKit
Fixed in iOS 7.1 beta
If loaded with
GLKTextureLoader, pngcrush images that have alpha were not unpremultiplied.High Precision Timers
Fixed in iOS 7.1 beta
When sleeping or waiting for extremely precise time intervals, timers were delayed by up to 1 millisecond.
iTunes
Known Issue
Loading an iTunes Match library (or your purchased music history) may take much longer than expected, especially on larger libraries. If your library does not sync right away, please wait 30 minutes and try to access it again.
Multipeer Connectivity
Fixed in iOS 7.1 beta
The
MCSessioninitWithPeer: method has now been implemented properly.
For more information on
MCSession APIs, watch WWDC 2013: Nearby Networking with Multipeer Connectivity.
