Report: Apple's iOS 10 buggy but promising in public beta

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) released iOS 10 for public beta testing this week, but the platform may need to spend a little more time in the oven.

The new version of Apple's mobile operating system is available for devices as dated as the iPhone 5 and the fourth-generation iPad. But Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal took it for a spin and warned readers they shouldn't install it on their primary devices just yet.

"I experienced plenty of bugs, crashes and slowdowns in the past week while testing iOS 10, even on a brand new iPhone 6s with few third-party applications," Stern wrote. "I've already reported slow load times in the Music app and frequent message-delivery errors."

The most notable differences in iOS 10 surface in the Messages app, according to Stern. A new "invisible ink" feature requires receivers to swipe a finger over an incoming picture to reveal the image, but a host of new options can be confusing. "Right now it's like an amusement park: tons of fun but lots of chaos," Stern wrote.

The latest version of iOS also includes a new Memories tab in the Photos app and a Facebook-like feature that shows users photos from a year ago to the day. And an improved search offering enables users to thumb through old photos using keywords.

Apple's new platform doesn't yet offer the integration of Siri with third-party apps, which the company announced last month, however. Owners of iPhones and iPads make 2 billion requests to Siri every week, according to the company, and extending the personal assistant to other apps will enable users to more easily use voice to navigate services like Skype, WhatsApp, or Uber. Apple has opened the Siri API to third-party developers and full integration is expected in the official public release of iOS 10 slated for this fall.

For more:
- see this Wall Street Journal article

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