Three things in ios 9.3 you need to know

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In the middle of January, Apple released a beta version of iOS 9.3 for the iPhone and iPad. While no firm release date is announced, a page on Apple’s website (www.apple.com/ios/preview) did surface to introduce some of its key features. Here are three that excite us.

TOUCH ID SUPPORT IN THE NOTES APP

Apple has drastically improved the native note-taking app in iOS 9, and is continuing to build on it in iOS 9.3. Soon you’ll be able to secure all your notes with a password or fingerprint. There’s also better sorting based on creation date, modified date, or alphabetical order. Hopefully, this is a sign of system-wide Touch ID support coming. For instance, it’d be even better if we could choose to lock an app on our end without having to wait for the app developer to implement it.

NIGHT SHIFT

Studies have shown that looking at bright blue light in the evening can mess up your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep. Night Shift uses geolocation data and your local clock to determine when the sun sets in your area, and automatically shifts your iOS device’s display’s colors to a warmer spectrum. And when morning comes, the colors will return to its normal state. During initial use, the display may look very orange-y, but your eyes should get use to it after a while.

SHARED IPAD

Several important improvements are coming to the iPad to make it more useful for classroom use. For example, there’s a new Shared iPad protocol for schools that use iPads, but which simply can’t afford to have one tablet for each student. With Shared iPad, a student can log in to any iPad, and have their personal content on it. For teachers, there’s a new Classroom app that allows them to check on their students’ progress, launch a specific app, website, or page in a textbook on every iPad in class, share students’ work on the big screen via AirPlay, and more.