Beta 5
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iOS 6.1 Beta 5 now available for download
Numbuh. Five. Is. Alive. (Yes, people, Short Circuit.) iOS 6.1 Beta 5 is up and ready for download, just days before Beta 4 is due to expire. Go grab your copy at the Apple developer site and, as usual, make sure to read the yellow release notes with the exclamation point. Hat tip to Mike Bullard
iOS 5 beta 5 already ready for your downloading pleasure
It's that time of the month again, over at Apple. You know, iOS 5 beta refresh time. Just over two weeks ago, the old Apple released its latest build, and now iOS 5 beta 5 is ready for devs to download. We've yet to get the dirt on what this version will bring, but we're downloading it now, and will let you know if any juicy bits float to the top. If you've already got it going, let us know what you see in the comments below. Update: Strangely, the beta 5 release notes mention the possibility of multiple iCloud accounts, but we're not entirely certain how that will work, or whether or not it will make it to the final release. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
RIFT beta 5 introduces public grouping, will be "twice as big" as beta 4
Ready for their fifth taste of RIFT this week, beta testers will find a host of changes and improvements waiting their assessment. Chief among these is a much-requested feature: public grouping. Because so much of RIFT's dynamic content revolves around spontaneous zone events, players have clamored for a way to quickly group up instead of spending precious time spamming the chat channels. Two UI additions now allow players to connect with public groups as efficiently and quickly as possible. This news comes from Scott Hartsman, who posted a lengthy preview of RIFT's beta 5 event on the official forums today. Announcing that beta 5 will be "twice as big" as the previous beta event, Hartsman revealed that the team is increasing the number of servers from 18 to 32, which should allow for up to double the amount of players. Other changes in store for players this week include a better organization of planar currencies, Rogue energy fixes, ranged sound improvements and "significant love" for invasion mechanics. Hartsman also revealed a few items that the team is working on for future updates, such as better racial abilities and master looting. You can read his full announcement here. %Gallery-111840%
Firefox 4 Beta 5 brings GPU acceleration for Windows
Browser betas, like puberty, can be a confusing time. Sure, we're eager to be getting new functionality, but all the crashes and compatibility breaks and unrequited crushes can be a bit tough to handle. Now Mozilla is giving us something big for all our blood, sweat and acne: Firefox 4 Beta 5 has Direct2D hardware acceleration on by default. We tested it out real quick, and it seemed to speed up most HTML5 tasks considerably while inexplicably slowing a couple down, but we're sure all will be ironed out in time for the final version of Firefox 4 to go head to head with Microsoft's own upcoming hardware accelerated contender, IE9. Unfortunately, the speedups only apply to Windows for now, Mac and Linux are being left out in the GPU-less cold, but we suppose they should be used to that by now. Other perks in the update include HSTS, a successor to HTTPS in secure surfing, and HTML5 Audio, which allows for all sorts of audio processing and analysis at the browser level. You can check out a quick demo of hardware acceleration after the break.
iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 5 available for download
Another Tuesday, another beta...and wait one second! Today's not Tuesday, is it? Regardless, a spankin' new hot beta awaits you at the Apple iPhone dev center (developer credentials needed). As usual, the new release is under NDA. Please consult the dev center for release notes and other details. And to all you TUAW readers, Irish or not, ERIN GO BETA!
iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 now available
Looks like Apple's just released iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5, a little over one week after its last revision. That's about half the time they've put between the previous updates -- seems the boys in Cupertino are really starting to churn these things out. You know the drill by now, we don't know yet what the update entails, but we'll tell you when we find out. Oh, and just like last time, it appears iTunes 8.2 is required. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!] Update: We can confirm that MMS "support" can no longer be turned on in Settings (in quotes because we could never get it working in previous betas anyhow), and we're hearing that trickery that allowed tethering to be enabled with the previous iTunes 8.2 build has been patched. Aww, you're no fun, Apple... thanks, Rene!
