iOS 6 Beta 2 was released and was a relatively small device download

Its clear and obvious - Apple is hard at work. They're due to release Mountain Lion in a few weeks. I've got a nice preview of Developer Preview 4 over at BYTE that you can check out.  Its long, but an informative read.

If you're an iDevice lover, then you'll also be pleased to know that iOS 6 is also moving forward. I've got a nice preview of iOS 6 Beta 1 over at BYTE that is also a bit long, but an informative read.  The changes that Apple is introducing to its ecosystem are big, but evolutionary, not REVolutionary.

Apple released iOS 6 Beta 2 just the other day. Its a 322MB device download and a 932MB desktop download. I’ve been playing with it for the past couple of days; and after you take a look at my iOS 6 First Impressions write up, you’ll be pleased to see that some of the glitches I described in beta 1 are being smoothed over, though I have one very serious installation issue to report.

While the software was downloading on my MacBook Pro, I stuck my iPhone 4S in the desktop dock I’ve got, backed it up and synched it. I still do that via hard, wired connection. Yes, I’m a bit old school there; but while Wi-Fi sync is really cool, when I’m at home, I like to charge while I sync. The battery gets enough of a workout during the day…

Anyway, after the software finished downloading and I upgraded the device, I bumped into a problem. Installing a beta OS on your iPhone requires that you “restore” the beta OS to the device.  So, after mounting the DMG that I downloaded, CTRL-left clicking the Restore button on the Summary Page of my iPhone in iTunes and choosing the Beta 2 OS from the disk image I downloaded, iTunes wiped my 4S and put the new Beta 2 OS on the device over Beta 1.  So far, pretty standard, right?

After the firmware finished flashing, iTunes recognized my iPhone and offered to restore it from a recent backup.  Also pretty standard.  However, it got caught in a restore loop.  It usually restores the settings and then resyncs all the content from my Mac after the device restarts after the restore. Instead of doing that, it restored, restarted then iTunes presented me with the screen where it offers to restore your from a backup or set it up as a new iPhone.

Rinse, repeat…ad infinitum.

The only way I broke the cycle after the last restore, was to choose to set it up as a new iPhone. What happened was a hybrid restore-new iPhone setup, which was weird. Restoring from ANY backup (I tried more than one), kept the iDevice in the “restore loop.” Setting it up as a “new iPhone” broke the loop, but kept my restored settings on the device.  All it really did was make me choose which content to sync over.  While that took a while to straighten out, it wasn’t a huge deal.  However, this is a step backwards from Beta 1. The OS upgrade process went off without a hitch, there.

I need to pull out Maps and see how its coming along. I haven’t had a chance to do that yet. I’ve been using Music a great deal over the past few weeks, with Beta 1 AND Beta 2, and there’s improved stability with it in Beta 2. I’ve only had one force close since iOS 6 Beta 2 was released, but that was a total device crash.  I had to totally turn off the device to get it back, and then it wouldn’t restart until AFTER I pulled the headphones out of the 3.5mm jack…which again, was weird.

You can count on me to continue posting about the beta updates for iOS 6. You’ll either find them here or at BYTE. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments.  I’ll either answer them there, or post an article with the answer(s).