Oliver Haslam on September 22, 2016, 3:47 am

iOS 10.1 Beta 1: New Features And Changes

Now that iOS 10.1 beta 1 has been released, here are its new features and changes, in short, here’s everything new iOS 10.1 beta 1.

Apple has today made iOS 10.1 available to developers, marking the first beta release of the iPhone and iPad software since iOS 10 was released into the wild and the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus were offered up for purchase. As it turns out, this new beta is ostensibly a bug and performance update, according to the release notes, but the one standout feature addition to have made the cut for this beta is the highly anticipated portrait feature for the iPhone 7 Plus camera.

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Outed during the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus announcement event, the fancy new “Portrait” mode feature is only available for iPhone 7 Plus devices. The reason for that is quite simply – the iPhone 7 Plus is the only iPhone to feature the required dual-lens camera system which makes all of the magic possible. Using iOS 10.1 beta 1 on an iPhone 7 Plus gives users the chance to check out the new portrait option in the Camera app ahead of its release, and we’re sure people will be queueing up to do just that.

When they do just that, users will be able to use the dual-lens camera setup that Apple bestowed upon them with the iPhone 7 Plus to create surprisingly impressive depth-of-field photos which look like they were created on dedicated DSLR camera equipment rather than an admittedly high-end, smartphone.

Here are some of the shots taken from Portrait mode in iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.1 beta 1:

We don’t know how many beta releases of iOS 10.1 Apple will seed before the final version is pushed out to users, or whether the portrait feature will be changed or enhanced before that happens, but initial shots taken on iPhone 7 Plus devices running the software shows that the camera is capable of producing some excellent shots, although there are instances where the software can be outsmarted by the scene it is trying to portray. Hopefully that is one area where beta releases will help Apple improve matters before iOS 10.1 goes live for everyone.

(images credit: Matthew Panzarino on TechCrunch, @jsnell [Twitter])