Apple releases iOS 12.2 beta 1 for developers with custom screen time scheduling, PWA improvements among other features

Apple released the next major iOS update, iOS 12.2 beta 1 to developers on January 24, 2019. This update boasts of features like custom downtime scheduling, as well as major updates to PWA.

Custom screen time scheduling

According to a report by 9to5Mac, iOS users will be offered a custom downtime scheduler in the latest iOS update. Users will now be able to adjust the Screen Time feature per the days of the week.

Although previous iOS versions had a similar downtime scheduler, it was limited to be applied every day. With iOS 12.2 beta 1, users can either choose to use the same schedule everyday, or customize it depending on which day of that week it is.

You can use it by navigating to Settings > Screen Time > Downtime.

https://twitter.com/Mr_SamSpencer/status/1089161676983844865

PWA improvements

Apple has made major improvements to Progressive web apps by introducing new features for developers. Mike Hartington, developer advocate for Ionic framework gives us a glimpse of new improvements in a tweet.

New experimental features include Web Auth, Web Animations, WebMeta, pointer events, intersection observer etc. Service workers are removed from the experiments list and are enabled by default.

External sites are loaded via SFViewController. This means authentication flows and still work without leaving the PWA.

The current state of any app is maintained, even if the app goes in the background.

You can view the native app as well as the PWA of the same app in the search.

Users are generally excited for Apple making improvements to its PWA. A comment on Hacker news reads, “This is great for user rights and moves the needle more towards a decentralized and open ecosystem, while maintaining strong security guarantees to the end-user.” However, users also want Apple to consider supporting Push Notifications for PWAs.