Oliver Haslam on December 6, 2016, 6:00 am

iOS 10.2 Beta 6 Changes: What’s New?

Now that iOS 10.2 beta 6 is available for compatible devices, here we take a look at changes and new features, if any, in the latest beta seed of iOS 10.2.

Apple has today seeded the sixth beta release of iOS 10.2 to both developers and public beta testers alike, making it just three days since beta 5 and six days since beta 4 were released to the same audience. Apple doesn’t publicly outline timescales for when betas will be released, or when the final versions of software will be ready, but given the rapid iteration that the current beta releases show, we can only assume that iOS 10.2 isn’t too far away from public release.

The release, which can be downloaded both from the developer portal and via an over-the-air update for both developers and those on the aforementioned public beta program, further tweaks changes that were made over the prior five releases as iOS 10.2 is readied for primetime.

We don’t yet know just what has been changed since beta 5 was pushed into testing channels just a few days ago, and even Apple’s own official changelog of beta 6 is identical to that we saw just three days ago with beta 5. Based on the super quick turnaround and lack of a new changelog, we can only surmise that this release has tweaked something under the hood that Apple sees no need to publicize.

With the betas now rattling out quicker than normal, attention now turns to what iOS 10.2 will bring to iPhones and iPads when it does eventually find its way out of beta.

This being a mid-cycle update people should refrain from expecting huge changes, but that doesn’t mean that there are no reasons to look forward to iOS 10.2’s release. New emoji, new wallpapers, new full-screen iMessage effects and the official TV app are all present and correct as part of this update, and have all been tweaked in an attempt to get iOS 10.2 ready for its most gruelling test yet – public release.

Expect that to happen in the coming days or weeks. We wouldn’t want to guess which at the rate these betas are being released!