Apple has released a first beta of iOS 4.3, giving developers an early look at new features for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. However users of iPhone 3G and the second-generation iPod touch look likely to miss out.
These include the new Personal Hotspot that debuted on the new Verizon iPhone, wider support for AirPlay video streaming and new gestures for app switching.
The beta also provides an option to restore the orientation lock button on the iPad, apparently in response to the deluge of complaints following Apple’s decision to turn it into a mute switch.
Personal Hotspot is a new system-level tethering option that, network permitting, allows you to share an iPhone’s 3G connection with up to five Wi-Fi– or Bluetooth–enabled devices, such as a laptop or an iPad.
iPad users get three new gestures: a swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar; a four-finger swipe to switch between running apps; and a four- or five-finger pinch to return to the home screen.
The latter has prompted some speculation — and one definitive claim — that Apple is preparing to remove the home button. However as John Gruber and others have pointed out, what happens to functions that can currently only be carried out using the home button such as resets and screen shots.
And, Gruber adds, “How in the world would you get home on an iPhone using a five-finger pinch while holding it one hand? … And even with the iPad, what about people who don’t have five fingers on one hand? No iPad for them? The iPad is very popular with impaired users.”
Whichever features make it to the final release of iOS 4.3 are unlikely to be available to users of the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch. Apple’s documentation excludes both in a list of a device-specific beta builds.
They will comprise the second wave of iOS devices to be left behind by software advances — Apple excluded the original iPhone and iPod touch models from the release of iOS 4 in June 2010.
